Plot Twists Fantasy Short Stories & Novels

In my last life, I fought for power, kept the books, and built alliances for my fiancé from the Fire clan until I had secured his position as heir. On the night of the victory banquet, he killed me with his own hands. He said Sophia was the woman he truly loved. I had taken her place and forced their love into the shadows. They had been conspiring all along, and even the child I had raised so lovingly was their illegitimate son. I died consumed by hatred. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the marriage contract was to be signed. This time I wrote Sophia's name on it.

"Today is supposed to be a good day. We're choosing Wendy's dowry. Stop standing there bringing bad luck down on us!" My mother pulled my sister back in disgust, afraid the blood I had coughed onto the floor would splash the silver-bound chest. When a forest elf girl is born, her family plants a bonded tree for her, a tree that lives and dies with its owner. When a daughter marries, her eldest brother takes the old branches the tree has dropped on its own and builds her a dowry chest, a sign symbolizing a lifelong covenant of love and kinship. The chest is filled with gowns and with whatever the family gives her, and the larger the chest, the deeper the blessing. My brother cut my tree down and damaged its roots as well. "Wendy's tree is too thin and weak. It isn't worthy of the Royal Court. I had no choice but to saw yours into boards and put together a respectable chest for her." My sister stroked the silver-bound chest made from my ancient tree like a highborn princess. The whole family gathered around her to pick out what would go inside, as though they had forgotten that I was a bride that day too. My voice shook. "Then what about me?" My mother looked at me shaking there, and her face filled with disgust. "You insist on marrying that short-lived human. A wicker basket is dowry enough for you." Only in that moment did I understand that to them my life mattered less than Wendy's dignity. So I no longer had to treat them as family.

I was once the Pythia, an oracle of Apollo. After marrying the late king, I became known as the Oracle Priestess. When my husband died in battle, I faked my death and returned to the temple. From then on, I devoted myself to protecting the capital with the gods' blessing. Then one day, they brought my daughter's body into the temple. She was covered in raw, unhealed wounds, and her eyes were still open. The attendants tossed her body, wrapped in nothing but a straw mat, onto the floor. Then they stood nearby whispering. "Poor princess. The king cared more about the Rose of Highcourt than his own sister. He let her suffer until her wounds became infected and she died in agony. "King Theron was the one who sent her to the beastmen for a marriage alliance. Duke Charles was supposed to marry Princess Callista, but he later fell for Naia instead." So that was what had happened. While I was hidden away in this temple protecting Ostan, my son had turned his back on his sister for another woman. He let Naia take Callista's place, then sent his sister to live among savages. Callista survived the beastmen and everything they did to her. When they were finally defeated, she must have thought she could come home and put it all behind her. But Naia still wouldn't leave her alone. She bullied Callista every chance she got. Then she framed Callista for plotting to hurt someone, and Theron had her thrown into the dungeon. As I held my daughter's body, I couldn't bear to imagine what she had gone through in that dark, waterlogged dungeon, where prisoners were interrogated on the upper level and executed below. A corrupt kingdom like this didn't deserve the gods' protection. I begged the gods to forgive me. If this was how they treated my daughter, then I no longer cared what happened to this country.

I am the Oracle, the High Priestess who connects the divine realm to the mortal world. My daughter, however, was born with only a trace of divine power, leaving her little different from an ordinary human. I brought four orphans back from the beastman world and raised them myself. I gave them only one condition: protect my daughter from harm. For years, her four brothers shielded her, leaving her free to be as willful as she liked. Then, on the day of her coming-of-age rite, her prayer reached me. "Mother, my brothers are going to sacrifice me so Daisy can receive the Goddess's protection." By the time I got there, my daughter was bound to the altar. My four sons were busy preparing the altar. Daisy preened at their side. I was about to begin the chant that would punish them. Christopher, the serpent, pulled Daisy close and wrapped a protective arm around her. Gardner, the polar bear, talked back to me for the first time. "Mother, our little sister hurt Daisy first. "We only meant to frighten her. "The rite only takes away her ability to speak with the Goddess. She is useless anyway. She may as well be ordinary." I looked at the ingrates I had personally raised and scoffed. They had forgotten something. Every skill, every power, every title they held had come from me. I had made them. I could unmake them just as easily.

After the war between humans and beastmen ended, both sides agreed that half-beast nobles would govern the world together. Under the marriage pact, every hundred years, each couple must bring their children before the altar. The High Priest cuts each child's palm and lets their blood drip into a chalice. The child with the purest blood becomes the next King. I married Todd, heir to the fox clan, and gave birth to a half-beast fox with the purest blood of them all. My sister, drawn to the wealth and status of the hawk nobility, chose their proud and distant heir. But he had no interest in women, and their marriage drove her mad. Consumed by jealousy, she demanded another test of my son's blood. She used a potion from the hawk clan to corrupt his blood, and my son and I were flayed alive after being accused of falsifying his claim to the throne. I woke again on the day we were supposed to choose our husbands. This time, my sister had already chosen Todd. Then I knew. She had been reborn too. What she didn't know was that the foxes lived for pleasure. Todd was always surrounded by women and made a terrible husband. I didn't want the hawks or the bears. I chose Leon of the white dog clan instead—the only man who had tried to save me in my previous life. But the white dog I chose was no dog at all. He was the last of the ancient celestial lions.