Page 61 of Mortal Queens

Gaia was beautiful, but she’d never be a fae. I glanced to my own dress, wondering how I must look compared to such beauty. Perhaps it didn’t do me well to stand so close to Bash, who could make a fae look dull. Next to him, I must look wretched.

“Have you thought of a second question?” Bash asked.

“Not yet. I want it to be a good one.”

“I’m curious what you’ll come up with.”

“I’m half-tempted to ask about your mother,” I said. Then I waited to see if he’d take the opportunity to tell me about the one person in his family he hadn’t spoken of yet.

He raised a brow. “You’d have to ask officially to draw that out. I’m not giving it away for free.”

“Perhaps I’ll ask Thorn about it. He probably knows.” I shrugged, clinging to my facade of disinterest.

Bash growled. “He ought to. His mother killed mine.”

Regret slammed into me. My mouth hung open before I had the ability to speak. “Bash. I-I’m so sorry.”

“I’m joking. I wanted to see your expression.”

My jaw dropped. “That wasn’t funny.”

He chuckled all the same, and I swatted at his arm. That only made him laugh more.

“You’re dreadful,” I mumbled.

“Serves you right for prying. But I’ll appease you. My father worshipped my mother until the day she died. But now she’s gone, and he’s been bitter about that since her last breath. That’s the story.”

I resisted reaching for him. “Oh, Bash. Was she sick?”

She must have been too young to die naturally. While the fae hadn’t divulged at what age they passed, Bash had said he wasn’t much older than me, so his mother must have been young as well.

My mind flickered. Thorn’s mother hadn’t killed Bash’s, but murder wasn’t off the table.

It could have been an illness, though now that I’d thought of it, I hadn’t seen a sick fae yet. Not a sniff nor a cough from any of them. Except for false ones. Perhaps something in the red wine kept them strong, as the transformation Gaia had gone through after only a year here wasn’t lost on me. That would be a secret worth learning, and I wouldn’t mind obtaining some of the long life with it.

“Not sick,” Bash said. “She challenged a fae to a match, and she lost.”

“Oh.” I had no other words.

“The rules were fair.” His voice stayed calm, but the muscles in his cheek ticked. “And it made it easier to steal the throne from my father.”

Sickness would have been a kinder death, but in a way, I envied that he knew how his mother died and could mourn her with closure I’d never get. “My mother is gone as well,” I said.

I regretted saying anything in that moment where he looked at me a little too closely, like he was seeing beneath my layers into somewhere personal, far beyond where I’d intended to let him in.

“I didn’t know that,” he said finally.

Others were noticing our closeness and whispered while watching us. This was meant to be my night where I shocked the fae with my reentrance to the realm after being confined and left them breathless with how I’d matured during the three months into a much wiser queen. Yet Bash glued himself to my side, so when they talked about me, they’d talk about him.

He was stealing the moment. I saw that. But I didn’t move away, and my warnings couldn’t convince my words to stop.

“Some neighboring countries mounted a raid on the center island, and she disappeared when they left. Father went out with a troop of men to search for her, but she was gone—either stolen or killed—and I can’t decide which is worse. Either way, I’ll never know what became of her.” I didn’t add the other words, that now my mother wasn’t the only person whose fate I’d never see. I’d never get to know what became of any of my family if I didn’t get back home. The loss of Mother had haunted me enough, but now it would be joined by wonderings about my entire family.

“She never reappeared?”

I shook my head.

He was quiet for a moment, then he smiled. “Another layer of my queen, and one that’s not so different from mine.”