“I didn’t tell you,” Nicholas answered, “because I knew you would tell Lynet. Despite my best efforts, you hold a considerable amount of influence over my daughter. I know you would have turned her against me, just as you’ve always tried to turn her against her mother.”
The silence that fell over them now was even worse than the arguing, and Lynet rested her forehead against her knees, bracing herself.
“You don’t know the first thing about your daughter,” Mina said. “She never cared about her mother, not from the beginning.”
Lynet lifted her head in surprise. No, she’s not supposed to tell him that. These were secrets that they had shared, secrets she could never tell her father.
“You’re just trying to hurt me now,” Nicholas said softly.
“No, she’s the one who’s always trying not to hurt you. She doesn’t want you to know how little she cares about Emilia. How could she? She never even knew her. She’s never missed her, never loved her, never wanted to be anything like her.”
“Mina—”
“Emilia isn’t even her mother—”
“That’s enough!” Nicholas roared. “And if you dare tell her…”
Lynet held her breath. Mina had already told one of her secrets—how could she be sure she wouldn’t tell all of them?
But Mina just gave a brittle laugh. “I’m not that cruel.”
“No? You’re your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”
Another silence. “It’s lucky for you, Nicholas, that I’m not,” Mina said, her voice so quiet that Lynet could barely make out the words.
Lynet heard footsteps approaching the door, so she quickly scurried down the hall, turning into another corridor where she would be safe from view.
And now where should she go first? To Mina? To her father? The cracks in her family that had been spreading for so many years were finally starting to break open, creating a rift that was becoming too wide for her to hold together anymore. Even if she mustered the courage to go speak to her father and tell him she had changed her mind, he would probably think it was Mina’s doing. But she had to believe that she could still apologize and explain herself to Mina and repair some of the damage that she had created.
A few minutes later, Lynet knocked softly at Mina’s door. There was no response. There was no light coming from under the door, either, but Lynet knew Mina couldn’t possibly be asleep already. She frowned at the door for a moment, and then she had an idea about where Mina might be.
She knew she was right when she saw a thin stream of light from under the chapel door. Inside, Mina was sitting under the central altar, a candle by her side. Bundled in her furs, her hair streaming down her back, she seemed very small.
“Mina?” Lynet said. She whispered it, but her voice echoed, and Mina jumped a little at the sound.
“Come sit by me,” Mina said.
Lynet treaded carefully, feeling like she shouldn’t make any noise, like she shouldn’t be there at all. She sat on the floor beside her stepmother. “Mina, I didn’t—”
But when Mina looked at her, waiting for whatever pitiful explanation she would offer, Lynet understood how pointless her words were now. She felt a flash of resentment toward her father, because she knew that it was for his sake that she had turned on Mina with her silence. She had done it because she knew it was an opportunity to make him happy, and it was so difficult to make him happy. But she had chosen her father’s happiness over Mina’s because she thought she could take her stepmother’s forgiveness for granted, and she knew that wasn’t fair at all. If she wanted to speak her feelings, she should have spoken before, in front of her father. Anything she said now would only add to the insult of her earlier silence.
In the end, it was Mina who spoke. “It’s the way of things, I suppose,” she said. “I think I suspected something like this might happen once I noticed how much you’d grown. As long as you were still a child, I was young, I was safe … but now that you’re older, there’s no use for me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Lynet said at once.
Mina gave her a sad smile. “You’ll see too, one day. Once you grow older, someone else will be waiting to take your place, someone younger and prettier than you. I knew that day was approaching for me. I knew even when you were still a child. So why am I so surprised to learn that I’m being thrown aside? Why am I always so surprised?”
Lynet reached for her hand. “I would never throw you aside!”
Mina raised an eyebrow. “No? You say that now, but time could change your mind. And what about your father’s commands? He doesn’t want me close to you.” Mina took hold of Lynet’s hand now, grasping her tightly by the wrist. “Are you bold enough to defy your father, wolf cub?”
Mina’s grip was tight, but more alarming was the desperation in her voice, the pleading in her eyes. Lynet had never thought she would ever see Mina like this, but then, she had never seen Mina on the brink of losing something so important to her.
Lynet met her stepmother’s gaze but tried not to let it swallow her whole. “What do you want me to do?”
Mina’s grip relaxed now. “Tell him the truth—that you don’t want the South.”
Lynet swallowed. “I don’t know if I can change his mind, even if I speak to him.”
“You can if you find the right words to say. Your father doesn’t want you to be unhappy. He loves you. How hard can it be to persuade him to do what you want?”
Lynet finally tore her wrist away. How hard could it be? Lynet knew well enough that her father had certain expectations for her, and that he wouldn’t give them up easily. “Mina, I don’t know.…”
“Do you want to rule the South?”
“I … no, I don’t.”
The light of the candle flashed in Mina’s eyes. “Then we both want the same thing. Didn’t I promise you that I would never let anyone turn you into your mother? If you let your father groom you for the throne while he’s still alive, that is exactly what he will do.”
The familiar restlessness was coming over her as she heard the truth in her stepmother’s words. This was her choice, then—she couldn’t make both her father and her stepmother happy, but if she chose her father, then there was the possibility that she would lose herself, lose everything that made her feel like her own person. The answer seemed obvious, and yet she still hesitated.
Mina’s voice pierced through the silence. “What are you afraid of, Lynet?”