Lustacia gawked for all of a minute before her spirited tongue broke loose. “Certainly! Because it’s that simple to make someone love you. Or perhaps you mean to cook up a love potion I can slosh into his wine. The very one you used on Father, perhaps?”
Griselda’s hands fisted. The insult was subtle and well-timed. She wished she’d never told her youngest that she’d used such a potion to entrap her husband years earlier. She’d never shared the fact with her other two girls . . . not that she felt guilt. It was rather more inadequacy. It wasn’t something she liked to think about . . . that the only way she’d ever been able to win a man’s loyalty was through threats, payment, or elixirs.
“Well, did you bring a potion to help?”
“I actually intended to,” Griselda answered. “But the prince’s impending death put a crimp in things. I had only time to gather up our Eldorian colors for the ceremonies.”
“Ribbons and sigils hardly have magic in them, Mother! Make up a batch of something now, before I have to face the prince again . . .”
Griselda stifled the urge to correct her daughter. The Eldorian colors had more power than anyone could imagine. But better Lustacia didn’t have such knowledge. It would only add to her angst. “I haven’t ingredients or the book with me.”
Lustacia threw her hands up in frustration. “Why wouldn’t you bring them? Did you not consider we might need a magical boost if something went awry?”
“Use your acumen, child. If our room were to be searched, it would cast suspicion to find a grimoire within my keeping. It’s safely tucked within my chamber in Eldoria.”
“Then how do you propose I win his heart, considering you yourself have never had success in such endeavors?”
Griselda allowed her grimace to fully emerge this time. “I may not have had success in love, but I have transcended in lust. Lean on that. Use your assets.”
“What, these?” Lustacia spread out her long, graceful arms. The slender lines of her glittery blush-pink gown showcased a small waist and hips juxtaposed against the tight curve of a youthful belly and the rise of voluptuous breasts—all the more enticing where they swelled above the beaded, lowcut neckline.
“Those exactly.”
Lustacia crossed her arms over her chest, her sleeve hems fanning like lacy wings from her wrists. “I want love, Mother. His love. I want him to admire me for the sacrifices I’ve made. To know that I’ve spent five years of my life molding myself into the image of the girl who would make him happy, and to be grateful for it.”
Griselda clucked her tongue. “You will never have that. For by telling him, you would lose him.”
“And thus the chasm between us,” Lustacia whimpered. “When I sang him awake and enraptured his people, I thought I had it . . . I did. I cured him, so he would be forever grateful and ravish me with poetry and passionate embraces. And when those dark eyes opened . . . oh, I could’ve fallen into them forever. I know I didn’t imagine that spark of desire.” She pressed a hand to her quivering chin. “But when he kissed me, something . . . changed. He looked me up and down like I was a stranger.” She shook her head, her silvery locks shimmering in the firelight. “After all the responses I turned out for every missive he wrote . . . answering them just as a princess would. Yet he tells me I’m not the one who saved him, and leaves. Just like that! Humiliating me in front of his subjects and mine. And you, my doting mother—” Lustacia caught herself and rephrased. “My doting aunt, can’t even offer consolation. It’s always ‘Get back up, dust off. Never show any emotions.’”
“Never show your hand,” Griselda corrected, looking in the mirror and smoothing the scarf around the offensive protrusions above her temples.
“Quite literally, in your case.” Lustacia glared accusingly at her mother’s fingers—the silvery blue even more prominent against the creamy head-covering.
Griselda’s dark eyebrows rose, wondering how long it would take her daughter to notice the lumps in the fabric . . . to question them.
Lustacia stepped up to share the mirror, intent only on herself. “Am I ugly, then?”
Griselda barked a laugh. “You look like one of them. Ghastly, nondescript. A vanilla cookie sprinkled with sparkly blue sugar. But gloom-dwellers are what he believes is beautiful. This had nothing to do with your appearance. You yourself said you felt an attraction, that his eyes held a spark of interest. Perhaps you simply need to work on delivering more convincing kisses.”
