“Silas told me it was his idea, and Mother said your livestock was slaughtered . . . I’d have left, too.”

She shook her head. “Remember—if we remove Quinten from the throne, he has to be replaced with somebody . . . someone with Jedreck’s royal blood.”

I sat up, tracing the obvious line of events in my head, unable to believe I’d never considered it before now.

“Silas?”

She nodded. “Firstborn son of the male line . . . he was the one people talked about. Well, the ones who were daring enough to speak at all.”

I hung my head, thinking of how selfish I’d been. An entire country lost something when Silas Eastoffe died. I wondered if what Etan said was true, if people didn’t know he was gone yet. I wondered if they’d started pinning their hopes on . . .

“Scarlet,” I gasped. “Are you saying . . . you could be queen?”

She sighed, toying with the blanket. “I’ve been praying it doesn’t come to that. Part of why we came back was to throw our support behind Uncle Reid. He should be king.”

“But . . . but you could rule. You could shape the world around you any way you want.”

“You had that option, once. By the looks of that letter Jameson sent before we left, it was very nearly offered to you again. Would you go back to that if you could?”

“No,” I answered quickly. “But I wasn’t going to be sovereign. You would.”

She shrugged. “People might back me, but it’s certainly not a given, the way it was with Silas.”

A shiver ran through me. “So he knew, then? That people supported him?”

She swallowed. “We started making a plan once, maybe four months before we came to Coroa. If you can imagine, Mother and Uncle Reid were plotting even more than they are now. Even though we didn’t have the proof we needed, we thought we could make the move because of the people. They’re ready . . . but they’re also terrified. But then all these rumors about Silas planning to storm the palace got out ahead of us. We couldn’t stop it once it started. He wasn’t ready, none of us were. There was talk at court, warning glances . . . we had a sense that, even though nothing had happened, the rumors alone had doomed Silas. So he begged Mother and Father to run, to save the family. They hoped we’d come back someday, and I think Silas would have loved to see Quinten brought to justice, but he wanted what we all wanted: a chance at life. He swore he’d never return. And then he met you. He had every reason to stay in Coroa.”

I wasn’t sure when I’d started crying, but I could taste the tears now. “And it didn’t matter,” I said. “He lost his life anyway. Quinten wasn’t content to let him leave.”

“No,” she answered. “He takes and takes and takes. Maybe it should make us stop. But for me, it just makes me want to make him pay.”