Page 10 of The Witch Queen

“I don’t recall requesting your opinions.”

“Yes, and Idon’trecall requesting to be trapped inside a mirror. Yet here we are.”

“Speaking of that,” I say. “I hope you enjoyed your little stunt earlier with the physicians. It will be your last.”

He sneers. “I suppose we’ll see about that,wife.”

I flinch at the word, even though I was the one to arrange our sham of a marriage. A quick, secretive affair conducted before his privy council could raise enough resistance against it.

“I’m as much your wife as your wasted shell of a body is my husband.”

“That crown on your head suggests otherwise,” Callen replies archly. “Tell yourself what you like, but youoweme. A little gratitude now and again wouldn’t kill you.”

Not for the first time, I wonder if taking Callen’s heart was more trouble than it was worth. Nettle meows, evidently agreeing. But if Callen has spent his imprisonment learning how to irritate me, I’ve done the same with him.

“You know,” I comment, “there was a time when half the court would have been waiting outside your chambers after one of your episodes, desperate for word of your condition. Tonight, no one mentioned it. Not even Weston. Aren’t the two of you supposed to be friends?”

Callen glowers and I know I’ve hit my mark.

“In fact, I don’t recall anyone even speaking of you this evening,” I press, swirling my wineglass. “Soon enough, I wonder if anyone will remember that you exist at all.”

“Oh, really?” Callen asks. “And what about you? You can wear that eyesore of a crown and sit on the throne, but someoneisgoing to figure out what you’ve done. That you’re a—”

“Climber?” I ask, tilting my head. “A whore? Awitch? Please, tell me something I haven’t heard a hundred times before.”

Callen’s jaw works, but he remains silent.

“Go on,” I prompt him. “Tell me what I am.”

He battles to keep the words behind his teeth. But the shadows slink toward the glass. My power hums inside me, drawing on the connection between us. Forcing him to obey.

“Tell me,” I repeat.

I step near enough to the glass that I can glimpse my own reflection. My dark, nearly black eyes stark against my white skin. The shards of my Bloodstone crown glittering in the firelight.

“You,my queen,” he spits, “are fairest of them all.”

Chapter Three

Ayleth

The Western Mine is about a half day’s journey from the palace. I depart at first light, Riven rolling by outside the carriage window. Snow has begun to fall, the flakes sticking to the glass. The forest’s trees are gray and barren, their branches like skeletal hands tearing into the sky. It’s only autumn, early in the year for such cold, but we haven’t experienced proper seasons since the Veil fell. I suspect that the interminable gray is yet another symptom of Malum’s return.

Most of the time, the perpetual winter-like state of the realm doesn’t bother me. Occasionally, though, I miss the verdant green of the forest surrounding Stonehaven. The brush of a spring breeze against my skin while I tend the garden. The heavy floral scent of lilies and roses. Will there ever be another summer? Or is this another part of the price I paid for my own power? Shadows drift around me in the carriage.

Would you take it back?I can almost hear them murmur.

No. Not for anything.

“Why did Roland want you to visit?” Joan asks from her place across from me. Her dog, Fitz, is beside her, though only his tiny, fawn-colored ears and black eyes are visible above his nest of blankets.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I reply with a shrug. “His note only stated that there was something I needed to see.”

The carriage jostles over a rut and Fitz huffs at the disturbance.

“That’s rather vague,” Joan comments. “But he’s not one for exaggeration.”

Or friendliness. “Whatever it is, I just hope it doesn’t affect the Dwarves’ weapons shipment. The sooner we move against Rycinthia, the better.”