00:00When the fox procession vanished, my mother sank to the ground with a sob.
00:04Wild mountains, a fox's lair, an unknown creature for my poor Lyra, what a cruel face.
00:09I drifted before her, her tears passed through my palm like ice water.
00:13The one who was supposed to enter that lair, to become the fae king's bride, that was me.
00:18But my mother had never shed a single tear for me.
00:2020 years ago, my father had failed the imperial examinations repeatedly.
00:25The family was destitute.
00:26On a mountain road home, he encountered a fae king in silver hair and crimson robes.
00:30The fae king offered to grant him one wish.
00:33My father knelt and begged.
00:35I wanted wealth.
00:37I wanted rank.
00:38I wanted to rise without effort.
00:40Whatever the price, I would pay it.
00:42When a daughter was born at her 16th year, she was to be brought into the mountains to be wed.
00:47My father agreed without hesitation.
00:49He signed the blood pact and pressed his bloody thumb to the paper.
00:53In the first year, my mother gave birth to me.
00:55There was no joy in it, only relief.
00:58A vessel to fulfill the contract.
01:00They handed me to a nursemaid named Mara, housed me in the outer cottage, and forgot me.
01:04Three years later, Lyra was born.
01:06She was everything her name promised.
01:08Farrah's starlight, enchanting beauty.
01:10Able to speak at one year, compose verse at five, and by ten.
01:14Dance among flowers while butterflies settled on her skirts.
01:17By comparison, I was plain beyond measure.
01:20I didn't even resemble my parents.
01:22And I stuttered.
01:23They came to loathe me.
01:24I was not permitted past the front gate of the main hall.
01:27I was not allowed to call them mother and father.
01:29On the night of my 16th birthday, I was to be wed.
01:33Before the procession departed, my mother brought me a farewell cup of wine.
01:36She had mixed poison into it.
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