Page 77 of The Crown’s Temptation

Color touched her cheeks. Orsin noticed.

He smiled.

"I suspect you will."

The next morning. Ryaran stood outside the council chamber.

"The royal mages are examining it," Orsin said pleasantly.

"Examining?"

"We detected irregularities."

"I would like it returned."

"You will. As soon as they've determined it poses no danger." He walked away.

My mother watched him disappear down the corridor.

She already knew.

She would never ask him for it again.

Men like Orsin did not surrender the things they wanted.

The memory shifted.

Several months later. The same palace but different somehow.

Jularin had not left.

I found my mother in a corridor, alone, holding something small in her hands. A pendant. She turned it over once and then pressed it against her chest and closed her eyes and her face did the thing faces did when they were deciding something they had already decided and needed to finish deciding.

She had come back.

She had left and come back and I understood why without being told. Jularin was not herself. I could see that the moment the memory brought me to her. She sat in a room that was too small and too quiet with a child in her arms. Another child slept in a cradle beside her.

She had given birth just days ago. She should have been elsewhere, somewhere warmer, somewhere that smelled less like silver and cold water.

He had not attempted to siphon Jularin because he knew she was not the key. But he had been draining her lightcraft all the same. The toll of it was written plainly across her face.

The servants whispered in the corner.

"She will be taken to the North Tower soon."

"Twelve coins says she gets the yellow room," another said quietly.

My mother crossed the room, sat beside her sister, and took her hand. She did not speak for a long time.

It was the morning of the wedding.

I did not want to watch this part, but I watched anyway.

My mother in a gown that was not hers, standing in a room that was not meant for her, the king announcing to a hall full of Yorali court that Ryaran of Alarna would be his wife. Not Jularin, who had just borne his children. Ryaran.

I knew without anyone saying it aloud that the king could not resist. My mother bore the same Mark of Forizan on her chest as I did. She was more beautiful than Jularin. Moreover, she was the Queen Heir. She could provide him with power and access.

I watched Jularin's face.