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Tellren cleared his throat. “Unless her Highness needs anything from me,” he said, trailing off.
“No, thank you, Tellren,” my mother said, releasing me from her vice-like grip. “That will be all.”
Tellren bowed. “As you wish,” he said, and then he left, shutting the door once he was outside.
My mother eyed me up and down, her blue eyes sparkling against the sunlight flooding through the window.
“Let me guess,” she said, “Your father went to pick you up?”
“He did,” I said.
“And he didn’t like it?”
“He did not.”
My mother shook her head, her silver curls bouncing. “Why do you torment him so?”
“Torment him?! How am I tormenting him?”
“You know how he gets when you go off on your own.”
“Don’t tell me you’re on his side.”
“I’m on nobody’s side, that’s a losing game. I just don’t want to see you two constantly at each other’s throats.”
I shook my head. “He’s infuriating sometimes.”
“But he means well.”
“That’s what Tellren said, and I know it’s true. I just feel like he doesn’t actually care aboutmeand the things that I need. Not the way you do.”
My mother sighed, then smiled. Her expression softened, and she held my shoulders in her hands. “He cares about you just as much as he cares about me and your brother, Radulf.”
“Radulfdidn’t have to stay behind and sit through a Royal Selection.”
“No, Radulf’s responsibilities were to the Moon Children. They needed a new Alpha, and he offered himself up for the position. He gave up his titles, his land, and the throne of Windhelm… for them.”
“You mean he managed to escape his duties to the crown.”
“Do you really think he’s on some kind of holiday? It’s hard living out there. Trust me, I tried it. What Radulf did was noble, and wise. He knew that you would be the perfect Princess… and that you would one day become the best Queen this Kingdom has ever known.”
“We already have one of those,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And when did my big brother become some kind of soothsayer? Honestly.”
“Hey…” she held my gaze, “I get it. Trust me.” My mother took my hand in hers, turned my palm down, and placed the back of her hand next to mine. We both had similar, silver tattoos emblazoned on our skin. The mark of the wolf. “But you and he are cut from the same cloth, Snowdrop. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the reason you and your father don’t… see eye to eye.”
“You’re never going to stop calling me that, are you?” I asked, after a pause.
“What… you figure out how to turn into a wolf and suddenly I can’t call youSnowdropanymore? Geez. It’s worse than puberty!”
“You would know. You went through it, too.”
“I went through it later than you did, and honestly, I didn’t have a good time of it either. We were in the middle of…” she shook her head, “Well, you know that story; I don’t have to tell it again.” Her face lit up, a bright smile filling her eyes. “It’s time foryourstory, Amara. My daughter. My literal world.”
I took a deep breath in through the nose, then exhaled. The difference between my mother and my father was crystal clear, like night and day. My father had a habit of triggering every last one of my rebellious instincts. It was like a gift. We were constantly bashing heads because he wanted me to do things a certain way, and I was starting to questionwhythose things had to be done in the way he wanted them done.
He was rigid, and inflexible. I was stubborn and argumentative. We would get into it, I would get grounded, and on and on it went. For a while, it was like a merry-go-round. An endless cycle of butting heads, usually ending in my father invoking his full name, or my full name, or his title, or my title—anything to get me to remember my place.
My mother, on the other hand… she hadfinesse.
