The First Blow Wasn't a Fist.
They say the first blow always leaves a mark.
But mine wasn't a bruise.
It was a quiet glance, a softer smile — one not given to me.
It was when Rose first arrived.
She was nine. I was Eleven.
And she wept like a child torn from everything she knew. So, I offered her my favorite blanket. The one with the stitched blue moons. She smiled at me like I had saved her. I didn't know, then, that it would be the same smile the rest of the world would fall in love with.
It didn't happen all at once. Love rarely does. It crept in slowly. One compliment from my father, one proud look from my brothers, one quiet substitution at a family dinner where I was meant to perform, but they asked Rose instead.
She was gentle. Golden.
They also loved me once. I remember that much.
Before Rose.
Before I stopped crying when they forgot to say goodnight.
I wasn't born cruel. Not the way they tell it now, painting me with their poison-tipped tongues. No, I was born small, soft, a daughter they once cradled in grief after losing the duchess. A little girl who wore her mother's death like a birthmark.
I remember chasing after my brothers everywhere. I remember the smell of my grandfather's forge, warm and thick, when he lifted me onto his lap and carved harmless daggers from wood, whispering, One day, little spark, you'll carve the real ones.
I remember thinking love was something you only had to earn once.
And then Rose came.
And suddenly, I was loud. Jealous. Difficult.
She cried sweetly. I yelled. She smiled. I sneered. She bloomed and I—
I learned how to burn.
So when they tell the story of Kiana Halewynn, they'll say she was always the villain.
That she pushed too hard. Demanded too much.
That she wanted more than what a girl like her deserved.
Now, years later, they wonder how the little girl with scuffed shoes and a steel heart became the kingdom's problem. The scandal. The daughter who won't marry, won't obey, won't fall in line.
But no one remembers the first blow was never mine.