Solstice curtsied. “My lady.” She aimed for the perfect blend of humility and adoration—but then she stopped. Until this moment, she’d never had to consider the tone of her voice while addressing her queen.
“Lady Solstice.” The dismay she saw in her queen’s face hurt—it hurt worse than she’d expected. Oh, why had Solstice done this to herself?
In that heartbeat, Solstice knew she should tell the queen everything. Forget what her heart and head told her. Forget the need to protect her monarch. Solstice should simply lay this burden where it belonged. Her queen was strong enough to deal with any problem. After all, she alone had tamed the Jatiss. She had tamed the king.
Except, the queen couldn’t travel to Greenhaven without raising questions, and she couldn’t send anyone on her behest without raising the same questions. If Solstice whispered the truth in Queen Sureya’s ear right now, the queen might end up like the librarian: dead, murdered in her sleep.
“Oh, for goodness sake, stand, Hand-to-Be.” The queen’s white skin gleamed in the early afternoon sunlight, and Solstice stood, wondering why her queen still addressed her as Hand-to-Be.
“Yes, my liege.”
“You’ve never been obsequious a day in your life. You’d better not start now.”
Solstice swallowed. This territory was too unfamiliar. She wasn’t a practiced liar, especially where her queen was concerned. “Yes, my liege.” She tried to meet Queen Sureya’s gaze again, and failed.
“You’d best tell me what you’re doing here.” Her elegant fingers gestured vaguely. “And what you were doing with Lord Grip.”
Knowing a cue when she heard it, Solstice tried to bring some truth to her tone. “I love Lord Grip, your highness. We want to wed. I want nothing in this world so much as I want him.”
The queen looked at her, her expression impassive. Solstice wished Grip were here now, holding her, bolstering her claim. What had the soldiers done with him?
“I think…” Queen Sureya spoke softly, her red hair floating around her shoulders as she walked around Solstice. “I think I don’t believe you, Lady Solstice.”
“I have nothing more to say.” Solstice felt suddenly desperate. The queen would see through her lies. She knew Solstice too well. “I love Grip,” she continued. “Banish us if you must, but we must remain together.”
“And what does Lord Grip say to this?”
Solstice took a deep breath and tried to reassure herself. Grip would protect her. He was on her side completely.
“I—”
“Stop.” The queen held up her hand, her skin shockingly white. Solstice tried to push back the ungenerous thought. “I don’t want to hear any nonsense about you loving that boy.”
“But, I do! I—”
The queen sighed. “I’ve known you for years, before you reached full adulthood even. I’ve known Grip nearly as long. And while I know friendship often gives way to something deeper…” Her eyes locked on to Solstice’s. “I know that isn’t what’s happening here now.”
Solstice said nothing.
“Tell me the truth.” The queen’s hard gaze refused to leave her.
“I…” Solstice let her eyes slide to the walls. Spies might be watching from behind them even now. “I’m sorry, your majesty. I cannot.”
Solstice watched the queen’s eyes silently examine the walls and come back to her. Did the queen know she wasn’t safe even in her own palace walls? Did she know that even now, some dark force that Solstice couldn’t hope to pinpoint might be watching?
How could she? Not even a ruling monarch knew everything.
“It’s not that you can’t tell me. You simply won’t.” Queen Sureya’s voice was soft, but the tone couldn’t have been more solid than the rock formations surrounding the city.
“I cannot,” Solstice said again. She met the queen’s violet gaze, begging her to believe her. “No more than that.”
The queen took a deep breath and nodded. “You realize I’ll have no choice, then.”
Solstice swallowed. “Yes.”
“You’ll never marry that boy.”
Solstice stifled a sigh of relief. Marriage wasn’t in her true plans, although she would have endured it if she’d had to.
“And I’ll have to punish you.”
Solstice hung her head, the shame unfeigned. “I know.” With its uncivilized dragons, and its undying support of the One God, Greenhaven was one place no one from Marotiri proper wanted to go. Yet that was the punishment Solstice sought. And it was her homeland.
“I understand from your performance here that you want banishment to Greenhaven—with Grip as your escort.”
Solstice wanted to jump across the space separating them and slap her hand over her queen’s mouth. Wildly she looked at the walls, knowing as she did so that it was futile. She’d never see the eyes that watched or the ears that listened—and neither would Queen Sureya. Hopefully, the spies would interpret the words as figurative rather than literal.
And the queen’s eyes followed hers to the walls. Queen Sureya slightly tilted her white chin, her orange freckles catching the light. She understood.
Solstice threw herself at her queen’s feet. It was the only thing she could do to maintain the charade. “I love him!” She wept. Real tears sprang from her eyes and coated her queen’s sandaled toes. “I love him beyond reason. Send us to Greenhaven. I don’t care! Send us anywhere. Anywhere! As long as we’re together.”
“Child.” The queen’s voice held infinite patience as she bent to pull Solstice from the floor. She embraced her, supporting her with her arms.
“My queen.” Solstice inhaled the warm scent of Queen’s Sureya’s perfume. Like her monarch herself, the scent haunted and seduced.
“Solstice!” The queen hissed in her ear, pinching with her strong fingers. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I will banish you to Greenhaven, forever!”
Solstice wavered. She wanted to tell her queen that she served her faithfully even now. She wanted to unload the entire ugly truth.
But she couldn’t.
Because the queen herself didn’t know how many snakes slept at her breast.
Instead Solstice protected her beloved queen. “I love him!” she lied. “I don’t care if you banish us to Greenhaven forever. I’ll join the slavers to be by his side!”
With a huff of something that might have been disgust or disbelief, Queen Sureya pushed Solstice away. “Begone from me,” she said.
“Yes, my queen.” Solstice curtsied, her eyes on the floor. She didn’t want Queen Sureya to see the relief there.
“Enough of this,” Queen Sureya said. “Flint and Halide tell me you know the back-stairs intruder, as they’re calling him.”
“ Back-stairs intruder’?”
“Axel de la Couere.” The queen watched Solstice’s face carefully, but Solstice had nothing to hide on this topic.
“I don’t know why he’s here.”
“But who is he, my Hand-to-Be?”
“Lord Axel’s family was neighbor to mine as a child. We were…” Solstice paused, looking for the right word. “Friends” seemed too weak.
“Sweethearts?” the queen asked.
“No.” Solstice laughed,