The Kingdom's Crown (Inheritance of Hunger #3) - Kathryn Moon Page 0,19

of my grandmother's suite, two guards stationed outside the doors.

"Princess Bryony to see the Dowager Queen Violet," Cresswell called as we approached.

One guard knocked lightly on the door, turning to speak through in answer to some murmured question.

"The dowager queen will see the princess and only the princess," the other guard answered.

"No—"

"Cress, it's all right," I said, squeezing Cresswell's arm gently. He frowned down at me, and I nudged my hip against his again, letting him feel where my blade rested, still charmed to warn me of danger.

"I'll be right out here," Cress said.

I nodded and stepped forward as the doors opened. An old man stood inside, eyes a little milky but smile soft.

"Come in, Your Highness," he said, with a brief and shallow bow. "I'm Hector, one of your—"

"Grandmother's Chosen," I finished for him, nodding and examining the man. He was tall and broad-shouldered, although somewhat stooped with age, one hand wrapped around the top of a cane. "I recognize you, I think."

Grandmother had retired a great deal of her Chosen not long before Camellia and I were of age to take our own, but I knew a few remained. The doors shut behind me, and Hector sighed a little, gesturing across the sitting room to another door.

"I'm sure Violet might prefer to receive you in here, but we're trying to keep her resting as much as possible. It's good that you're here, she's been very impatient to see you."

He moved swiftly, a slight wobble in his walk, and I wanted to pepper him with questions. Why was he one of the Chosen who remained with my grandmother? How ill was she? What were her symptoms? Why hadn't I heard from her personally instead of just my mother and her ladies-in-waiting?

I paused in step as the door to the bedroom opened, bracing myself against the heavily perfumed and smoky air, frowning at the stark darkness. The curtains were all closed, and there was only a single candlestick lit near the door, leaving the large canopied bed on the other side of the room in murky shadow.

"Heck, what's all the coming and going about?"

My heartbeat stammered at the first notes of her voice, but I frowned at the weak tremor running through the words.

"You have a visitor," Hector answered brightly.

"Heck!"

I stifled my laugh at her bark of outrage and moved forward into the dark.

"Peony, that had better be you and not your ghastly daughter again."

"Ghastly daughter, I'm afraid," I answered, strangely gleeful.

My grandmother gasped, and then let out a series of shocking, gasping, shredded coughs. I rushed forward to the bed at the sound, afraid my teasing might've just killed the dowager queen, but she recovered with a few squeaking wheezes of breath.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"About time you showed up. Vincent, light another candle for goodness sake, it's like a tomb in here. What on earth took you so long? Were you trying to miss the main event? If so, I am pleased to disappoint you."

Vincent, another of my grandmother's Chosen, a very handsome and notably younger man than Hector or my grandmother, appeared by the flick of a match, lighting a candle by the bed. The glow brightened, and even through my damp eyes, I caught the wince of my grandmother at the flame, until it was shaded by an opaque lamp lense.

"Are you blubbering? What for?" Grandmother snapped at me.

I was not blubbering, I was just a little teary-eyed. "I am practicing my mourning," I said instead, and Hector chuckled behind me as my grandmother scoffed.

She'd grown so frail so quickly, or so it seemed in the wavering shadows, with her bundled up in the tall bed, surrounded by pillows and silk quilts, a little bonnet covering her hair.

"We visited with Wendell's family on our way south," I explained. "And then last night when we arrived, they told me I shouldn't see you. Mother wanted me to wait for us to come together—"

"That's the council in her ear. They think you've influenced me or I've influenced you, whichever tips Peony in the direction they want her fretting." Grandmother's hand twitched in my direction, and I reached out to her. I remembered her grip around my wrist as she snatched novels out of my grasp to drag me off for a lecture, and it was hard to believe these trembling fingers could ever have been responsible for such force. "I'm sorry I didn't see the cage our line has built for itself before now, but your mother seems far too