At such close quarters, Cressyda could see the stiffness of her mother’s lean face. Charms and glamours could smooth wrinkles and enhance beauty, but they never looked quite natural in the brightness of daylight. Her own appearance was too rigid, her hair a little too bouncy and her eyes a little too bright.
‘You are thin lately,’ continued the Queen. She took Cressyda’s right hand in her own, linking her thumb and finger around Cressyda’s wrist, an absent-minded gesture she had repeated oftenthroughout Cressyda’s childhood, as if always checking that her daughter still fitted. ‘Small and delicate,’ she added softly.
In the past, such a comment from Queen Flavria would prompt a warm glow of approval, but now Cressyda felt nothing.
‘Mother, we must speak about something.’
Queen Flavria moved to the dressing table and began sorting through the perfume bottles lined up before the mirror. ‘Hmm?’ she said.
‘Samsel will arrive soon, and he’ll want to make some changes to the Calestran court.’
‘Yes, I suppose as the new King that would be expected.’
Cressyda did not know how to broach what had always remained unsaid between them, but she must try. ‘Samsel’s going to change things for us. For me.’
Queen Flavria picked up a glass vial and sniffed it. ‘I don’t understand,’ she replied, dabbing some scent on her wrist.
‘He’s never liked me … He hates me.’
The Queen hesitated. She put the perfume bottle down and her gaze skittered away, falling somewhere on the far wall. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, her voice high and forced.
‘But it’s true—’
‘Samsel is yourbrother. Of course he doesn’t hate you. What nonsense.’
Before she could stop herself, Cressyda cried, ‘He’s not my brother!’
Queen Flavria stilled. Her hands drifted to her sides. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
Cressyda took a deep breath. She must say it. She must say what had always been unsaid. Perhaps if she explained to Queen Flavriawhat she had learnt – that she was one of the Mountain folk, that she had a Gift – then she could reclaim control. If she revealed it before Samsel did, perhaps she could shape the truth in her own way and stop it being twisted against her.
Cressyda swallowed, her pulse quickening. ‘Samsel isn’t my brother. He isn’t my blood kin. And …’ She squeezed her fingers into fists, her nails biting into her palms. ‘And you are not my mother.’
The Queen’s lip quivered. She took a step back, pressing a hand to her chest.
‘Not my birth mother,’ Cressyda added quickly.
‘Why would you say such a thing?’
‘Because I’m—’
‘Enough!’ cried Queen Flavria. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’
Fear and panic burned in the Queen’s amber eyes as she flew to the door, skirts billowing. The older Cressyda grew, the more she had come to understand, with a creeping realization, that the Queen was not the untouchable, commanding figure she had always seemed. Beneath her frilly clothes and enhanced beauty, Queen Flavria was fragile and damaged. She had been moulded by a lifetime of indulgence, first as the cherished only daughter among eight brothers in the Kingdom of Carniva. Then, as a wife, she had been adored and sheltered by a husband whose jovial nature made it easy to overlook her flaws, a man so besotted with his lovely bride that he never questioned the consequences of his blind devotion. And now, soon to be stripped of those comforts under the rule of her cruel eldest son, she was sinking into denial.
‘Wait!’ cried Cressyda. She tried to grab hold of the Queen as she swept past, but the black taffeta skirts slid through her fingers, soft and supple like dark water. She had known the Queen wouldnot take this well, but she had not expected a complete rejection. ‘Please, I need to explain it to you.’
But Queen Flavria did not turn back. ‘You’re unwell,’ she called over her shoulder as she sailed out of the door. ‘You’re saying absurd, hurtful things!’
‘But—’
‘You will stay in your bedchamber until you are better. I’ll send someone to attend to you. I no longer feel well myself.’
And before Cressyda could stop her, the Queen was gone.
Maylie
MAYLIE CUT ACROSSthe mountainside, striding through gorse and straggly heather that snagged at the edges of her cloak. A velvety darkness folded around her; all was hushed except for the echoing bleat of a roaming goat and the distant surge of the mountain streams. Behind her, Silicia slumbered. The few speckles of candlelight that flickered at cottage windows faded one by one and as she moved further away, the village disappeared, swallowed into the night.
