Page 1 of The Threadbare Queen

Chapter 1

Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.

That little gem from her mother echoed in Ava’s head as she slouched against a wall in the main square in the city of Fernwell, across from a small stall selling fruit.

Her father had disagreed with that saying, pointing out the pragmatic uses of eavesdropping in his and her mother’s professional capacity as trade envoys for Grimwalt, but the saying had stuck in Ava’s mind.

She twisted her lips in a wry smile.

It had certainly held true of the conversations she overheard on in the streets of Fernwell.

She had yet to hear a good word.

She would have to tell Luc later that there was even less good being said about him.

“When that interloper killed the queen—”

“No.” A middle-aged man cut the speaker—a woman with a basket of vegetables and fruit over her arm—off with a chop of his hand and decisive shake of his head. “I was there, the Turncoat King didn’t kill the queen.”

“Aye. I was there, too. It was the princeling who killed his aunt. They turned on each other like the scorpions they were.” A second man leaned over the display and plucked a large orange from the pile, lifting it to the light to check it for bruising. “Not to say the Turncoat King’s not dangerous.”

“Got a hold over the new queen, way I hear it.” The woman passed over the coins for her purchase and pursed her lips.

“We sure she has a right to the throne?” The stall holder hadn’t spoken up yet, but now Ava lifted her head to look at him, interested.

She hadn’t heard many questioning her claim to be queen.

A cart rolled down the street, drowning out the conversation and blocking her view, and Ava ducked around it to get closer, careful with her footing on cobbles still wet with afternoon rain.

Though the cold rain from earlier had eased, she had the hood of her cloak up against the still-damp wind, but even if she hadn’t, she would have been invisible.

She kept a short distance between herself and the small group, even so.

“The old queen acknowledged her.” The man slipped his orange into a bag. “By holding her prisoner for treason, she made it clear the princess was her niece. But she acknowledged her as she lay injured on the street, too. With her dying breath.”

“So I heard,” the stall holder said. “But I don’t know a person who knew of her before the queen suddenly had her as a prisoner.”

“She was shut away up north by the Herald himself, way I heard it.” The first man shrugged. “She looks like a Valestri to my eyes.”

“You’ve seen her?” The woman sounded surprised, and a little bitter. “Hasn’t so much as stepped out of that palace in the two weeks since all that nasty bloodshed, that I know of.”

Ouch.

Ava looked down at her magic-worked cloak and felt a tug of guilt. She should be a visible, approachable leader.

Not slinking through her city like a wraith.

Still, she justified her current slinking on the grounds it gave her the opportunity to hear the honest opinions of her new subjects.

Here on the streets, unaware of the presence of their new queen, the good citizens of Fernwell spoke freely.

Certainly more freely that the slick, desperate nobles in the palace.

The landowners and titled few were desperately trying not to notice that their time had come to an end.

It had been two weeks since she, Luc, and General Ru had taken Kassia’s capital city. Perhaps that wasn’t long enough for some to understand that change had arrived.

Luc found it hard to bear their overtures, their pretense that everything was going to carry on as it had.

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