Page 11 of The Queens and the Kings
General Helsing released a noisy breath through her nose. “Why does his mother matter?”
“Every mother matters, Aunt.”
“You will address me as General Helsing like everyone else,” she snapped, and something withered inside of Britt. “Henrik is a soldat by his own admission,” she continued with heartless brutality. “Does hehavea mother?”
Britt glared, refusing to give such a horrid statement a response.
General Helsing, too wrapped up in her own surprise to notice Britt’s lacking rebuttal, murmured, “The mainland, you say?”
Britt ventured a hesitant, “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Why mustyougo with him?”
Britt hardened her resolve, leaving irritation to bleed into her response. “I fulfill my vows,General Helsing.”
“You have draguls to take care of. What of that vow?”
“They have Rolf. He’s been a Keeper far longer than me.”
“There are other women that can accompany Henrik, if that’s what he needs.”
“It’smehe needs.”
“The soldat can’t cross the sea without you?”
Britt gritted her teeth.
“You have been gone,” General Helsing continued heartlessly. “It’s hardly fair to expect the other Keepers to pick up your slack.”
Britt swallowed the words,I was saving the draguls, not going on holiday.
“I’ll speak with the other Keepers first, if that would make you feel better.”
“That’s beside the point. You have a habit of making vows that you can’t always uphold, Britt. Given the opportunity, I think you’d make a vow with a mussel, should it serve your own flippant desire for freedom.”
The caustic words didn’t sting the way they might have years ago, but they did stoke an ever-burning rage. The bellows of Britt’s long and delicate fury toward her aunt roared to life, and she remembered why the pleasure of escaping Kapurnick to save Malcolm had been so tempting.
“I wasn’t asking permission, Aunt.”
“You should be,” General Helsing immediately replied, and without a hint of inflection. “You have a responsibility to our island. Several responsibilities, if you’d like me to list all the draguls under your care. You may be bonded with Denerfen, but that doesn’t negate the lives of all the rest.”
Britt’s fingers tightened. “Negate? I just spent the last two monthssavingour draguls. Tesserdress wouldn’t have made it without Malcolm, and she’s our best hope for our dying dragul race.”
“So you say. Others may have been just as capable of finding Malcolm as you.”
“You think I’m lying?” Britt thundered. “I never insinuated?—”
General Helsing held up a fist, stopping her short. “You’re twenty four years old, Britt. Five years past the age of adulthood and accountability. I hold no hope of speaking sense into you,and I appreciate that there is no control I exert over you, but you may never speak that way to me again if you want to remain a Keeper on Dragul Mountain.”
Britt sucked in a breath to keep herself from speaking. If they didn’t require supplies so desperately, she wouldn’t hold her words in her throat, where they swelled until they hurt.
It’s not fair.
Of course it wasn’t fair. Nothing with her aunt had ever been fair.
General Helsing tightened her jaw, the muscles flexing, as she waited for Britt to counter. When Britt didn’t rise to the occasion, General Helsing calmed. In the quiet, Britt saw her only chance.
Her impossible chance.
