Heiress of the Seven Cities

The people of the Seven Demesnes live in unease. Every generation, seven sons are born to rule their seven walled cities. Without them, mankind is fated to fall. Now, something is killing them before they can be born. When Iminique Demascus senses a nameless evil striking at the unborn royal children, she has to make a choice. A noblewoman and a healer in a world where aristocrats and mages belong to different castes, she is forbidden by her father to ever heal. Breaking his dictate, she saves a single girl child. No one thanks her. Neither the child's parents nor the people want a girl, reviling her for surviving when the males perished. Left as the princess's sole protector and faced with adversity and hostility from nearly every quarter, Iminique allies herself with the wizard who once dragged her to the brink of death and then inexplicably let her go, a wizard who has his own secret agenda and casts spells that should be impossible. Meanwhile, in the south, a young sorceress falls prey to an ancient enemy, one weaving his own plans for bringing mankind to its knees.

I wasn't always wicked. Once, I loved.I will not make that mistake again.Wed to the highest ruler of the known world, I am a spurned queen, aging, barren, and unable to bear the septuplets that will save our world.My king, the faithless cur, takes lover after lover while my own chambers echo with emptiness and madness. Yet he will not let me escape, commanding a spell to be cast that chains me to this life.At last, insurmountable heartache drives me from the castle, and I flee to the scrapheap of the city.In that place of unloved things, I find a cracked window upon the grass, and when I press a shard of it to my wrist, it draws blood--but just as I think this will free me from my burdensome body, the sharp face of a gray, fanged monster forms in the glass.The shadow-hungry king.Our ancient enemy.He offers me a bargain: if I vow to him some unspecified future favor, he swears that I will bear the septuplets.As a reward for my willingness, he fills my palms with magic: a vial that swarms within with hundreds of enchantments, each one a ribbon that will enable me to spy upon anyone I wish.What pathetic, magicless wreck such as I would not accept this gift?Let those around me lie to my face now.Let them scorn me behind my back.With the monster's magic, I will look straight into their hearts. Venture into a bitter queen's glittering court, where dreams glisten while the wicked listen...CONTENT WARNINGS: Aside from the requisite killing and violence present in most fantasy, this has near SA (aborted by the assailant), mentions of suicide and suicide ideation, mention of violent domestic abuse, mentions of miscarriages and stillbirths, one baby's soul taken out, one magical abortion of babies that turn out to be monsters, and cremation of a very, very bad man. COMFORT WARNING: There is a very cute dog. I am not a dog person, yet here we are. Born in Texas but somehow having escaped without the accent, Sonya Lano currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic with two cats and a bunch of dust balls, hairballs, fur balls, spiders, story manuscripts, dreams, chocolate, books, and whatever else is hanging around her flat. Her full-time day job testing software pays the bills while her nights are (mostly) filled with living in other worlds.

Before she was Queen, she was a nobody trying to escape.Bitter bird in a court of snakes,Sick of eating tarts and cakes...In a court of gilded mirrors, gilded smiles, and gilded lies, I am an insignificant nothing. I mimic the emptiness of the velvet-swathed nobles dancing with me beneath teardrop chandeliers, but I want more.When my father condemns me to a foul betrothal in another city, I crave at least one taste of freedom, a single adventure to savor before I am boxed up into nothingness.For one night, I escape to the carnival.Seeking to unravel some secret - to unveil the mechanisms behind the enchantment - I sneak behind one of the rides, only to find…An open door.Inside a small room, on time-eroded planks, kneels a beautiful boy scarcely older than I, cranking a cylinder to keep the ride's gears spinning.I fall into a little bit of agony, a little bit of wish. And as the wind brushes sand across my toes in my slippers, the boy glances up.I swear my breath stops.But my life?This is where my life begins.Look inside to discover how a nobody became a queen... Born in Texas but somehow having escaped without the accent, Sonya Lano currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic with two cats and a bunch of dust balls, hairballs, fur balls, spiders, story manuscripts, dreams, chocolate, books, and whatever else is hanging around her flat. Her full-time day job testing software pays the bills while her nights are (mostly) filled with living in other worlds.