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There was only one person who could summon that response in me.

My mother.

We were in the middle of the audience chamber. Elemental courtiers stood all around us. I’d even spotted a few terrestrials near the aural fountain, keeping to their own, but stillhere.

There were too many witnesses to say or do what I truly wanted.

I stared straight ahead, refusing to look at her as her soft footsteps approached from my right. Lyrena shifted closer to me. I wanted to kiss her for it.

“My messages must continue to go astray. I have sent many requesting an audience,” Igraine said, her voice like silk.

A snake in silk, ready to sink its fangs in at any moment.

“You have been told not to leave your wing,” I said, struggling to keep my voice from trembling.

A soft, melodious chuckle. As if this were an actual conversation rather than a battle all its own. “The magic sealing the doors has faded since Arthur’s death.”

“Then perhaps it is time to reseal them,” I said, moving instinctively a half-step back towards Lyrena. Her fire magic was strong. If she banded together with Cyara and my other handmaidens, it might be enough to seal her in.

Igraine stepped in front of me. I didn’t flee, though every instinct inside of me screamed to get away, to make it stop.

A beautiful lie, that’s what she was. Her lithe frame, draped in cream-colored silk and bands of gold that matched her hair, was the opposite of my well-rounded one. Only our skin was the same, that pale alabaster. Even our eyes were different. While hers were blue, like most blessed with water powers, they were very pale. The cerulean in mine tended to turquoise or sapphire, given the lighting. Igraine Pendragon was the perfect image of elemental femininity.

She’d also been my captor.

“You are not welcome at my court,” I said curtly, not caring who heard it.

A wan smile peeled back her lovely pink lips. “The court was beginning to wonder where I was, why I was absent. I have mourned your father and your brother. I cannot remain sequestered from court any longer.”

It was a fucking lie. No one around us thought that there was anything but enmity between Queen and Dowager. With my father’s death, her reign as High Queen had come to an end. She did not want to give up the power. She did not want to be irrelevant. That was why she was here, trying to torture me still.

I’d been tortured enough. I still bore the scars on my skin and my soul. The ice inside of me started to melt away, giving way to a dark, howling void—

“You will remain in your wing, or I will—” I snarled, stepping forward. Free of my guards, just me and Igraine.

Her eyes fell to my waist, where my hand hovered over the hilt of my dagger. “You will do what, Veyka? Kill your own mother? You are not capable. You are weak. You have always been weak.”

My fingers curled around the hilt. The leather welcomed my hand with a familiar kiss.

I could do it.

I’d swing upward, underneath her rib cage, shoving my blade straight through the withered organ that she called a heart. Once the last dregs of consciousness faded from her face, I’d take Lyrena’s sword and remove her head from her body for all the elementals and terrestrials to see.

When I killed my mother, it would be final.

“Your Majesty,” I heard Gawayn say, the words muted as if spoken underwater.

I blinked, the world around me clearing.

“The Royal Council awaits your arrival to begin proceedings,” Gawayn said.

Neither I nor Igraine moved.

“Step aside, Dowager,” Lyrena said, the warmth of her fire at my back. I suspected if I turned, I would find her sword drawn, the blade burning.

Igraine chuckled soundlessly.

Then she stepped away. But not before I heard a soft hiss behind me—the sound of her water magic extinguishing Lyrena’s flame.