This is #8 of The Autumn Queen. To start at the beginning, go here.
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When my brother and I came to breathe, as was tradition to noble births, before we were separated from our mother, they marked us each with our house sigil, and the phase of the moon under which we were born. It was customary to have those tattoos embellished with age, filled in and made ever more beautiful by the time that we spent living our lives.
Our mother maintained that I screamed in rage when they marked me, howling without tears and making fists against those that caused me pain, while Elias bore the touch in silence, and if he was pained, gave up not a whimper.
Long after our mother died, our father would tell the story of our birth, again and again, and we would listen, always, and press our fingers to our tattoos, tracing the first marks to ever grace our skin, as if we could remember our first moments, as if we might draw strength from our past selves, Elias in his silence, and I in my rage.
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