Page 53 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
“No, I think you’re a boy who loves his mother and wanted to believe the best of her.”
At this, a little more breath slipped out of him and the sobs grew tighter in his chest.
“She wasn’t always like this,” he choked. “She used to sing me to sleep every night. She never left my side if I was sick. She taught me how to dance. She’d chase me through the rose gardens of Florin and laugh when she caught me…” He paused. “But even then, she was a killer. She killed the real Bianca. I don’t… I don’t know who or what she is...”
Or even what she looks like.
If possible, Eirwen’s arms grew even tighter around him. “Tell me what to do,” she said. “What do you need?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Then I will stay with you until you do.”
A fool’s promise. It could take him days, weeks to unravel what he’d just heard. She couldn’t afford to stay once the masquerade was over.
But just for a little while, he held onto her, and tried to believe he wasn’t completely alone in the world.
∞∞∞
There was a strange kind of fogginess to the night before, which Bianca put largely down to the wine. She couldn’t remember a great deal after she and Cole slipped away to admire their gifts. Such wonderful presents. Such a sweet boy.
Much of before then was a beautiful haze of masks and shimmering fabric, a surreal, glittering dream. How much she adored parties, even if they were so fleeting.
She remembered that girl’s eyes, though, blue, unflinching, haunting. Eyes that had burned across her dreams and twisted nightmares for years after she received her bloody heart in a box.
Not her. Couldn’t be her. Just some silly, twisted remnant of flimsy guilt. There had been a few times where she’d wondered if the girl had to die. Not many. She’d been sure it was the right thing to do, at the time, the only thing to do, to secure their position.
Then she’d watched Cole’s blank face through the funeral procession, watched him slip away during the wake. She’d followed him as he ran up to his room, slammed the door behind him, and dissolved into noisy sobs so loud it shook the very stone. She’d stood on the steps, struck dumb by the sound. He had never said a nice thing about her before. Had he cared after all? He had barely shed a tear when his father died.
She wondered if she should go to him, especially when she was the source of all this grief, but before she could make up her mind, a servant slipped into the room instead. The girl’s former nursemaid. Bianca heard them cry together.
She had been planning on dismissing the maid. She didn’t want any remnant of that girl left in this place. No reminder that the palace hadn’t always been theirs. She half wanted to dismiss the womanmorenow, now that she dared occupy the space where she, as his mother, should be.
But how could she do that to him, when he could not go to her, not for this?
She sighed. She supposed the maid could stay for now.
She pressed her fingers against the door and listened to him sob. The sound struck something into her chest, a twisted knife of guilt.
A child, a child, she was only a child.
She shook it away. Not only a child. A princess. A threat. No, no, it had to be done. He’d see that eventually.
The memory rattled her, gnawing at her sense of righteousness, her confidence. That would not do.
She crossed to the room and drew back the black curtain that concealed the greatest of her treasures. Her most powerful servant, her valuable benefactor. The source of every joy.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”
The Mirror shimmered. A face of pure white rose from the depths of the dark reflection, a pale mask. Cool, calming words, like liquid made vocal, echoed around her chamber.“You are, My Queen.”
Bianca sighed.
“You look troubled, My Queen.”
“I am uneasy. I feel… like I’m being watched.”
“Ask any question of me, and I will answer.”
