Page 120 of The Witch Queen

“You’re angry with me,” she says at last. It’s not a question and I don’t bother to answer. “Very well. But perhaps you should consider that this situation is a touch more complicated than you understand.”

She sounds like Ayleth. “That seems like a convenient excuse for trying to get away with whatever you want.”

I expect Aunt Margaret to argue back, but she just laughs. “You really are my niece.”

If she means that as a compliment, I don’t take it as such.

“And you’re not entirely wrong,” she allows. “Idotry to get my way. As frequently as possible. There’s a reason for that. I’ll tell you what it is if you cease scowling at me.”

She glances at me and I realize that Iamscowling. I smooth my expression.

“Fine,” I reply, clipped.

Aunt Margaret nods and turns us down another path.

“We both know that it’s not easy to be a princess in this family,” she begins. “But for me, it was even more difficult. I was a fourth child.” She pauses. “Well, technically, I was third. Iamolder than your father, no matter what he might have told you. But I was last in line for succession. For everything, really. Especially affection. My own father showed little interest in me.”

Much as I try to fight it, that deep, yearning place inside me—one I have felt since I was old enough to understand Papa’s disappointment in me—pulses.

“I had to make myself seen,” Aunt Margaret goes on. “To carve out my own place at court, independent of my brothers. My actions at theball may have appeared callous to you, but I was only doing what I have learned is necessary in order to survive.”

The wind picks up, rattling the hedge walls.

“Still,” I say. “The costume was one thing, but everything else? The woman at the banquet? That wasn’t just callous. It was cruel.”

“Maybe. But I think you’ll discover that it requires a certain measure of cruelty to succeed in this palace.”

“Then perhaps I don’t want to succeed,” I mutter.

Aunt Margaret tilts her head at me. “If that’s true, then I’m curious to know what you do want. There aren’t many options for women in the court. I should know.”

I can’t argue with that. In fact, I think of Constance and Elinor. It hadn’t even occurred to them that they could enter the trials, or that their worth shouldn’t be tied to marriage. Would those two young women be so vapid and vain if they weren’t being strangled by the confines of the White Palace? Can I really fault Aunt Margaret for trying to fight her way free?

“Ah,” Aunt Margaret says, breaking me out of the thorny questions. “There’s the center.”

She pulls me along with her into the next section. It’s a wide, circular space, nearly swallowed by the huge statue looming in the middle. A rendering of a man sitting under an apple tree.

Braxos.

A chill nips between my shoulder blades at the notion that I’ve somehow summoned my ancestor with all the reading I’ve been doing about the lost princess.

“Spectacular, isn’t it?” Aunt Margaret comments, examining the statue. “From what I recall, it was commissioned just after Braxos was crowned.”

Itisa stunning piece. The top half represents the peasant Braxos was—the life he was born into—but the water beneath reflects a different image: that of a king.Ifthat’s what he was.

“You don’t like it?” Aunt Margaret asks, reading my expression.

“No. I mean…” I pause. Doessheknow about the legend? It’sprobably better if I don’t push to find out, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “What if Braxos didn’t win the trials?”

“Didn’t win?” she asks, her eyebrows lifting. “Where on earth would you get an idea like that? Is this the latest rumor spreading around court?”

Maybe she doesn’t know. Or she’s just very skilled at lying.

“I’ve heard a few people discussing the possibility,” I say with a shrug. “And if Braxos wasn’t actually the winner, then—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aunt Margaret interrupts.

“Doesn’t matter?” I repeat, confused. “The trials are the whole reason we’re here.”