Page 57 of The Reluctant Queen
She scoffed. “I am well aware. And that is why we cannot be. Never mind the political nonsense.Us, we make no sense. We don’t want the same things.”
With that, Lady Hevva stopped ambling beside him, turned in a tight circle, and headed back toward the guests.
He plodded along, watching her go as he fought to swallow down the pit that had risen up from his stomach and lodged itself in his throat.
Eventually, Hevva joined the Ladies of Rohapavol and Napivol, and Ehmet peeled off to find solace beneath an unused canopy.
The dowager queen popped up from beneath one of the small, angled tents, and latched onto her son.
“Ah, my boy.” She carried her discarded slippers in one hand as she stuck out her other for an escort.
“Mother,” he offered his arm.
“Walk with me a while, we need to speak.” She beamed with her teeth but not with her eyes as she urged him to the east.
At least he could keep his back to Hevva as he fought against the images of her advancing through his mind.
“My spies have informed me,” she began, and Ehmet’s stomach dropped to his toes.
During their short walk up the beach, the dowager queen informed her son that plans were bubbling, if not underway. An emergency referendum of the voting nobles would soon be called to consider the validity of the Crown in their branch of the Hethtar line.
Amorphous fear took shape, creeping along behind him with a shadowy knife in hand.
“Ehmet, it is time,” she spoke with crisp certainty. “You have no choice but to take a wife who willstrengthenyour reign. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand.” Hevva was off the table. Not that she wanted him anyway. He wasn’t in love, and he didn’t need to be falling in love. A disastrous, tumultuous thing, it was.
“It would behoove you to consider aligning with a house currently tied to Kashoorcih.”
Ehmet groaned.
“Your best bet at this point is to consider a proposal to Yusuf’s niece, Lady Tahereh, the daughter of the Earl of Appven.”
“I know who she is,” he ground out.
“Will you give her a chance?” the dowager whined. Her voice had risen in pitch with every sentence of their frantic conversation and now pierced his eardrums with its insistence.
“Perhaps.”
“Ehmet, don’t be a fool. You are nearly thirty. It is high time for you to marry, regardless of your uncle’s scheming. Marry Lady Tahereh. It wouldend this.Placate your idiotic great-uncle and ensure that Appven’s vote moves to your side. Resolve the issue of succession.”
“I will, mother.”Fuck.
twenty-one
Ehmet and Hevva visit the gymnasium.
By breakfast the nextday, his future was officially uncertain. By luncheon, it was sealed. The dowager queen worked fast.
A missive was delivered to Ehmet’s apartments with his morning meal. A terrible way to start the day, especially since the written message was followed by his mother, rehashing the contents in shrill tones. That was two Mum-wakeups in a row, and he was tired of it. But the king understood her urgency.
The referendum had been called.
Two months.
In two bloody months, the nobles would vote on his fate. Prior certainty that the crown was destined for his head would be blasted apart, andperhapsput back together again—Uncle Yusuf and his machinations were already chipping away at the base.
That weasel.
