Hesitation pulls at her ruby-painted lips. “My mother said I could return home if I promised to deliver the journal to Landon.”

Her confession is a punch to the gut, and I struggle to breathe, to find the right words to convey the level of devastation and betrayal rushing through me right now.

“Well you kept your promise, so you’re free to go.” I wave my hand toward the door of my private quarters. “I’m relieving you of your duties as my lady.”

Faye’s lashes flutter, eyes bright with unchecked emotion. “I don’t want to leave like this.”

“Just go,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Novalee,” she pleads.

“As your queen, I command you to leave.” The order ricochets off the walls before settling between us, as impenetrable as a steel barrier.

Faye bites her lip as she rises, and the tear that slides down her cheek almost breaks through my armor. I harden my heart against the forgiveness tugging at me. Forgiveness will take time; forgetting how she withheld such momentous information will take longer.

It doesn’t matter that deep down I know she did it for love—for the chance to return to the home she misses and the one man who has her heart. Right now, I’m incapable of offering understanding, let alone empathy.

In the absence of Faye’s guilt-ridden presence, my mother’s journal calls to me from the side table where Landon left it. Uncertainty constricts my throat as I pick up the leather-bound book. Before he left Faye and me alone to talk, he asked me to read my mother’s words.

Her confession from the grave.

A huge part of me is delaying, because as soon as I read the truth, written in my mother’s beautiful penmanship, I’ll have no choice but to accept that everything I know about my childhood is a lie. Curling up in the window seat by the fireplace, I open the cover. The first entry is dated almost a year before I was born.

March 8th

It’s been a month since I’ve written. Seems like forever, but at the same time, too little time has passed. I’m not ready for this.

I’ll never be ready.

Putting everything into words is a foolish thing to do, but my heart needs to spill this burden. Edwin and I have been trying to conceive for three years, to no avail. The pressure to produce an heir has been a strain on our marriage. Even worse, it’s a threat to our country’s security.

Rowan is watching our every move, salivating at the idea that we might not produce an heir within the allotted timeframe. The man is a power-hungry narcissist. His vision for the future of our nation doesn’t align with Edwin’s. He believes a dictatorship is the only way to ensure loyalty from the people, while Edwin rules with compassion and empathy.