The Queen's Price

FIFTY-FOUR

Saetien spent two evenings reading and rereading Wilhelmina’s journals, but they didn’t bring her any closer to figuring out who she was supposed to be.

Wilhelmina Benedict settled among Tuathal’s minor aristos, avoiding the Queens and their courts. Butler had stayed long enough to help her put down roots; taught her how to hire staff, how to shop at the open markets in case the cook took ill; taught her how to cook a steak and make scrambled eggs so that she wasn’t completely dependent on someone else for food. She had an independent income that came from an unknown source—and that was of interest to some of the men who were looking to handfast as a way to increase their social standing. But when the question of bloodlines came up, as it always did in aristo families, most of those men backed away because she had originally come from Chaillot. Being connected to someone from Terreille did nothing for a person’s social standing—unless that Terreillean was very powerful.

According to the information supplied by the Keep, Wilhelmina Benedict’s father was a Warlord named Robert Benedict and her mother was a Black Widow named Adria. There was no mention of Robert’s second marriage or his connection to Alexandra through Leland, so there was no mention of the name Angelline—a name that would have meant awkward questions, since Jaenelle Angelline was known throughout the Realm.

Wilhelmina eventually married a man who loved her for herself, and if her journals were to be believed, she never felt a burning passion for her husband but she did love him, and they were content living in Tuathal and leasing a country house for a few weeks each year. They were content with raising their children.

As long as you didn’t look closely, you could say Wilhelmina Benedict was content.

Her journals told a different story. She felt ashamed of her mixed feelings about her sister—a sister she didn’t name even in her private journals. And she felt angry for feeling ashamed, since she was sure most of the Blood would have felt the same way upon seeing Witch’s true Self.

Still, she didn’t tell that one granddaughter about her sister until a month after the news that Jaenelle Angelline had died and Daemon Sadi had begun a year of mourning.

A secret that had been at the core of Wilhelmina’s life. By her own choice—a choice made for her survival. Not everyone could serve in the Dark Court. Not everyone could live in the shadow of the sheer power that court represented.

Saetien understood Wilhelmina’s choice. Hell’s fire, she had a father and uncle who still served Witch. And she felt like she’d been competing with Jaenelle Angelline all her life—and losing.

She set the journals aside. She didn’t want the answers she suspected Butler would give her, but it looked like she was going to have to ask questions about Jaenelle if there was any chance of getting the answers she needed in order to figure out her own life.

It was late, and Kieran wasn’t pleased to have to ask one of the kindred to pull the pony cart so that she could go to Butler’s cottage at that hour, but he did ask and he escorted her right up to the gate.

Saetien climbed down from the cart and marched up to the cottage’s front door. Then she banged on the wood until the door opened.

“I’ve had to compete with Jaenelle Angelline my whole life,” she said. “With me always being the loser.”

“A one-sided competition of your own making,” Butler replied. “Do you know why this competition wouldn’t have made sense to her?”

“Because she was more powerful than anyone else?”

“Nothing to do with power, Saetien. You can’t compete with Jaenelle because you will never be required to pay a Queen’s price.” So much sadness in Butler’s smile. “Wait here.”

He didn’t close the cottage door. She could have crossed the threshold and gone inside. It was the sadness in his smile that stopped her. The sadness and two words—“Queen’s price.” Was that something she should know about? Was it one of those lessons she hadn’t listened to because she didn’t want to know about Queens despite having had a friend who was a Queen?

What sort of price? Would Zoey be required to pay it someday? Did she know? Did Titian?

Butler returned in a few minutes, although it felt like rocks could grow in the time it took him to fetch . . .

She wasn’t sure what he’d gone to fetch. A shallow wooden box, rectangular in shape, and a cloth bag. The box contained . . .

“Keep the mud moist but not soupy,” Butler said. “You want it to be able to hold the sticks, and they won’t stand up if the mud is too wet.”

“You want me to poke sticks into mud?”

“Five hundred sticks. They’re in the bag. Five hundred, Saetien. No more, no less. If the count isn’t accurate, you’ll have to start again.”

“Then what?”

“You bring it back tomorrow at sunset.”

Kieran climbed down from the pony cart and took the box, putting a tight shield around it to keep the mud from sliding out on the drive home. Saetien settled in the seat, put the bag between her feet, and held the box while she and Kieran returned to the stables.

“Leave it here,” he said after arranging a couple bales of hay to form a kind of table. “If someone knocks that mud all over my mother’s floor, we’ll all experience Eileen’s wrath.”

Saetien set the bag of sticks beside the box. “Impressive wrath?”

“Not something you’re likely to forget.”

She took extra care wiping her feet before entering the house. Just in case.