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The formidable Empress of Rahava would exchange her lavish dresses for a simple loose shirt and trousers. She would sit on the floor and play toy soldiers with me.
With me, she was simplymother.
She made me feel safe.
And I loved her so. That’s how I remember her before she fell ill; before father confined her to her chambers like a caged bird, and as the days passed, I saw her less and less…
She wasn’t from one of the powerful noble families. My mother was from a small village in the mountains on the northern border of Tyron. It’s a big part of the reason I’ve vowed to protect Tyron, although I seldom speak of it.
Father didn’t marry my mother for strategic reasons. On a visit to Tyron in his younger days, he’d caught sight of her… and become entranced by her beauty.
He’d made her, a simple villager, the Empress of Rahava.
Not just his consort.
TheEmpress.
It was unheard of. The court was in an uproar. But father quickly silenced any dissent.
I put my arm around Finley and pull her close to me. As I close my eyes and inhale her sweet scent, I tremble.
I kiss her forehead.
She leans into my kiss. “It’s all right, Corvan. Go and do what you have to. I’ll wait here.”
“Thank you.” I say, absorbing a fraction of her quiet strength.
Nothing more needs to be said. She reads the moment perfectly, offering to wait instead of forcing me to ask.
I leave her in the antechamber, seated between the statues of my mother and father, immortalized in their prime.
I suspect father always thought of himself as a god amongst ordinary men. He cared more about how his deeds and actions would be remembered, rather than how they’d affect the common folk.
And mother was truly a goddess, and she left this world too soon.
She’s with Hecoa now.
I walk forward, my body feeling heavy even though I move like a damn wraith. There are no guards here; no servants, no attendants.
There’s just the sound of my father’s heavy, rattling breathing.
Part of me doesn’t want to see him; not like this, not ever. I could simply refuse to see him; I could deprive him of my presence in his last dying moments.
Part of me wants to be so cruel.
But the boy in me that once yearned for his approval is still there, telling me Imustspeak with him one last time.
I need to know.
Why he sent Finley to me after all these years.
Whatreallyhappened to her mother—and mine.
And why does he still want me to inherit this cursed throne? Even when I’m cursed by this mysterious magic; magic that he’s shunned and forbidden for as long as he’s ruled.
I walk forward, across carpets made of the finest golden silk. Into a chamber that smells of sickness and pungent herbal incense. It’s stuffy in here. A faint haze of medicinal smoke hangs in the air.
I see his bed; a large, imposing thing of gilded wood, with four posters rising to a silken canopy, the wood carved with the most intricate scrollwork.
