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“And the Nord Resources Group is in enough debt that they need the Crown to bail them out every year. We can’t develop those mines as a public project without external investment.” I sigh, shaking my head.
“NRG would be the first option, but the CEO says until they’ve finished restructuring, they can’t take on any more work. If unemployment weren’t so bad in Nord, Donovan would be laughed out of the country, but things are getting dire. We might actually need to entertain his offer.”
“I’ve seen the protests.” Thousands of people in the streets, demanding employment. Telling me I’ve failed them as their Queen.
Silas grunts. “We need to provide jobs for people, and soon. We can’t wait for NRG to get their act together.”
I let out a sigh. Just another day as Queen, really. There have been dozens of prospectors trying to exploit my country’s natural resources. Politics are a delicate tightrope, and I’m growing weary of walking it every day.
Maybe I should just try to enjoy Prince Gabriel’s wedding and worry about Mr. Donovan tomorrow.
Weddings are tougher than politics, though. I had what Gabriel has. I had a loving spouse and a bright future. I didn’t have a child, but I hoped for one. A decade ago, when I married Xavier, I thought it would be less than a year before I was a mother.
I suppose, in a way, it was a small mercy that I didn’t know of my infertility on my wedding day. There was nothing to dampen my spirits that day. Nothing to make me feel the icy chill of my own barrenness.
I have polycystic ovary syndrome. PCOS. It went undiagnosed for years because I was largely asymptomatic. Sure, I had irregular periods, sometimes not menstruating for months at a time—but the doctors said it was normal. I was young. I was a healthy weight, and I didn’t have excessive unwanted hair growth. I had a bit of acne, but nothing that caused huge concern. My periods would even out as I got older, the medical team assured me. It wouldn’t be a problem for childbearing.
They were wrong.
Nothing became normal. Even when I was twenty-three and getting married, way past the end of puberty. Even as I tried and tried and tried to get pregnant, the doctors assured me it was still possible. My body would cooperate. I just had to keep trying.
And try I did. Every method. Fertility treatments. IVF. Every invasive, heartbreaking procedure that wore me down, month after month after month.
My body betrayed me.
No baby grew in my womb, and I became desperate. I wasn’t thinking of the kingdom, of my duty, of my people. I wasn’t thinking of politics, or the hundreds of tightropes that were being snipped while I was distracted.
I was only thinking of my own failures as a woman and a wife.
That’s when the doctors finally diagnosed me with infertility and PCOS. Three months later, Xavier went skiing, crashed into a tree, and I lost him, too.
I’m a barren, childless, husbandless queen. I’ve been drifting through life on my own, wondering what I did to deserve this. Was I a naughty child and somehow brought this on myself? Is it because I didn’t exercise enough? Because I snuck too much alcohol at parties in my teens? Is it because of the stress of becoming a monarch when I was ten years old? I skipped class too many times at boarding school?
What did I do? Why me?
Putting my champagne flute down on a table, I clasp my hands together to stop them from trembling.
Stop thinking of the past, Penelope.
What use is it dwelling on my own failures? I’m still a queen. The reigning monarch of the arctic kingdom of Nord. I successfully led my kingdom out of one recession and made sure my people were happy and safe; now I’m staring down the barrel of another economic downturn. After Xavier died, politics became my sole priority. The wealth and happiness of my people became my only duty.
I’ve done truly good things for the people of Nord, even though I was the youngest female monarch in the kingdom’s history, and I had plenty of detractors. I’ve silenced most of the criticism, except the ones that call me nasty names.
Straightening my shoulders, I lift my chin.
Silas makes an approving noise. “There she is.” He smirks.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Ice Queen.”
Turning my head, I give my brother the iciest Ice Queen glare I can manage. Bitter satisfaction gurgles in my heart when his smile slips.
Silas throws his hands up, dipping his chin. “Fine. Be miserable. I’m going to go over there.” My brother waves an arm at a group of young women on the other side of the tent. One of them glances at him, hiding her coy smile behind a hand.
I roll my eyes. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble one day, Silas.”
Flashing an impish grin at me, my brother pushes his silky, perfectly tousled hair off his forehead and sets off in the direction of the women.
