Her eyes drifted, and not for the first time, I wondered what it was she saw. What she heard. What she thought. There was a rumor that my mother’s mind was half through the door to Arcadia, and that it walked through the lands of endless summer, which lent her serenity. It was a pretty thought – far better than to believe she was just another victim of the inbreeding and iron slowly poisoning us all.
It also provided a potential explanation for how the fey were able to communicate with my aunt. It was they who provided the foretellings: though they could not come to this world, it did not mean they could not watch. I wondered what they had seen that made them believe my and Cécile’s union could end the curse. I wished I could ask them, but even if I could, I knew they’d give me naught but riddles in response.
A shudder abruptly ran through my mother, and her face twisted back into the unfamiliar mask. “Leave me be.”
“But…”
“Leave me be!” I recoiled from her shrill shriek, stumbling over my own boots as I backed away.
“Let her be, Tristan.” My aunt’s voice sounded weary. “Come and sit with me.”
On numb feet, I made my way back around and sat down. The dozen mirrors in the room reflected an image that betrayed nothing of how I felt. “What has happened to her?” I demanded. “Who has done this to her? Was it me? Is this my fault?”
Aunt Sylvie regarded me for a long moment. “How is Cécile feeling?”
“Never mind Cécile,” I snapped. “Tell me what is wrong with my mother!”
Her head tilted slightly, her eyes boring into mine. “I always liked her, you know. Little spitfire of a thing. Not one easily led, so I imagine she’s not pleased about the yoke your father managed to place around her neck.”
I opened my mouth to demand she answer my questions and to quit changing the subject, but realization dawned, and I clamped my teeth shut. “Physically, she is well,” I finally said. “But these last days she has rarely been herself.”
“Her will is at odds with his compulsion.”
I nodded slightly. “A ceaseless tension.”
“Do you feel it?” She asked the question as though it were the idle curiosity of one who had never been bonded.
“At its worst, it seems it is not her mind that suffers, but my own.”
She sniffed. “How taxing.”
And there it was – I had answered my own question. The emotions my mother was feeling were not her own – they were my father’s. My mind skittered and tripped over the implications – not only was something angering him terribly, it was bad enough to affect my mother. For the first time since my imprisonment, I started to wonder if perhaps my father wasn’t as in control of Trollus as I had thought.
“It is better than not knowing,” I said, settling back more comfortably in the chair, pushing aside my concerns so that my mind was wholly on our double conversation. It was always this way with her – she would not tell me outright anything that would betray my father’s confidence. I didn’t know – and would never ask – if she did this out of courtesy to my mother or because he had forced a promise from her at some point in the past. Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. The information I needed would be hidden in everything she did or said; it was up to me to extract it and put it together.
“Is it?” She tugged at the sleeve of her dress. “I should think that it would at times be worse – knowing how someone was feeling, but not the cause. You’ve been what now, three months parted?” She shook her head. “Strange how time manages to both accumulate and fade.”
She did not know the full extent of what troubled my father, but whatever it was had been mounting since my incarceration. Time was of the essence.
“It seems like longer,” I said. “I miss her terribly.”
One eyebrow rose in acknowledgment of my uncharacteristic frankness, but she did not seem surprised. “Do you still wish to play?” She gestured at the Guerre boards sitting in their rack, but it was not the game of which she spoke.
I said nothing for long enough for my silence to be significant. “I will play,” I said. “But only because there is no other worthy opponent.”
“It’s in your blood,” she replied.
The four primary boards floated off their rack, the pieces lifting out of their boxes. They were new, I noticed, elaborately carved out of black onyx and white marble. Undoubtedly Reagan’s work. “Shall we start where the game was left off?”
I nodded, my pulse quickening as I watched to see how she would place the players.
The pieces circled the boards. Kings and queens. Princes and princesses. Warriors, spies, tricksters, nobles, assassins, half-bloods, and tiny humans went round and round. “You play the white.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded for the benefit of those who spied on us.
White pieces rained down onto the carpet, accompanied by only a few black. “You’re losing,” she said.