Page 56 of A Fate In Moonstone

Chapter Thirty-One

“I’m an adult.”

“She’s my mother and she loves me.”

“She’s the queen and has killed lots of people.”

“Nothing to worry about, Sapphira.”

I whispered to myself over and over as I rummaged through her closet of exquisite dresses and jewelry. The floors beneath her massive four post bed were immaculate as I crawled under, searching for hidden compartments in the wood furniture.

Memorizing where the rug and chairs in her sitting area of the room were, so I could put them back in place after moving them around.

Nothing in the flood creaked, every surface I tapped on didn’t reveal secrets.

Mother’s suite was clean, organized, and the more I looked, the less lively it felt. As if this room could belong to anyone. No one would know that my mother, the kind, smart, and fierce woman that she was slept in that bed. All but her dresses were white and gray in this room.

My mother loved greens, golds, and rich browns. Earth colors.

I’d never noticed any of this before.

A thickness stuck in my throat as shame bubbled in my stomach.

I know mothers keep their pain, their struggles from their young children as to not burden them. But I was an adult and I wanted to be there for her as she was for me. I could handle it.

Although snooping wasn’t exactly showing that trust.

Guilt ripped through me, and I raced to the door.

This was wrong, I shouldn’t be—

A blast of light blinded my eyes just as I gripped the handle.

“What is—”

The sun’s rays came in through the window and hit something that reflected. Something I hadn’t noticed.

On the balcony where she liked to take her tea was a glass panel on the back of her table.

No. Not glass.

Diamond.

I fell to my knees before the table I’d sat on and near so many times in my life.

How had I missed this before?

I guess I assumed it was the décor, and with her core being diamond it would be everywhere. Hell, my room had sapphire art sprinkled around, mostly near the windows. I loved seeing the way the light brought out the different shades of blues in my gems.

Maneuvering the table to see better in the light, I gasped.

It was hard to make out in the cut edges of the diamond but there was something rectangular, and dark inside.

This was wrong. I knew it.

And still I closed my eyes and focused on my skin. Tingles shot through my nerves, and that so familiar sensation of tightness covered my flesh.

Whatever that object was, she placed it in diamond for a reason. Only her core, or a diamond itself could get the item hidden inside.