“I tried to warn you! What was I supposed to do? Tell her no? At least if I did it myself, I could... manipulate matters.”
“Yes, but you always did play the game far better than I ever have. You had some purpose in being the one to present Lysander to us, and you have some purpose in being here now.”
“Because she’s going mad,” Andraste snaps.
I draw back.
“Ever since you married Evernight, she’s been spiraling. I could see it happening, but I thought that if I just kept her distracted, then perhaps I could manage her moods. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as destructive as I feared.”
“You may as well have tried to hold back the tides.”
“What was I supposed to do?” she snaps. “You left me. You married the enemy, and Mother lost her mind. You know what she’s like. How could I rein her in? I’ve never had the power to match her—that was always you, wild and erratic, but burning like a wildfire with promise.”
It takes me aback. “I’ve never—”
“Been able to control it,” she snaps. “You nearly shook the castle down around our ears the night that Mother sent Nanny Redwyne away, and you were eleven.”
And there it is, an elusive memory trickling through me.
—anger, screaming, the walls shaking, and guards grabbing Nanny Redwyne as they haul her away—
I suck in a sharp breath.
Fae children are gifted with magic, but they don’t truly come into their own until they’re well into their teens. To display so much power at the age of eleven is an anomaly.
Or maybe it’s not, because maybe it wasn’t the fae half of my heritage that nearly tore the castle apart.
“Yes, you. The prodigy. Mother’s little pet. The one she favored out of the pair of us until she began to fear you,” she grates out, fists clenched at her side.
That doesn’t sound like my recollection of events at all.
Or wait....
Maybe… it does. Because she loved me once. Mother loved me once.
And then all of a sudden, she didn’t.
Andraste’s face hardens. “I don’t have anyone else to turn to. You know what the court is like. They’ll eat each other alive the second they think there’s a chance to get ahead. If I show one ounce of weakness….”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you struck a deal with Mother.”
Andraste merely shakes her head with a tired sigh. “I had to, Vi. I had to fall in line with her.”
“No, you didn’t.” Anger blooms. “If you had stood at my side—”
“She’s have obliterated the pair of us, and you know it. We were both younger, and any power either of us has since gained would barely surmount what she could throw at us.” She hesitates. “And there were… other reasons….”
We’re getting nowhere. “Say what you came to say and then leave.”
Andraste turns toward the arched gateway, raking one hand through her hair in an uncharacteristic sign of nerves. “I need help to try and prevent a war. Our people will suffer if this goes any further. It doesn’t matter who wins, there will be mass casualties.”
“War is coming, whether you like it or not. She crossed the line, not us. And there is no guarantee she’ll win.”
“When does Mother ever lose? Do you think she would march against you with only the Queen of Aska at her side? Think, curse you.”
And so I do.
I test a theory. “She’s made an alliance with Angharad.”
Andraste’s lips thin. “No. That would be too far, too much for her border lords to swallow. And she can’t afford to lose Thornwood.”
“But there is no other alliance she could make….”
“Except for the goblin clans.”
The thought leaves me breathless, blood draining from my cheeks. The goblin clans have been kingless for centuries, though I’ve heard whispers there are several scions of the royal bloodline fighting for the throne.
“She’s in negotiations with Urach of the Black Hand. She will back his claim for the throne in return for foot troops. She has more than one ally, Vi, and that ally is right at your unprotected flank.”
I can picture them marching down through the gap in the mountains, hammering down upon an unsuspecting Evernight northern flank. The unseelie armies would never be allowed through the spine of the world—goblins have no liking for either of their fairer brethren—so the north has long been considered safe.
But there are no defenses against the clans.
They are our protection.
Evernight would be crushed between two powerful forces.
I have to get back to Thiago. I have to warn him.
“Why would you tell me this?”
It would be a swift defeat of Evernight.
Again, she looks away. “Because it doesn’t end there. One kingdom was always enough for me. This is madness. This isn’t just a skirmish. It isn’t just a war. She wants to drag the entire south down, and if she succeeds, then the unseelie are poised in the north, salivating over the prospect of our five kingdoms tearing at each other like dogs. I just want to protect my people. I can’t do this alone.”
Asturians will die with this information. She’s given us the means to turn the tide of an imminent defeat. But perhaps more of our people will die if she doesn’t yield.
I slowly sheathe my sword.
Once we were allies. Once we were sisters. Is there any chance of either of us returning to that point?
“What do you intend?” I ask.
“Hold your generals back,” she says. “I just need time. If our forces clash, then it’s too late—"
“It’s already too late. The only way we survive is if Mother dies.”
Andraste takes a step back, rubbing at her throat, eyes troubled.
“Once you are on the throne,” I tell her, “then there is the possibility of a truce with Evernight. There’s a possibility we can hold the Alliance together.”
“I don’t have the means to kill her,” she finally says.
“Maybe… maybe I do.”
Our eyes meet.
“How did you do it?” she demands. “How did you get the power to defeat her at the Queensmoot? I’ve
