Page 20 of Curse of Darkness
I can almost sense Thalia clapping a hand over her face with a sigh.
I tried.
But Lucere and I have never been friends, and my ability to play games these days is wearing thin.
“I envied you once,” Lucere says, twitching her skirts out of the way of a bramble as she continues her smooth glide. Somehow, we’re both circling the table like predators eyeing each other. “My grandmother promised I would marry him. It should have been me. It would have been me if you had not caught his—”
“It wouldneverhave been you.”
Lucere reacts as if slapped, then visibly swallows. Breathing out a bitter laugh, she turns to the sideboard where she pours herself a goblet of wine. Since I’m clearly not going to offer her one. “You’re right. Of course. Thiago never looked at me twice, no matter what dreams I conjured.” Throwing half the glass back, she lowers it, and then stares down into its depths. “I wanted it to be true. I wanted to… escape. Thiago was going to whisk me away from Ravenal, from my grandmother, from all my wretched cousins…. I was so excited the night of that long-ago Lammastide that I could barely breathe. And then he laid eyes upon you, and I knew that moment was gone. I saw it happen, right before me. You were dancing, and he turned and saw you, and… the look on his face. It was happening exactly as I’d always imagined, only… it was happening to someone else. He gathered you up. He took you away from your mother. He loved you. You were living my dream, and I hated you so much for it. For taking what I thought was mine.”
“What do you want?”
Even I can hear the pain in my voice.
Lucere startles out of her reverie. The rigid line of her shoulder slumps. “You were right. When you came to Ravenal and told me your mother could not to be trusted, you were right. She took Imerys as handmaiden to her court. A kindness, she said. A favor for her dearest friends of Ravenal for their loyalty. I tried to argue, but she… she took mysister,and I was not strong enough to prevent it. If I’d fought….” A hint of tears gleams in her eyes. “I know how to play these games. I know who wins between your mother and me. My magic is not strong enough to stop her. I had to let Imerys go. I had to smile and pretend it was an honor. And she will keep my sister locked away in her castle like a knife to my throat. If I make any move to stop Adaia’s war or betray her, then my sister will suffer. If I smile and curtsy and thank Adaia for her kindness, then she will tie Ravenal in knots for years as a vassal, and not as a fellow kingdom. I have just traded servitude to another queen in order to protect my sister, and I know it. I have just given your mother my kingdom on a gilded platter, and though it will take years for her to slowly absorb us, eventually we will barely remember we held our own right to power.”
There’s nothing to say.
I warned her.
“And you came all this way to tell me this?”
“Officially? I came to pay Ravenal’s respects. Unofficially? Because your mother wants me to spy upon you. She’s heard reports there is a child at your side, a child you claim is your own. She wants to know if the girl is a decoy.”
That was quick.
“She will believe me”—Lucere shoots my rustling thorns a wary glance—“if I tell her the girl is a lie. A changeling. Adaia has no reason not to trust me.” Another bitter smile. “She thinks she owns me.”
The thorns subside.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because Ravenal will abstain from this war. We will not stand at Evernight’s side. I cannot, or I will cost my sister her life.” Lucere takes a deep breath. “So I must play a deeper game. I must find a means to remove this threat from our throats, and I must do it so obliquely that no one will ever suspect I am playing both sides of this field.”
My heart starts beating again. Is she offering assistance?
“How?”
“They tell me you have bound yourself to the land and it has accepted you as queen. They say you have stolen your mother’s crown—”
“They?”
She gives a little shrug. “My brother’s ravens are everywhere. I know this is not news to you, because your warlord has put a bounty on the head of every raven in Evernight, but there are still ways to glean information if one is careful enough.” Another breath. “You pushed Adaia back at the Queensmoot. You burned the oak that bound her to Asturia. Do you have the power to confront her?”
It’s the question I’ve asked myself a thousand times.
But I owe her the truth if we’re to form any sort of alliance.
“I don’t know.”
Silence fills the room.
“I can’t control… my magic right now. You’ve seen the thorns. It’s not conscious.” Turning toward the sideboard, I pour myself some wine too. “And my mother is vicious and invulnerable—”
“Adaia’s not invulnerable.” Lucere prowls toward me slowly. “I think you dealt her a blow when you burned her sacred oak. She’s cut thin as glass, and is twice as savage as usual, but one can see the dark circles beneath her eyes and the ragged edges of her fingernails.”
“A rabid wolf backed into a corner is twice as dangerous as a pack on the run.”
