The queen said, “We need someone who’s popular enough to win the people’s trust back to the throne, and whose claim to the crown would be beyond dispute.”

Logan looked at him and sudden understanding washed over him. Emotions warred on his face. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do,” the queen said quietly. “Logan, has your father ever spoken of me?”

“Only in terms of highest praise, Your Majesty.”

“Your father and I were betrothed, Logan. For ten years, we knew we were going to marry. We fell in love. We named the children we would someday have. The king was dying without heirs, and our marriage was to have secured the throne for House Gyre. Then my father betrayed Regnus and broke his word to your grandfather by marrying me in secret to Aleine Gunder. There were only enough witnesses present to ensure the legality of the marriage. I wasn’t even allowed to send a message to your father beforehand. The king lived for another fourteen years, long enough for me to have children, long enough for your father to marry and have you, long enough for your father to take control of House Gyre. Long enough for House Gunder to fabricate some ridiculous history that supposedly gave Aleine the right to be called Aleine IX, as if he were a legitimate king. When King Davin died, your father could have gone to war to take the throne. He could have won it, but he didn’t, for my sake and the sake of my children.

“I was sold into a marriage I despised, Logan, to a man I never loved, and for whom I could never make love grow in my breast. I know what it is to be sold for politics. I even know my literal price in the lands and titles my family secured after the king’s death.” There was iron in her as she spoke, clearly, calmly, every inch the queen. “I still love your father, Logan. We’ve barely spoken in twenty-five years. He had to marry a Graesin after I married a Gunder, just to keep House Gyre from becoming isolated and wiped out like the Makells were. He accepted a marriage that I’ve heard had little love in it. So if you think it pleases me to do to you what was done to me, you couldn’t be more mistaken.”

Logan’s father had never spoken of such things, but his mother—it was suddenly so clear—his mother had been reminding Regnus of it for years. Her sidelong comments. Her constant suspicions that Regnus had other lovers, though Logan knew he hadn’t. His father’s angry remark once that there was only one woman she had any right to envy.

“I have hope that your marriage will not be the agony mine has been,” Queen Gunder said.