Page 52 of The War Queen's Daughter

“Deceiver.” She reaches for the table where the wine is displayed, both arms sweeping across the surface, bottles, goblets, and decorative flowers flying. Splinters of crystal from the decanters whiz across the stone floor, and I feel something shoot past my cheek, just missing my skin by a hair’s breadth. “Traitor.” Mother’s hands fold around the supports of the table, her chest muscles heaving, her shoulders, her biceps, and forearms bulging as she pulls her hands apart.

The metal structure resists her briefly. Cords in her neck do not relent, the redness of her face deepening as she bares her teeth in her titanic effort. Steel squeals in defeat and parts, the joins coming apart at the well-formed seams, the stone surface shattering as it collapses at her feet.

She swings the metal framework, now in two pieces in her hands, like vast weapons, one sailing up and out to crash into the decimated sofa out the window and the other arcing up over my head to take out the bathroom door.

I don’t flinch. With a grim scowl, I stride. To her side, grasping her arms as she did mine, barely able to hold her as she tries to shake me loose.

“Mother.” I will not relent. “Your majesty!”

That gets through to her. She pants as she stares back at me, a monster in her eyes. But she returns to me slowly, reason creeping back, the strategist, the monarch, the woman always steps ahead. I fear this has broken her, shattered my mother as much as she’s done to the furniture in the room, to the weak glass of the window.

Until she eases, still stiff, still ready for battle, but herself again. The monster inside her, the predator we share, remains and will, always. She’ll carry it until her last breath. But my queen is in control again.

“You will marry his whelp and seize this Overkingdom,” she snarls in my face, “or I will watch it burn to the ground.”

Aunt speaks before I can. “Heald’s agreement was with Gyster’s father, Ranaslo, the first Overking.” She’s still in the throes of her own fury, but she’s not out of control like my mother had been. “It’s the first time he’s admitting it, his excuses over.”

“Never mind our binding oath, sealed in blood.” Mother’s rage tears have left tracks down her contorted cheeks. “My loyalty, my continued fealty, our army’s sacrifice… mysilenceon certain matters.” She inhales.

But it’s Aunt who carries on. “In exchange for Heald’s absolute right to recover what we lost when the borders were redrawn after the formation of Protoris.”

“And a royal union that would secure our position forever.” Mother’s jaw jumps. “A marriage that was meant to be mine.”

Hers? “You were supposed to marry Gyster,” I say.

And now it all really does make sense. Hurts just a little bit more. Because I’m seeing my mother as a woman for the veryfirst time, as a princess, dedicated and loyal and full of hope and honor. Betrayed, defeated, and cast aside.

“He married another,” Mother says. “And the only reason I allowed it was because of you.” She cups my face in her hands. “He promised that you, Remalla, my daughter, would have what I could not. Too close to the war, I was told. Too fresh the battles and the part Heald played. A softer, kinder bride for the second Overking and a warrior queen for his successor.” She’s holding my face so tightly that I’m rising on my tiptoes to keep her from pulling my head off my body. “A prince for a warrior queen’s daughter. An alliance I was promised, just another lie told.” She lets go of me, and I gasp and retreat from her, blood rushing to my head from the assault I knew she didn’t intend.

“The competition was not meant to be this time,” Aunt tells me quietly. “But we were informed it would, as a courtesy to the other kingdoms. Just a formality. Your mother held you back on purpose. A show of strength, a protest. Had the Overprince chosen another, things would have gone very differently than they have.”

“Same result,” Mother snarls.

“If he married another,” I say, my head pounding and not just from her mighty hands, “we’d be marching here with our army.”

“I’d be on the throne and Gyster in the grave by now,” Mother says. “This last chance Amber has convinced me to try, one final attempt to make him honor the promise.” She snorts, a warhorse releasing stress after a battle. “I’m tired of diplomacy.”

“Altar will marry the princess of Sarn,” Aunt says. “Whether he agrees to it or not.”

Of all the choices, though the least of my surprises today.

“He willnot.” Mother’s monster returns with vengeance long denied. She focuses on me, her eyes boring into mine, filled with a renewed, almost manic intensity. “I’ve implanted assassins intheir courts, with orders to twist the necks of every one of their children to secure you the throne. I’ve embedded troops in this very Citadel, lying in wait for my order to end the Overking and his brat.” She’s saying things out loud she shouldn’t say in a place with no privacy, and panic won’t stop her, not mine, not the flicker of it on Aunt’s face. “But that won’t be necessary.” Mother’s voice drops again. “All my plans, my moves on this board, will go unneeded. We will have this place without bloodshed.” She’s on the edge of the blade of her own making, but my mother isn’t far gone enough to act on what will be a violent and decisive overthrow.

We all know why. Such a choice, that moment of relentless decision, will cost her everything to maintain. Because taking the throne and keeping it are two different things, and though I have no doubt she’s thought all of that through to the bitter end and will be fearless if and when the time comes, my mother is a queen first and a warrior second.

“I wish now I’d had more faith in you, told you everything. My daughter.” She nods abruptly. “That I remedy now. Your orders, Remalla, are clear. You are to increase your influence over the prince. You will charm him. You will persuade him. You will represent Heald’s interests with more aggression than you have ever shown. You will convince the boy to marry you. This is not a competition you can afford to lose. This is a demand. You will secure that union, or by the fire I will have this Overkingdom under my fist.”

I should tell her the truth. Instead, I bow my head to her.

It’s the worst time to say anything other than, “Yes, Mother.”

“Who was my father?” I don’t look away and, to my surprise, neither does she. Aunt’s fury means nothing, her reaction a peripheral bit of noise as she snarls something I don’t hear.

While the queen of Heald’s fury fades and she softly, tenderly, kisses my forehead.

“For that you are not ready, my daughter,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, yet it carries the weight of ancient secrets, of burdens I cannot comprehend. “You’re not prepared for everything, after all.”

Cryptic and dismissive, a barrier she’s determined to keep between us despite what she just said. Because it’s not me who’s unprepared. It’s her.

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