Embarrassment deepened Lustacia’s bluish complexion. Along with the tears and inordinately long lashes, a proper Lyra-blush—complete with veins darkening beneath her skin’s translucent surface—was another thing they’d never quite managed.
“Wrath was right,” Lustacia said. “You truly are heartless.”
Griselda loosened the knot beneath her chin. “If only I were. If only I’d given away my heart instead of my conscience. Then I wouldn’t be so fearful for all of our lives.”
Lustacia’s attention perked. “What do you mean, our lives? No one’s even questioned my tears, other than the prince. Everyone else is focused on him, concerned for his addled mind. They’re convinced he hasn’t fully awakened from his death sleep. There’s nothing . . . other than your dirty hands . . . that can cast aspersions on us. Is there?” She asked the final question with a catch in her throat, for Griselda chose that moment to whip off her scarf and unveil the prongs that were now the size of a baby’s hand.
Lustacia gasped and gagged, unable to look away from the warped reflection.
“The discomfort you’ve been experiencing while wearing your hennin,” Griselda began, her thumb tracing the antlers as she herself struggled not to gag. “That is just the beginning.”
Lustacia cupped her mouth to muffle a queasy cough. Clear streams raced down her cheeks. “How long?”
“Days or weeks . . . it’s hard to be sure.”
Lustacia’s legs went out from under her; she sobbed.
“Get up,” Griselda growled, resisting an unexpected compulsion to stroke her daughter’s hair and comfort her as she did when she was a child. It would only feed Lustacia’s weakness, and a queen had to be strong. “The only one who knows of my condition is dead. The prince hasn’t said he won’t marry you. We are not defeated. After all you’ve endured for this moment, you would give up so easily? Do you love him or no?”
“Yes. I—I do. But . . .”
“A yes is enough. We’ve no time to waste. All we must do is see that the prince weds and beds you as scheduled. You saw his letters, how passionate he is about those stags who guard his boarders. He will behead us both should he ever learn of our crime. And once we’re dead, he’ll turn your sisters out into the wilds to die by brambles or rime scorpions. But if you’re his queen, carrying his child, you can keep us all safe. We’ll request a visit to the Rigamort during our stay here, before he returns with you to Eldoria for his introduction as your king. You’ll say we wish to learn everything about his realm. Then we can blame these . . . things . . . on some sort of magical contagion before he ever sees the evidence.”
“You truly think he’ll go through with the nuptials? He wouldn’t even speak to me earlier.” Lustacia’s skin had grown so pale her veins could almost be seen. In that moment, she looked more like a gloom-dweller than ever before.
“Neither kingdom will give him a choice. You are the only princess of Eldoria. I’ve assured there’s no one surviving to take that title, or your crown. No other can stand with the prince to unite our skies and kingdoms. Everyone wants this marriage. Queen Nova herself is trying to talk sense into him at this moment. He will marry you. He dishonored you in their shrine, which I’m to understand is the holiest place in this heaven-forsaken realm. We have that to bargain with.”
“And the blood oath,” Lustacia mumbled, rubbing her head in search of the knots that would one day burgeon to prongs. She stayed on the floor, beaded pink organza swirling around her like a whorl of petals, and her beautiful features rearranged themselves to something akin to resolve. Though she looked like a dew-kissed rose, Griselda could see the inception of thorns.
There was her queen.
Griselda rewarded her by stroking her head. “Precisely. We can force his hand, involve our military if we must. But that would be a last resort. You have your wiles. Hide beneath the stairwell that leads to his turret . . . when everyone leaves his room, visit him alone. Remind him he must marry you to save his suffering people. He’s too honorable to ignore that fact. And even more, he’s a man, and all men can be seduced. You’ve had years of watching me shape that particular weakness to my advantage.” She coiled her hair around her antlers once more. “Master it for yourself, and we will live to see you reign over two kingdoms yet.”