"Alas! our young affections run to waste / Or water but the desert." -- Byron
Once a king decreed that his seven sons wed his brother's seven daughters. The unwilling maidens' father gave each daughter the bride-gift of a dagger, and on their wedding night six of the maidens stabbed their sleeping grooms. When the seventh prince awoke alive, he slew his uncle and cousins for their crime. The father's spirit thereafter suffered an unslakable thirst, while his daughters fruitlessly offered him water in sieves ...
Kraehe closes the book and pillows her head on its
blind-stamped cover, wondering what sin she has committed that she
cannot bring her father the relief he craves.
Author's Note: The reader familiar with classical mythology will recognize in this story elements from the tale of the Danaides. "Blind-stamping" is a method of book decoration that impresses a pattern in the leather or cloth of the cover but does not fill it with gold or color.