"Dear girl," she said in an affectionate tone. "Let us fill the time before the end comes for us. Did my son ever tell you about his conception?"

I swallowed, the movement drawing the whisper-sharp blade across my throat. "Only that it was Faerqen's rebuke."

She laughed, a gleaming sound. "He does believe that, doesn't he?" she said, her fingers running down along my braid. The Queen leaned close to my ear, her breath chill against me. Her voice went hard. "Let me tell you the truth."

I didn't answer. Couldn't. My throat was too tight to say anything, the adrenaline terror telling me to flee, fight, something—But I held still. Her knife was at my throat, the gold-chased blade of iron she had wanted me to plunge into Dain's heart, and her army was at my door, a city she'd slaughtered.

"When I was a princess, I offered myself to Sarcaryn as a sacrifice of beauty. He came to me and had me in front of everyone, spilling his seed inside me." Her dead hand stroked down my braid, over and over, as if I was a beloved child. "But the gods are powerful creatures indeed, and though my womb didn't quicken, my body changed. Before I killed her for the knowledge she carried, the healer told me that nothing less than the seed of a god would ever give me an heir."

Frozen with horror, I sat there, enduring the touch of her hand and the silken slide of her voice, held there by the edge of a blade.

"I had offered him only one night, but he stole my dynasty from me," she said, her voice cutting through the air like the crack of a whip as her fingers tightened on my hair. Then she relaxed again, returning to her gentle caress. "But I hadn't yet realized how cruel the gods can be, nor how little they care for the devotion of those who worship them," the Queen said with a sigh, as if disappointed in herself. "I was so certain that it was a dreadful mistake, and if I could only do the right thing I would have my dreams returned to me."

"I begged Sarcaryn for a thousand years to return to me, and then two thousand, and then three. I gave him everything he could have wanted, every sacrifice, every honor. I swore to him that I would do whatever he demanded for the sake of a child." The Queen made a soft sound, as if she enjoyed what she was doing, telling me this story while she touched me. "And then I decided to prove my devotion, and defy Faerqen alongside him."

"For a hundred years," I said, my voice cracking.