Page 37 of For the Ghastly and Beautiful

“Ada, let’s go for a stroll around the garden. The night is too beautiful to waste.”

Even though I’m stuffed, I oblige her.

Because who in their right mind says no to the queen?

Not I. Especially when I have questions.

She links her arm in mine and steers me out of the palace to her favorite spot.

The queen’s garden is glorious every day, but tonight it’s luminescent. The visiting fireflies are larger than my foot. They glow in a rainbow of colors, making the flowers appear alive as the breeze teases them. Shadows from the lacey petals dance in crystalized patterns across the ground, swaying to Spiran’s melody.

It’s tranquil, mesmerizing in a way I haven’t ever witnessed before.

“Does the entire island hold treasures such as this?”

“She does,” Isolde replies. “But that isn’t what you wanted to ask me.”

I take a deep breath, unprepared but utterly curious. “Okay. It’s a private matter. You don’t have to answer.”

“Go ahead. I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”

“I couldn’t help but notice that Ecaeris doesn’t look like any of your husbands.”

She nods her understanding. “I suspected you would notice. You want to know if one of them is his father? He does look so much like me that it would be easy to lie, but no, sweet girl. His father passed away shortly after we conceived.”

“My condolences,” I begin, “I didn’t—”

“It’s quite alright.” She pats my forearm. “I don’t miss him the way a woman should miss her lover. I didn’t know him long enough to mourn for my loss, only my child’s.”

Leave it to me to bring up a painful memory when I was just mentioning how happy she was.

Nice, Ada. Real damn nice of you.

Isolde only remains quiet for a moment before she sighs. That sound… It speaks volumes. It’s the toll of decades of secrets, ready to burst free. She wants to talk about it, or maybe she’s simply been waiting for someone who wants to listen.

“To be barren for a millennium was heartbreaking. I pleaded with Spiran to fix my womb, to give me a single child of my own. I bargained and begged, but she couldn’t find anything that was broken about me. All four of her queens were suffering from the same ailment, and she was lost when it came to helping us.

“One night, she visited and told me of a gift she was bringing. I thought it a child, another distraught orphan that I could raise with love. I’ve taken in so many over the centuries, though I knew they’d never quite love me the way they had loved their own mother’s.

“I had no issues with this; I knew where I stood. It kept me sane though sad. There was an emptiness inside me that I couldn’t fill.”

She holds her right hand out as a firefly buzzed past us. It lands in her palm, and she stares unseeing into the purple light.

“But that wasn’t who wandered into my life.”

Isolde smiles at the bug, sorrow creasing the skin around her eyes. As it flies away, she turns to me, a lifetime of knowledge lining her lips as she continues her story.

“Elias was a dark and brooding man, unlike any Mongrel I’d ever met. Immediately upon seeing him, I didn’t care for him in the slightest. He was too handsome, too perfect, too sculpted to be real. However, his words were smooth as silk, and I was caught in his current before I could find my footing.

“His sole purpose had been to manipulate me into his bed. Now I can step back and see him for the gift he was bringing me. But before, I was simply angry about being conned.”

I shake my head at the turn of events, the one-word question slipping from my tongue. “Why?”

“As soon as I voiced my pregnancy, Elias disappeared without a trace. Three days later, I left to visit the Howler tribe. My guards and I saw a beast with the tattered pieces of his clothing grasped in its mighty claws. And right before us, that beast dropped to the forest floor. First to its knees, staring straight into my eyes. Then dead.

“I thought its reaction was the curse of my anger. But it had looked at me as few people have before. My lips quivered as tears rolled down my cheeks. That day, I helped my soldiers dig a grave for our enemy. I couldn’t bring myself to walk away without laying that beast to rest.”

The sudden rustle of leaves causes me to close my eyes, my own tears slowly cascading. I know he’s there without checking. Hostility pours from him in waves.