“You have not nurtured love and devotion from your son,” she went on. “You have built respect and loyalty. Do nothing to prejudice that, Your Grace. He is who he is, but he is also who you made him. There is a great deal to take pride in that. You have given your country everything, Queen Mercy, everything,” she stressed, her message clear.

She had sacrificed much.

Including being a mother to her son.

All so Wodell would have a good and just king.

No one had ever commented on this either.

What she had given.

And what she had lost.

“Do not make that for naught now,” Melisse advised. “For soon, the fates willing, you will enjoy your efforts.”

She bent slightly, holding Mercy’s eyes.

“He is who he is,” she repeated, “and also who you made him. Let him be that and rejoice.”

Mercy remained silent as Melisse tipped her head respectfully and moved to the door.

She stopped in it and turned.

And there, she delivered her parting shot.

“It’s just incense. There,” her hand flittered out in front of her, “and then ash.”

With that, she walked out.

Mercy continued to breathe heavily as she stared at the door, and did it feeling something peculiar happening behind her eyes.

They felt prickly and hot.

She thought no more on this when her woman, Helga, appeared in the door.

Helga shot her a look, dipped a short curtsy, then dashed away.

Gods damn it.

It never ended.

Reading Helga’s silent message loud and clear, for Helga was her eyes and ears in this castle and had sent such messages repeatedly over the years, Mercy herself rose and moved out of the room, rushing in the practiced way she did this.

This being, walking very fast but without the appearance of doing so.

She sought, and found, her husband.

He was not in his formal study, a grand room with rich appointments and an extraordinary view of where the River Fae met the Great Wohd.

He was in his informal study, a small, intimate room with rich appointments (though they did not rival that of his formal study) and a view of a minute corner of the gardens.

He was in a chair by the fire, a book held open on its arm, but he looked as if he was about to nod off.

“Husband,” she said sharply.

Wilmer started, coughed, slapped his book closed and turned to his wife.

“Must you sound like a harridan?” he asked.