Let them see the woman who lets nothing stop her, said Danny.

That would be Bexoi.

The woman who endured imprisonment. Loss of her sons. And yet kept her sanity.

If I did.

Don’t you understand that it’s not your fear but your boldness that makes you fit to rule? Offer who you are, not what you are ashamed to be.

How can I lie to them? They aren’t deceived.

Exactly, said Danny. So let them see it all.

See? There was no seeing, there was no telling.

Even though she did not understand, there was some part of her that knew what to do. She thought of all the things she had done with her manmagery. The way she played on what other people wanted, persuaded them that she was the object of their deepest desires.

I won’t lie to you, she said silently. No promises except this: I don’t kill babies. I don’t kill at all, if I can help it. This is a world full of life and I want to stay in it. I want to see my sons grow up.

This baby growing in Queen Bexoi’s body—I will raise him up to be the best man he can find inside himself. I won’t punish him for being his mother’s child. He will never know that I am not Bexoi. He is made from this body, and from this body he will have a mother’s love. As best I can. That’s a promise I can make, if you let me be mistress here. I could never kill a child of my own body; I couldn’t harm a child born to my enemy. If you let me dwell here, truly rule here, then this baby will be both. Child of my enemy; child of my own body.

And the true child of a man I love.

Was that even true? Did she still love Prayard?

Without a body to feel emotion, she didn’t know.

But love was not an emotion. She and Wad had discussed this more than once. Love was a decision. Your happiness before my own. But not instead of my own. Alongside me.

What I offer Prayard, I offer you. I will be part of your pleasure and your pain. I will decide where to guide you, but you will always be able to urge me and draw me toward your desires as well. You did not want to kill the baby that you made, did you? I will never grieve you like that.

The body gathered to her. There was no physical movement; the limbs did not move, the eyes did not twitch. But she felt herself reaching deeply into it. Knowing it far more deeply than its muscles or bones, nerves or veins.

More deeply than Bexoi knew it.