Twelve Sisters

The long table had been laid out and my eleven sisters were all around me, we had spent the day preparing the food for tonight's feast. In another life, this moment would have been beautiful. However, the tension was so thick with our father’s presence that we hardly spoke — we all knew what tonight meant. Only one of us would leave this desert oasis, our lifelong prison, to join him in the city, to seduce the new sultan and become his wife.

We had been made for this moment, each of us groomed to prove we were worthy. I glanced around, seeing the anxiety mirrored in my sisters’ eyes. We longed to stay together, to survive, and to be free from fathers grip. I, too, wanted freedom, but not in the way they imagined.

As we silently sipped the soup I had prepared, I then watched their faces contort with fear, and betrayal—before one by one, they slumped over. The poison worked swiftly. I had made sure of that. My chest hurt, but I hardened myself, aware this was for the best.

Finally, it was just my father and I, anger flicked in his eyes, waiting for the poison to take hold. When it didn’t, his shock turned to a slow, wicked smile. He clapped his hands, the sound echoing through the silent room.

At that moment, I knew I had succeeded. I had become the villain father had hoped for, I had proven myself, using a skill no one had suspected. Only he would never know that I had saved my sisters, spared them from a life of manipulation and cruelty. Once the morning light peaks over the horizon; one by one my sisters’ hearts would start beating once again.