The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,58

my mind and read all my rebellious thoughts and shortcomings. “You must understand how important it is for you and the king to form a strong bond, a strong marriage. The aim of such dark magic may be to persuade the king to reject you and cast you aside. Aphrasians won’t want you to bear a child who unites Montrice and Renovia. This is just the way they reacted when your father and I married, and had you. Violence was unleashed throughout Renovia. Remember, the Aphrasians are the sworn enemies of the Dellafiore dynasty.”

While my mother talks, my heart is sinking. My mother may have married for love, but I wasn’t permitted to. Everything to her is about the dynasty, the succession, the political alliances. There’s no way I can tell her how strenuously I’ve been avoiding sleeping with Hansen since our wedding day.

She’s away on the usual subject, the possibilities for future marriages and alliances with Stavin and Argonia, uniting the whole region one day through intermarriage.

“All it needs now is for you and Hansen to have children,” she says, staring me down. “Then Avantine will be one again, and much stronger as a result. Stronger even than the Aphrasians.”

“We’ve barely been married a year.” I squirm in my seat. Something about my mother always turns me into the sulky child, the reluctant princess. My mother raises one perfectly arched brow.

“That is ample time,” she says. “People will talk, Lilac, and that’s the last thing you need. Now, tell me what is happening between you and the king. I sensed tension out there on the stairs.”

“Well, maybe there’s a little,” I say, eyes darting to the fire. I’d take another Obsidian Monk sighting in the flames over this interrogation. “Hansen was very upset by what happened the day of the races.”

“Then you must be the one to comfort him,” she replies, her voice firm. A knock on the door heralds the arrival of refreshments, and there is the usual fuss of drawing up tables and adjusting our chairs.

My mother is lucky, I think—or she was lucky, at least, when she fell in love with my father. He was royalty. Not the royalty she was supposed to marry, but still, a king.

I don’t love Hansen and I never will. He’ll never love me. I can’t say this to my mother because I know she’d just tell me again that the future of our two countries is more important than our personal preferences. This is the life into which I was born. Privilege comes with responsibilities and obligations, not a selfish life doing as I please.

My mother waves away everything but a thin crust of bread spread with the merest trace of preserved gooseberries. The pages have brought mead instead of wine, and I send them away for something more suited to my mother’s refined palate.

When it arrives, the wine is carried in by Lady Marguerite, rather than a page. Her hands shake, and I wonder if she is intimidated by my mother’s presence. I know I am.

When Lady Marguerite places the tray on a low embroidered stool next to the fire, I worry that the silver ewer of wine will end up on the floor. My mother reaches a hand to steady the tray and glances at me, frowning. Lady Marguerite appears to be on the brink of tears. She curtsies so deeply, I worry again, this time that she won’t be able to get up.

“What on earth is wrong?” I ask her, reaching out to haul her to her feet. “Have you heard news of some kind?”

Lady Marguerite shakes her fair head. Her eyes are red and her face is puffy, as though she’s been weeping.

“No news, Your Majesty. I mean, Your Majesties.” She sinks into another unnecessary curtsy. “It’s just . . .”

“What?” Her silence is even more irritating than her sniffles.

“It’s just, I have a terrible sense that something bad might happen.”

“Something bad already happened,” my mother says drily. “My palace was attacked and burned.”

Lady Marguerite twists her face. “I know, Your Majesty. But I mean, something else. Something here. I fear that your own palace was destroyed in Renovia simply to force you to Mont. Could you be under threat here?”

“I doubt that,” my mother replies, imperious. She has never been one to take counsel from courtiers. But worry tautens her already gaunt face. When I was younger, I found her hard to read: She seemed so serene, immune to strong emotions and always measured in