“Fetch His Highness something to eat. I’ll have some of whatever you bring, so mind you only spit in his portion.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Élise curtseyed deeply. “I’ll ensure you have separate plates.”

Apparently I had a few more apologies to make.

Élise hesitated before leaving. “Would Her Majesty…”

My aunt silently shook her head, waving her off. Strange...

I circled the chaise my mother sat upon so that I might see her better. Part of me wished that I had not. Mother’s normally serene face was lined with tension, the muscles in her jaw clenched so tightly that they bulged. Her eyes fixed on some unseen thing, her pupils dilated wide and her brow furrowed. Her hands sat in her lap, kneading each other so hard that red marks rose and faded on her flesh. “Mother?” I asked hesitantly. I had never seen her like this, not ever.

If she heard me, she showed no sign of it.

“Mother?” I started to reach for her, but a coil of my aunt’s magic caught my arm.

“Have a care, Tristan. She is of an ill temper.”

Was this my doing? Was she upset with me? Of all those I’d worried about angering with my actions, my mother hadn’t been one of them. Never mind that her mind was not entirely in this world, she had never been cross with me in all my life. And there had certainly been times I’d deserved it.

You attacked your own father, a voice whispered inside my head. You almost killed him. She might have died, and your aunt along with her. What did you expect?

Not this.

Cautiously, I moved into her line of sight, keeping my magic ready to defend myself if need be. She’d never tried to harm me, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t. It certainly didn’t mean she couldn’t – weak women did not become queens of Trollus. “Mother?” Every inch of me singing with tension, I tentatively touched her shoulder.

She flinched, and I jerked my hand back, hardly noticing the jolt of pain in my wrist. Please don’t let it come to this, I silently prayed. Please don’t let her have turned on me.

“Tristan?” Her eyes focused on my face, all the tension and fury washing away in a flood. “You’re here!”

“I am.” I tried to smile, but my face felt incapable of it. “Are you angry with me?” The question came out before I even knew I was thinking it.

“Why should I be angry with you?” Her face managed to be guileless and unreadable at the same time.

My mouth went dry, and I struggled with what to say to her. “Because I have not been a good son.”

Her eyes drifted, and not for the first time, I wondered what it was she saw. What she heard. What she thought. There was a rumor that my mother’s mind was half through the door to Arcadia, and that it walked through the lands of endless summer, which lent her serenity. It was a pretty thought – far better than to believe she was just another victim of the inbreeding and iron slowly poisoning us all.