“Oh, you never have to apologize for that. Only for the fact that they aren’t for your betrothed.” He looked down at me, making a woeful expression. “I’ll have to find a way to ease the pain.” He sounded so tragic that I had a moment of panic, until he added meditatively, “Perhaps the soft arms and softer bosom of a tavern wench… or two… will provide the necessary cure for my melancholy.”
I made a dismissive sound to hide my relief. “The day you suffer from melancholy is the day I become quiet and biddable.”
“So, never.”
I grinned. “Precisely.”
We climbed the tower stairs and reached the throne room doors. I turned to Kai, suddenly nervous. “You don’t think she’d execute me in there, do you?”
“No, she would definitely take you out on the balcony for that. She wouldn’t risk blood on the tapestries.”
“Funny.” I flapped a hand in a “later” gesture and entered the room. The Frostblood servant I’d seen before lifted a tapestry to reveal a door tucked into a corner of the wall behind the throne. To my surprise, the door led to an anteroom, where the queen waited. The space was small but inviting, with upholstered divans, large pillows scattered over the floor, and stained glass windows that tinted the sunlight. Lanterns with elaborately worked metal covers sat on polished tables in dark wood.
I sat across from the queen, my expression smooth, my hands loosely clasped, everything about me screaming dutiful princess and niece.
If I’d thought there was a chance of convincing her to let Arcus go, I would have argued until my throat was raw. But pleading or arguing would only make her suspicious of my intentions. Besides, I didn’t think I could plead his case without losing my temper when she inevitably refused.
It was vital that I keep my wits during this meeting. If I lost the queen’s trust, she might decide to have me guarded or followed, which could hamper my search for the book. If she suspected I was planning to break Arcus out, she could increase the guards on his room, or move him to the prison. I needed her to think I had come to accept her word as law.
As we made small talk over tea, her attitude was more conciliatory than I’d expected. However, a calculated retreat could precede an attack.
“How do you like my little sanctuary?” she asked, taking a delicate sip.
“It’s lovely,” I replied.
She smiled, smoothing the edge of a velvet cushion. “Prince Eiko and I often spend an hour or two here after we are finished with the demands of the day. When he hasn’t disappeared onto the tower roof to observe the stars, that is.”
“Oh yes, I remember you saying he had an observatory.” I had a sudden memory of Lord Ustathius berating Marella for spending her nights on the roof looking at the stars. I wondered if the queen took exception to her consort’s pastime.
“Indeed. He stays up many nights watching the moon and planets and stars, charting their movements and making maps. It is his passion and I appreciate that, even though it means he often sleeps during the day when I am occupied with matters of state.”
I reached out and picked up my teacup, taking a small sip. The mood was more mellow than I was used to with the queen. I realized this was the first time we’d been alone together. I found myself asking a question I hadn’t had the courage to voice before. “What was your sister like when she was young?”
Her brows rose in surprise. “Why do you want to know? I was under the impression you were still unsure about your heritage.”
“I’d like to know if your sister sounds anything like the mother I knew.”
She nodded. “You remind me of her in some ways.”
My heart squeezed, even as I told myself I might not be who she thought I was. Still, I couldn’t help but ask, “How?”
“You are… idealistic. Passionate.” Her lips curved. “I, too, am passionate. As you may have noticed.” Her eyes twinkled with mirth and I smiled in response. “But in a different way. I am passionate about large things: my islands, my kingdom, my people as a whole. I was raised to ask myself what is best for them. What will benefit the greatest number of people? These questions have allowed me to make difficult decisions time and time again. I need to make judgments that hurt people sometimes.” Her smile fell away. “I need to be brutal.”
I saw the proof in her eyes. They were hard as polished granite—dark and cold, despite her inner fire. Languidly, she reached out and lit the lantern on the table next to her with her fingertips, the light shining prettily through the filigree cover.
“Your mother,” she said, returning her gaze to me, “she cared for small things. Things I was taught to see as insignificant: an injured bird, a lame horse, a peasant child carrying too heavy a load. I chastised her for it. I told her that if anything happened to me, she would have to rule, that if she didn’t harden her heart, the throne would break her.”
“So you believe that the throne was—”
She added, “Not the throne literally, you understand. The responsibility. The crown and all that comes with it.” But I noticed she didn’t meet my eyes. Did she know about the curse?
“Is that why she left? She didn’t think she could rule if it came down to it?”
“I don’t think she left for that reason, though I can’t be sure. I’ve pondered this question for years, you see. The only thing I can recall that gave some clue to her state of mind was a comment she made when you were first born. She said… she said she’d had a vision. A woman with golden eyes had come to her in a dream and warned her that you were in danger remaining here. When I questioned her about it later, she made light of it and would tell me no more. She never confided in you? I’d hoped you could illuminate her reasons for leaving.”
“She told me nothing.” Not about Sudesia, nor the fact that she was royalty. Nothing about Sage, who had come to her in a dream the same way she’d come to me in visions. I tried not to feel anger at the thought of all she’d kept from me.
Assuming that I really was Queen Nalani’s niece. My mother wasn’t a Fireblood. I would have known if she was. Still, it was hard not to be drawn in by the queen’s certainty.
Queen Nalani sighed. “You were only about a year old when she left. It was something of a scandal when she wouldn’t reveal who your father was. But Rota had no reason to take you from us. I was furious with her. It was a betrayal of her identity, of our parents. Of me.”
“Your parents.” I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. “If your sister was my mother, then your mother would be my grandmother.”
Her brows arched upward. “Do you wish to know more about Queen Pirra?”
“No. Well, yes. I knew my grandmother—my mother’s mother. But her name was Lucina. She helped my mother with healing sometimes and came to visit often.”
“That’s not possible.”
I grew insistent. “She brought me books, told me stories—even about you. She taught me to use my gift, even when my mother disapproved. She died when I was nine. Could… could your mother have known where we were? Could she have visited us in secret?”
“I meant it’s not possible that the woman you knew was your grandmother.” She set her cup down. “My mother died five years after Rota left, when you would have been six years old. I was there when the pyre was lit. I saw her return to flame.”
I stared at the flickering lantern, thinking. A Fireblood funeral sounded so different from the short, cold one my mother and I had for Grandmother when we’d heard of her death. The memory brought me up short. I’d never seen Grandmother’s body. Mother had received a message from a distant cousin that Grandmother had died while visiting them. Not that it mattered. If Queen Pirra had died when I was six, she couldn’t have been Lucina, who died three years later.
“But still,” I reasoned, “this is proof that I’m not your niece. My maternal grandmother was not your mother.”
“It only means that your mother lied to you. Perhaps Rota felt guilty that she had taken you from your family, so she created a false one.”
“She wouldn’t have lied to me.”
“She lied to you all your life. You didn’t even know she was a Fireblood. You don’t even know your name.”
My head snapped up. “What’s my—I mean, your niece’s— name?”
“Your name is Lali. It means ‘Ruby’ in the old tongue.”