to help them.
“Luck would have it that I stumbled upon them, the dying prince, the distraught runaway queen, and the panicked king. Fates were smiling down on me that night. You were fast asleep, so I glamoured you to look like a bundle of sticks on my back, and then I kneeled beside the prince and bargained for his life and your future. Your mother saw me without you and fainted, thinking I had eaten or fed her daughter to the werewolf itself.” Mother Eville chuckled in glee.
I frowned, putting myself in the distraught queen’s shoes. What would I have thought to see the woman who had stolen my child hours later childless? I probably would have thought the same thing and hated her for it.
Mother Eville sighed and tapped her hand against her thigh, looking at me as she continued her tale. “I saved young Prince Xander’s life, but there was nothing I could do against the werewolf’s bite, for he was too far gone. King Gerald has never forgiven me for that. He refuses to believe the beast he was hunting was anything more than a normal wolf, that it was I who placed the monstrous curse on him.” She looked out the window, her eyes taking on a shine, and I briefly wondered if she was tearing up. “As for your mother, it did not take long for the king to fall in love with his secret runaway. She dyed her hair, married the king, and together they had Ameline, who is your half sister.”
“I never suspected she was my real mother,” I said.
“Nor should you have! That woman fainted when she learned her stepson was to be married to one of my daughters, never even suspecting it could be her own child. Now tell me, daughter, did Queen Anya ever recognize you?” she asked smugly.
I shook my head. “Not until the end.”
“That’s because you were truly mine, dear child. It was better that I raise you to your full potential.”
“So that’s how you arranged our marriage. You demanded his life if you saved it.”
“Yes. I was in a magnanimous mood, and I not only saved the prince’s life but created wards around the palace. As long as Xander stayed within them, he would never succumb to the werewolf change. But if he strayed past them—” She shrugged.
“Thereby almost forcing him to be a prisoner within the palace. You should have told me,” I said as I thought back to our time on the road, how Xander would disappear at night and return come morning. He said it was for my own safety, but he was trying to protect everyone from himself.
“It wouldn’t have done anything but cloud your judgment and make you weak. Your birth mother was not an innocent. Neither King Gerald nor King Basil understand the value of children and instead barter them like cattle.” Mother Eville’s hands shook in anger. Her normally quiet demeanor was unraveling like a cat batting at a ball of yarn. “Daughters are not to be tossed aside for boys. We are valuable,” she hissed, and I understood that there was an underlying backstory I did not know and may never uncover.
“Yet you meddled in the affairs of not one but two kingdoms. You’re just like them. You bargained me away, forced me to wed a stranger, someone who loathed me. He could have murdered me in my sleep.”
Mother Eville scoffed. “Nonsense, you are much too powerful for that.”
“Xander bartered me for his kingdom.”
“No, King Gerald did that. I don’t know if you heard, but he is heartbroken over his wife’s death and has abdicated his throne to Xander. You are now queen of not only Baist but Florin, since you are the eldest child,” Mother Eville said smugly.
“What of my brother, Aspen?”
Her smile faded. “He disappeared. Last we heard he got on board one of the merchant vessel ships, the Arotas, and took out to sea. But did you not hear me, child? You, my daughter, are queen. I have arranged that.” She placed her hand across her chest. “I dealt out a worthy punishment upon two kingdoms and at the same time have made my daughter queen of both.” She was as proud as a peacock, and yet I looked out the tower window and knew I wanted nothing to do with this place. Nor did I want Baist or Florin, not when I couldn’t have their prince’s love.
“He hates me,” I whispered.
“And yet you’ve grown to