“I’m motivated to keep that which is mine. I want to be Queen, but most certainly not Roland’s Queen.” She set her glass down. “However, if you doubt my commitment or capability, perhaps you should take advantage of another tool at your disposal.”

“Which tool is that?”

“Tristan might not confide all his secrets to me, but he does to Marc.”

My heart skipped, and then my pulse surged. No. Please, no.

“And you think he might be willing to divulge those secrets?”

“Not to me. And certainly not to you.” She turned to look at me. “But perhaps he might be willing to share them with the loveliest, most talented artist in Trollus.”

I took an involuntary step back against the weight of their scrutiny.

“You think he might be responsive to her advances?” my father asked.

“Have you seen him?” Anaïs replied, and I wanted to slap her, as both my father and grandmother laughed.

My father rubbed his chin while eyeing me, the smile growing on his lips not touching his eyes. “Don’t you think it’s time you earned your right to our family name?” he said. “Don’t you think it’s time you earned your right to live?”

Chapter 4

Marc

I followed the sound of piano music through my home, finding my mother seated before the lacquered instrument, fingers flying across the keys, sightless eyes staring off into the distance. The composition was something I’d heard her working on for weeks, and I sat silently on a chair, listening until she’d played it through. My mother was a composer of high regard – a guild master; her talent was what had caught my father’s eye, and what had allowed my grandfather to see past her common bloodline. And her blindness.

Fingers growing still on the keys, my mother turned her head to me. “Good afternoon, dearest.”

“Good afternoon, Mother.”

Rising to her feet, she crossed the room, delicate filaments of her magic guiding her steps. With unerring precision, she tweaked my hood aside to kiss my cheek. “Your aunt has invited me to dinner, so I cannot linger.”

“Is Father home?” I asked, pulling my hood back into place, my eyes going to the bonding marks on her hand to see if the silver had grown any darker or duller, a sign of my father’s diminishing health.

“In his study,” she replied, her face falling ever so slightly. “Perhaps you might convince him to take some rest. He attended His Majesty all morning, and you know how that drains him.”

That was because attending Thibault de Montigny felt much like walking a tight wire over a bed of knives. “I’ll try.”

My boots sank into the plush carpet as I climbed the curved staircase leading to the second floor, my eyes stinging from the brilliantly lit crystal lamps spaced to illuminate the elaborately painted walls and ceiling. It was my great-grandmother’s work, but it made me think of Pénélope. I painted you as you are, because I love you as you are…