Page 28 of Golden Queen
For all her kindness, Erelzeba had advised me to help Tatana see it for the honor it was—to be chosen to be in service to the crown. I wanted to claw her eyes out when she had uttered the words. It had taken me years to stop holding them against her and come to terms with the fact that she simply did not understand.
Arkadian was the only one who did not know the truth. Tatana and I both knew what would happen if the hot-headed young duke learned what Markus had done. Arkadian would have killed him, and the defense of a lady's companion would never stand as justification for striking against the throne.
I had been young, idealistic, and angry in those days, but I had also been powerless. I lived in the cage my parents inadvertently created for me when they left me alone at the mercy of a cruel and dangerous man.
In my mother's case, it was fate that ended her life. She caught a fever that had been spreading through the kingdom while she was weakened by my birth. She died swiftly, only days after I came into the world.
My father had usurped fate's role in his destiny by leaping from the balcony of the King's Tower in his grief. I had, perhaps, never quite forgiven him for the choice he made to leave me.
I crawled into bed beside my heart sister, pulling the covers over us both. I tried so very hard not to think of Io. I would never see him again. I would make sure of it. He was only in the city for King's Day. I knew he was not with the emissaries from Radune. They would not arrive for another two days, at least.
So, as long as I stayed away from the Mouse's Ear and ignored any summons he might have the gall to send, I could let him fade away into the back of my memory as though he had never been.
Five
Markus summoned me to his chambers the next morning before I even had time to finish dressing.
I knew why. We had not spoken since the Artaxians had come. He would want a word for word accounting of my conversation with Adrio. And of course, he would want to rant a bit about the horse.
I found him seated behind the large, ornate desk in the Chancellor's Tower. He had moved his chambers there as soon as we made our little deal, even though nothing was official yet.
Markus ignored me as I sat in the low chair he kept in front of his desk. It was lower than usual to ensure everyone who came before him felt small. His disrespect mattered little to me, though. I could continue to play the game he thought he was setting the pieces for. Once I took my throne, I would destroy him.
"Uncle," I finally said when he still did not deign to look up at me. My patience had worn thin.
He glanced up, his jaw a hard line. "Princess," he said tersely. He wrote a few more words on the page and then he slid the document to me.
I read the first few lines. "Absolutely not."
"It was a wildly inappropriate gift—worth more than a kingdom of riches. You simply cannot afford to be so beholden to the horse lords."
I laughed harshly. "Beholden to the horse lords? Is that the best excuse you could come up with to justify your jealousy?"
That hit a nerve—as I intended.
"My past dealings with that disrespectful tribe of savages have nothing to do with this.Thisis state business which you cannot even begin to understand. Now you will sign your name, and—"
"I will not," I cut in. His past dealings had everything to do with why he wanted me to refuse the gift from the Artaxians, even after publicly accepting it.
Artax had openly refused when Markus requested to purchase one of their horses. He had ranted and raved for a fortnight—and broken my mother's collection of priceless Withian vases in the process.
It had been a special kind of blow to him when the horse lords had turned down each of his subsequent offers. The last had been an ungodly sum of gold that had caused the council to threaten to remove him from the Regency.
"Aelia, do not push me in this."
"Or what, Markus?"
He didn't answer, just gave me a dark look, which I chose to ignore. I had once lived in fear of this man, but with the council's interference and our deal over the chancellery, his claws had been clipped.
"I will not send Etreyiu back," I said defiantly. "Now is there anything else?"
Markus calmly pushed back his chair and stood. His movements were relaxed, nonchalant even. The only thing that betrayed his anger were those eyes—small and beady—and full of hate.
He rounded the desk and leaned down to me. I tried not to flinch, butdear gods, the man had done so much to hurt me over the years. I had spent so much of my life cowering beneath his rage with the threat of Tatana's pain hanging over my head.
I steeled myself, gritting my teeth, preparing to hurl the words at him that would force him back into that declawed state.
But before I could even begin to threaten to take away the chancellery that he so coveted, Markus began slamming his hands onto the desk violently.
