Why, so you can get some practice taking his place? His heir should be the one handling any urgent concerns. Was that what Rozalind hoped to do now?

Akeylah squeezed her eyes shut. She feared if she looked at the queen, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She’d stare and stare until she couldn’t hold it in anymore, until she screamed for the truth. Tell me you’re not carrying my father’s child. Tell me you aren’t the one cursing my sisters and me.

“Akeylah.”

“Yes?” Akeylah asked after a beat.

“What’s wrong?”

“My father is dying,” she replied, voice hollow. “Am I not allowed to grieve?”

“Of course you can. I’m grieving, too. I care about Andros. But… look at me, please.”

Akeylah finally looked up.

Rozalind stepped closer. “Did something happen when you visited Florencia this morning? You seem… angry.”

Akeylah turned her face to the wall instead. “Rozalind—”

“Talk to me.” Rozalind touched her bare arm. The contact made Akeylah’s skin tingle.

Her eyes burned. “There’s no fixing this.”

Rozalind’s hand dropped away. “No. All we can do now is be here for him.”

“I’m not talking about my father,” Akeylah spat. The vehemence in her tone surprised even her. But she leaned into it.

Anger was easier to handle than sorrow. Than pain. Than the crushing weight of the realization that the girl she trusted, the girl she’d fallen for, the girl she’d just begun to realize she loved… had been lying to her all along.

She clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. “Are you pregnant, Rozalind?”

The queen’s face shuttered at once, like a trader’s house with boards suddenly nailed over the windows. Rozalind tore her gaze from Akeylah. Stared at Andros instead.

“Seas below.” Akeylah shoved away. “So it’s true. You’re carrying my… my father’s child?” Her throat tightened. Her stomach churned again, sick with grief, nauseated at the idea.

Half of her wanted Rozalind to deny it. Claim it was another affair. Something, anything.

But Roz shrank in on herself. Deflated. “It happened three months ago. Long before you came here, Akeylah, and I swear, the moment I learned I was pregnant I stopped lying with him. Gods, even before that, we barely ever…”

Akeylah sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. “You’ve been hiding it from me this whole time, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’ve hidden it from everybody. Even your father didn’t know. Doesn’t know.”

“Why in Mother Ocean’s name not?” Akeylah flung her arms wide. “You could have saved us all of this. He need never have brought me to court, or my sisters; I’d still be at home, ignorant of my heritage—” She stopped short. And still pinned under the thumb of an evil man who hated me.