Page 78 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Strategic marriages?” Cyril tried to organize the questions that started flying around in her mind, and she grimaced.

A wistful sort of smile settled onto Runa’s face.

“You’re wondering if my marriage was one of them?”

Cyril nodded.

“Not in the traditional sense. I met Lars when he came to my village up on the Forn Peninsula on a tour with his father. He flirted shamelessly with me in the temple I worked in, and apparently decided he would make me his wife,” Runa chuckled, a fond glimmer in her eyes. “Now Lars meant it to be more of a romantic thing, that he would woo me so thoroughly in his short visit I would become enamored with him, but his father saw it as another opportunity for reconciliation. So he negotiated the details with the elders of my village, and Lars and I wed a few weeks later.”

“A few weeks? That’s—” Cyril gaped.

She despised the idea of marriage and fae bonding. Especially the foolish things people did when they were so enrapt with one another. In the south, women had it bad enough being betrothed to men they never met, but at least they had engagements that lasted for months...

To think of it being only weeks had Cyril shuddering.

Runa nodded as she said, “Quick? It was. The court officials fed Lars and me a myriad of reasons, and we had no grounds to question them. It wasn’t until after Lars took the throne that we found out that my village, well…” She exhaled sharply through her nose. “They sold me. Or Lars’ father bought me, depending on which lens you look through. It was a business transaction that they all wanted to settle quickly.”

The thought made Cyril’s stomach turn. How disgusting, that they treated Runa like goods being sold at the market.

“I’m so sorry that happened.”

Runa’s shrug was remarkably nonchalant for what she shared.

“It brought me a kind-hearted, loving husband and two beautiful, healthy children. I really could not ask for more. And”—Runa chuckled a little to herself—“when Astor came home from a tour, infatuated with a blonde priestess he’d met in the same village in the Forns, we made him court her thoroughly.”

“Reyna?” Cyril asked.

She felt brazen now, with all that the queen had shared with her so freely.

Runa nodded.

“About a year after they met, she moved here so they could live together for more than a few weeks at a time, but they didn’t marry for another year after that.”

It felt like every time Runa answered one of her questions, she stirred up another half dozen.

Courting, of course, was not something Cyril had any personal experience in, or that Dion had ever really bothered to explain to her, but she understood the basics.

And she knew that courting and living together were not two things that went hand in hand, not for high-born women in the south, at least. She meant to ask Runa if that was common here, for unwed couples to live freely with one another, but the queen continued.

“Now, I promised you that this entire history lesson had a purpose, yes?”

Cyril nodded.

“When I saw the runes that were recorded from the first death, I told Lars right away that this was the act of a purist, whether working alone or at the behest of their village. I tried to teach him and General Ezra about the significance of the elements and their cleansing properties in the culture that I grew up in.” Runa took a breath. “But they told me not to worry, and said there was nothing else to tie it to any of the villages they were monitoring.”

The queen’s sudden interest in Cyril’s studies made perfect sense. She just wasn't sure if it made her feel better or worse that they dismissed Runa's theories so quickly in her own damn court.

“So when I mentioned the scroll last night…” Cyril started.

“You thoroughly piqued my interest.” Runa nodded. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence you’ve now made that connection to the purists as well, even unknowingly, and Dion, well… Truthfully, he’s likely just following what Lars and Ezra have rolled down to him.”

Dion, taking direction from someone else? Cyril had never heard of a more unlikely thing. Instead, she asked, “You think there’s something to it then?”

“I do, and I don’t want you to think your findings are a waste. Just because the men dismiss us, it doesn’t mean we are wrong in our theories.” Runa extended her upturned palms to Cyril, tattooed with the same pattern of dots and lines as the rest of her hands and forearms.

She settled her hands on the soft, warm skin of the queen’s.

“All I ask is that you do not let that theory die. Even if they dismiss you, surface it whenever you can. Do not stop looking, learning, and listening, even when it feels fruitless. And lastly”—a warm smile crossed Runa’s face, her eyes softening as she squeezed Cyril’s hands—“do not be afraid to ask for my help, Cyril, for anything. I know trust is not something easily earned, but I am your ally, and I will take every opportunity to prove that to you.”