After Sister-in-Law Tortured Me and Brother, Three God-King Siblings Went Crazy

There were two famous good-for-nothings in the Star Court.

One was me, Vera, the youngest daughter, with most of my twin starblood ruined, good for nothing but eating, drinking, and playing.

The other was my twin brother, Orson, his life-fire broken, unable to stand anywhere with too many people.

But my eldest brother, Theron, was heir to the Divine Court, the next King of the Gods.

My second brother, Drake, was the Dragon Sovereign, who held every gold vein of the dragon clan.

My sister, Sylvia, was the sole Arbiter of the elven Ancient Law.

The five of us were born on the same day.

Our mother was the last High Priestess of the Court of Chaos, born able to carry different bloodlines of the gods. In a single birth she brought forth five lines of blood: the blood of the high gods, the blood of dragons, the blood of the elves, and the weakest yet rarest of all, the twin starblood that ran in Orson and me.

On the day we were born, the star sea collapsed, and a rift in the universe tore open the ancestral court of the gods.

All five bloodlines in our mother's womb were nearly swallowed together.

If no one made a sacrifice, our three older siblings would all die.

So Orson and I gave up the divine power in our blood, and poured it into their fates.

They lived. They became the three strongest elders the gods had ever known.

And Orson and I became two ruined bloods.

Our siblings hid us deep in the Star Court and raised us there.

The world only knew that the three elders had survived some great cosmic disaster in their youth.

People had also heard that in that disaster, two young bloodlines had been sacrificed and left ruined.

But no one had ever seen us, and no one knew that we were those two good-for-nothings.

Our days were simple: mooch meals off our eldest brother, spend our second brother's gold, and wait for our sister to feed us.

Until my eldest brother asked me to attend a night banquet in his place, at House Siren in Saltport.

The banquet was being thrown by House Siren for Circe.

Word was, she was the most promising candidate of her generation to marry into the Divine Court.

Everyone praised her as gentle and graceful, virtuous through and through, and said she had admired my eldest brother for years and would sooner or later become our new sister-in-law.

At first it was just my sweet tooth. I'd heard House Siren's sea-salt honey cakes were delicious.

The second reason was that I wanted to see, with my own eyes, what this famously gentle and graceful sister-in-law-to-be actually looked like.

I found sacred banners and divine attendants too showy, so I brought none of them.

I'd barely sat down when someone planted herself in front of me.

She wore a long gown of silver-blue, sea pearls tucked into her hair, everything about her declaring, I am the star of tonight.

Her servants had already cleared the guests away from the surrounding area, as if sealing off the space.

Everyone was looking at me, whispering.

"Who is that?"

"No idea. Doesn't look like she's from Saltport."

"She's got some sickly-looking man with her too. You think she snuck in?"

I said nothing. Orson sat beside me, head down, fingers clutching my sleeve the whole time. He didn't like it here. The lights were too bright, there were too many people, and the Sirens' singing was sharp and piercing, painful for him to hear.

I was about to take him away when the woman in the silver-blue gown suddenly raised her hand. A memory crystal floated into the air and cast out a beam of light.

The image showed a blurred figure, a woman in a pale-gold gown getting into a black carriage, the door stamped with the divine mark of the Divine Court. Fog hid her profile, so her face was impossible to make out. Only the shape of her, which looked something like mine tonight.

Circe pointed at that echo, then pointed at me.

"It's her."

"This lowborn trash snuck into Lord Theron's carriage last night."

The whole hall went silent. In the next breath, every eye landed on Orson and me.

I blinked, caught off guard. That carriage was my eldest brother's, but anytime I wanted it, it was mine to use first. And this pale-gold gown was one Drake had dug out of the dragon clan's vault and pushed on me, saying I was his most precious little princess and deserved to wear the most magnificent gowns in the world.

But outsiders didn't know any of that.

In their eyes, only Theron and those closest to him could ever touch a carriage bearing the Divine Court's mark. And this moongold gown of mine really did look exactly like the ceremonial gown that only a "future Queen of the Gods" would be allowed to wear.

Circe stared at me, her eyes nearly spitting fire.

"I've waited on Lord Theron for years. All of Saltport knows I'm the only one worthy of a marriage into the Divine Court. What are you, that you'd dare climb into his carriage?"

I explained patiently, "You've got the wrong person. That carriage isn't what you think, and I never seduced Theron."

Circe sneered. "And now you dare call His Lordship by name?"

I paused, then pointed at Orson beside me. "Also, he's my brother. Not the kind of relationship you're imagining."

Circe's gaze fell on Orson's face. He was pale, his eyes empty, shrinking into my side. Suddenly she laughed. "Brother? Do you take me for a blind woman?"

She crooked a fingertip, and a strand of water-blue power wrapped around Orson's wrist. He could barely stand as it was; the force yanked him into a stumble, and he nearly hit the corner of the table.

My expression changed. I caught him at once.

Circe watched us, her smile turning crueler. "What kind of little brother clings to his sister like that? You're filthy and shameless. You've already got yourself a man that noble, and still you crawl around with garbage like this."

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

"Brings her little lover out and still dares climb into a Divine Court carriage. Shameless."

"That man doesn't look all there in the head either. She's probably got him wrapped around her finger."

I raised a hand and snapped the water-chain, my palm cut open by the power, blood welling up. Orson saw it and grabbed anxiously for my hand. "Sister..."

I held him steady. "It's fine."

Circe arched a brow. "Still got some power left? Pity it's ruined blood." She pressed her hand down, and a tide of power slammed down from overhead. My shoulders sank hard, my knees buckled.

She didn't want to hurt me. She wanted me to kneel in front of everyone.

Orson lurched to hold me up. He could barely stand himself, yet he threw himself in front of me.

The laughter grew louder. "They really are a pair. A man that protective, and she says he's her brother? Who'd believe it?"

"Two lowbloods, daring to make a scene in Saltport."