Page 141 of Tale of the Heart Queen

I was hoping she’d go quietly with her tail between her legs, but from the look on Halo’s face, I know that was also naive and wishful thinking. She spots me and then scurries to where I’m sitting. No one seems to notice; everyone is too busy arguing amongst themselves.

She bends down and whispers, “We need help. Apricia hasn’t taken the news of her dismissal well.”

I notice Cornelius Heulfryn eyeing the two of us from across the table. I try to decide whether soliciting his help would be better or worse. Can he calm his daughter down? In hindsight, maybe I should have discussed all of this with him to begin with. He’s always struck me as a reasonable man, but I rushed through the process in my excitement to get Apricia out of here.

“I’m coming,” I whisper to Halo. Then I look over at Cornelius and jerk my chin towards the door. He nods and pushes himself up, proving that he’s also a smart man.

I stand too as Erevan gives me a quizzical look.

“Sorry, I need to go,” I say. I feel bad leaving him and Tyr, but I have no authority here, and they’ll have to sort this out on their own.

Cornelius and I follow Halo out of the room and through the palace into the queen’s wing. Even from a distance, I hear the screech that’s so adept at shredding every eardrum located within a square mile.

Halo walks in front of us with her hands clasped and tosses a worried look over her shoulder.

“What is the meaning of this?” Cornelius asks, peering down the hallway.

“I regret not telling you this earlier,” I say, “but this morning, Tyr released the Sun Queen Tributes from their obligations and they were told they could return home.”

“Could?” Cornelius asks, looking at me.

“Were asked to return home . . . in the case of your daughter.”

The truth is the other Tributes were invited to remain at the Sun Court, but Apricia’s letter made no such offer. I think Tyr couldn’t stand the reminder. I think if he were a crueler man, he might have sent Apricia out of Aphelion altogether.

“I see,” Cornelius says, his lips pressing together.

“It seems she’s not taking the news well.”

That’s an understatement, I realize as we draw closer. The very walls seem to be vibrating with the sounds of Apricia’s tantrum. Glass shatters, and furniture breaks. We pick up our paces, entering the large bedroom suite that has been the former residence of a line of Sun Queens to witness a most pitiful sight.

Apricia is a frenzied nightmare of screeching, wild hair, and tears. She’s trashing the entire room—ripping the sheets, smashing the mirrors and trinkets, and kicking furniture into the walls.

“I was supposed to be the queen!” she screeches. “That bitch stole it from me! I will kill her!”

I can only assume she means Lor, who is obviously responsible for none of this, but there was never any love lost between those two.

“The Mirror chose me! I was going to be a queen!”

She repeats the same mantra over and over, and she picks up another chair and hurls it at the fireplace. It smashes apart and pieces land in the hearth, a few splinters catching flame.

I’m worried she’ll burn the entire place down at this rate. Cornelius watches his daughter with a mixture of sadness and resigned exhaustion. I don’t know what kind of relationship he has with her, but then he says, “She’s always been . . . difficult.”

There’s a threadbare weariness in his words that makes me take pity on the man. Perhaps he thought he’d gotten her out of his hair too. What a perfect match she could have made with Atlas. They could have driven each other insane until the end of time.

“Shall I call for more guards?” I ask over the backdrop of more glass breaking and furniture shattering.

“No,” he says. “I’ll deal with it. Grant her this dignity, at least. Everyone will already know within the hour anyway.”

I nod and step back, allowing him the opportunity to calm her down. He approaches her with his hands in front of him like he’s trying to trick a wild animal into trusting him.

When Apricia sees her father, she stops, a jewelry box poised over her head.

“Apricia,” he says softly. “Put it down.”

She shakes her head. Tears coat her face, and her shoulders tremble. She clutches the box to her chest.

“I was going to be a queen,” she says with such broken agony that a tiny, withered part of my heart almost feels sorry for her. She too was brought here under a series of false pretenses and made to believe she was risking her life for a crown.