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Fingertips ghosted over my nape like delicate spider webs, gone so quickly I could almost convince myself it hadn’t happened at all. But I knew she was still here with the daughter she’d given up everything to have.
I’d loved her like the night loves the dawn. Admiring the way the sky lightened each morning, even as her glory destroyed me. Brief moments where we’d existed at the same time, bleeding away all too quickly into the harsh light of day. Duty and service to House Isador made up most of the hundreds of years of my existence, with only a precious few nights where she was wholly mine to hold. Even then, she’d never been so open with her affections. I knew she loved me. She loved all her Blood. But open, raw emotion would make her vulnerable, which was one word that could never be used to describe my former queen.
But Shara would burn down the world to save one of us.
To save me. Again.
“She sent them to the other powerful houses, didn’t she.” Shara’s eyes flared wide, the deepest velvet midnight sky dotted with sparkling diamonds of starlight. “But the risk! Goddess. I can’t see Marne Ceresa accepting an Isador Blood into her court.”
“It’s not uncommon for powerful queens to exchange Blood,” Guillaume said.
She grimaced. “I don’t want spies in my house, let alone my bed.”
The knight shrugged slightly, and a short silver blade dropped into his palm. “Spies are also weapons, my queen.”
Her jaw flexed, her eyes glittering with the cutting brilliance of diamonds. “I won’t send you into another queen’s court to kill them. I’m not her.”
Rik grunted with agreement. “We definitely don’t need any other queen’s weapons in our court.”
Though our alpha was massive enough I had no doubt he’d swat away any inside attempt to attack our queen like a puny gnat.
“What do you think?” Shara asked, gazing back at me evenly.
I tried to suppress my surprise, but I don’t think I succeeded by the narrowing of her eyes. “Me? As our alpha already said?—”
“I didn’t ask what Rik thinks,” she cut in, though she dropped a hand to soothingly pat his thick thigh. “I asked what my mother’s former alpha thinks about Guillaume’s suggestion.”
I hadn’t allowed myself to think as an alpha since coming to Shara’s court. It wasn’t my place. Rik did a passable job despite his youth, and when he hesitated, he had the last Templar knight’s experience to draw upon. Guillaume never hesitated to contribute his wealth of wisdom gained after centuries of service to Desideria, who’d consolidated an immense amount of power during her long Triune reign.
Which was the point of contention here and now.
Rik thought like a young alpha in love with his even younger, extremely powerful queen. He didn’t think like a Triune queen’s alpha. I didn’t doubt he’d be brutal and merciless to anyone who dared threaten our queen’s life, but in the game of queens…
“G’s right,” I replied softly, keeping my gaze lowered from Rik’s so he didn’t bristle with challenge. “He’s only here because your mother freed him, and she never did anything without a very well-thought-out and deliberate reason. At great cost, I will add.”
Shara’s head cocked slightly. “What cost? I know she died to have me, but I don’t think we’ve ever talked about her paying any kind of debt because she indirectly killed Desideria.”
“I can’t speak to the cost your mother might have paid, but it didn’t matter whether Desideria’s death was indirect or direct,” Guillaume said. “Your mother poisoned my blood with her cobra queen, knowing Desideria would die as a result. When any queen dies, you risk stirring her goddess’ wrath, but especially a Triune-level queen.”
Shara leaned forward, searching my eyes. Her hand cupped my cheek. “Do you have a memory you can show me about what happened to my mother after she killed Desideria?”
Slowly, I shook my head, regret tightening my chest. “I do not, my queen. Her Blood weren’t privy to the recompense put upon her by the goddesses, and I wasn’t present when she freed G. I can only tell you what I suspect.”
Even though she nodded encouragingly, I still hesitated. I loathed the thought I might cause harm to my young queen’s tender, precious heart. “I would say for the most part, none of us noticed any change in our queen, other than a huge increase of power. Not unexpected since she killed one of the most powerful queens to ever walk this earth, and those powers came to her. At the time, I thought she was making a direct play for the Triune herself, but decades passed without her even speaking to Marne Ceresa or any other queen, for that matter. Again, I thought keeping those new powers hidden was part of her long play for the Triune. No one could know she was the one who killed Desideria until she was ready.
“She retreated to her library in New York City for long periods of time. Researching her new powers, so I thought. Or learning how to manage Desideria’s gifts she’d inherited. But no. She never used any new powers she gained from House Modron. I think…” I exhaled heavily. “I think she was trying to find a way around whatever agreement she’d come to with the goddesses, but in the end, even she couldn’t find a way to bypass their decree.”
A shattered look flickered through Shara’s eyes. Cuts of lightning to rend and destroy.
Steeling myself, I continued. “She already planned to sacrifice herself in order to generate the kind of power it would take to conceive you. To break you free of the other queens and their plans. That didn’t change. But I don’t believe she expected to be lost from collective memory. For you, her beloved child she’d given up everything to have, would grow up never knowing her. Let alone what she’d done for you. There could be no guarantee you’d ever even know her true name, since no one living could say it aloud. That, I believe, was the ultimate cost she paid to Desideria’s goddess.”
“Goddesses, plural,” Guillaume added. “She used Modron to honor the Celtic fertility goddess, which was only one aspect of her power. She was descended from the triple goddesses, the Matres and Matronae.”
Shara didn’t cry, but the pained look still crackled in her dark eyes as she turned to the knight. “Three goddesses? I didn’t know that was possible.”
“She was well blessed.” Though the curl of G’s lip indicated his disgust at the things his queen had forced him to do. “Modron and Her sisters definitely demanded justice for her death.”
“But she killed dozens of other queens,” Shara protested. “She forced you to go into nests and kill everyone inside. Hundreds of people. Right?”
