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T he selfish side of Mareleau Alante resented being back at Ridine Castle. Or perhaps it was her rational side. She had good reasons to dread being here and they had nothing to do with the petty grievances she’d once held against the castle the first time she’d come.

“Gods, what a dreary place,” Queen Mother Helena said, glancing around the guest suite. It was a large room, though sparsely furnished. The stone walls were draped with violet tapestries bearing Khero’s black mountain sigil. The flagstone floors bore several plush rugs to stave off the late winter chill, and a fire roared in the hearth.

“It’s a castle, not a palace, Mother,” Mareleau said, irritation lacing her voice as she sat at the edge of the bed, enjoying the relief of rest. Though she’d just left her coach after hours on the road, ascending the stairs of the keep had winded her. She supposed that was normal for a woman three weeks from giving birth.

“I thought the queen would have a better sense for royal decor,” Helena muttered.

Mareleau rested a hand on the rounded curve of her belly and tried to focus on the sweet flutter of movement beneath her palm and not the grating sound of her mother’s voice. It was all she could do not to order Helena out. They were alone. Her ladies had gone to fetch their queen chocolate from the kitchen, and her midwives awaited her needs in her suite’s sitting room. She’d be happier if Helena were gone too, but she refrained from saying so, partially because she was trying not to give in to her sharper instincts anymore. She’d be a mother soon, and the sooner she figured out how to stop resenting the woman who’d birthed her, the sooner she could trust herself to do better than what had been done to her.

Besides, her mother’s criticism was only half sincere. Though Helena tried to hide it, she mourned the loss of her husband and buried it beneath layers of trifling complaints and fussing over Mareleau’s pregnancy. And it wasn’t that Mareleau didn’t understand her mother’s gripes about Ridine. Half a year ago, she wouldn’t have defended the castle. In fact, she’d hurled her share of insults over its shoddy accommodations. But things were different now. She may not have the best memories of Ridine, but this was her friend’s home. Cora was doing her best to be a proper queen, and the evidence was all around her. When Mareleau had last been here, only a small selection of rooms had been refurbished. Now the grandest chambers were fit for royalty. Or…fit enough. She wouldn’t have minded if the mattress were plusher or the blankets were softer.

“Such an ugly sigil. And it’s everywhere!” Helena wrinkled her nose at the purple tapestries. Then, with a shake of her head, she cast an indulgent smile upon her daughter. “I’m relieved you and your husband kept much of Selay’s sigil intact when designing Vera’s.”

Mareleau wanted to argue that she and Larylis hadn’t had any say in the design of Vera’s sigil—an eagle and rose entwined, their silhouettes white on a gold background—nor had they cared to. They’d had much more pressing matters to attend to. Such as merging two kingdoms into one and supporting Cora as their ally, doing whatever they could to ease the chaos that had befallen Khero. New councils had to be forged in both kingdoms. New titles given. Numerous lies to tell. Burdens to bear…

Mareleau blew out a heavy breath.

She didn’t expect her mother to understand, for Helena hadn’t been here last summer. The queen mother hadn’t witnessed the chilling change in Prince Teryn when he’d been possessed by a scheming mage or seen the horrifying monster with four faces, one of which had been King Verdian’s. As much as Helena grieved the loss of her husband, their relationship had never been a love match, and all she knew of his death was what the public knew—that a rabid beast had attacked the royal hunting party while they were at rest, and that a fire had broken out as a result. Helena wasn’t haunted by the terrors of that night.

But Mareleau was. She knew the truth. And that truth had shaken her world and shifted her priorities. There were more important things than jewels and palaces and luxury. She now knew that relationships were precious, even the ones that were laced with bitterness and conflict. She knew regret for not making up with someone she loved, despite the friction between them. She knew the pain of never getting to say goodbye.

A gentle kick nudged her palm, and a smile warmed her lips, banishing her unpleasant thoughts, even as a far less gentle kick to her ribs followed. Mareleau had numerous reasons for trying not to push others away like she used to, and her unborn child was the greatest one. She still wasn’t confident about becoming a mother, but something fierce had sparked inside her months ago, and it grew brighter every day.

Her eyes landed on the opposite wall. It separated her suite from Larylis’ and she wished she could tear it down. He was busy changing and readying himself for their audience with Cora, but he’d be far better company than her mother. And she missed him.

Though they’d journeyed to Ridine together, they’d been given separate rooms by the different nobles who’d offered them their homes and hospitality each night, and her accommodations at Ridine were no different. Not only was it proper to offer a king and queen separate chambers if available, but Mareleau required more space at night than she had before. It seemed every evening she added a new pillow to her bed just to feel comfortable enough to sleep. By now she practically slept in a fortress of pillows, stuffed strategically on every side of her. Which, of course, made her a rather difficult bedfellow.

She angled her body to the side and assessed the pillows at the head of the bed, counting four. That certainly wouldn’t be enough. She needed at least six?—

Another kick prodded her ribs, and she let out a sharp hiss.

“What is it?” came Helena’s frantic voice as she darted for Mareleau and planted herself on the bed beside her. “Is it contractions? Has your water broken?”

“Mother,” she ground out between her teeth. How often had she heard those same questions over the last few weeks whenever she so much as frowned?

“I’m serious! Are you all right?”

“For the thousandth time, yes.”

Helena tutted. “I knew you shouldn’t travel so close to your due date.”

“I’ve told you time and again, I’m not that close to my due date.”

Helena pursed her lips and a heavy silence fell between them. Neither had broached the subject of the midwives’ calculations versus the lie Mareleau had once told. A lie that had won her permission to marry the man she loved but had left her father furious. Mareleau suspected her mother no longer believed her daughter had conceived during the Heart’s Hunt like she’d insisted all those months ago, for if that had been the case, she’d be nearly six weeks overdue. Why Helena had never confronted her daughter about her lie, Mareleau knew not, and she wasn’t going to confess. She couldn’t bear to admit that her lie had widened the chasm between her and her father. Couldn’t bear to admit he’d died with so much animosity left between them, save for the olive branch he’d extended in the form of a child’s blanket he’d gifted her. A blanket that had burned to ash before she’d even held it more than once.

No, she couldn’t bear that pain, that responsibility.

Perhaps Helena knew that.

When Helena next spoke, her tone was no longer edged with worry. Instead, she was back to her halfhearted griping. “I don’t understand why you wanted to travel all the way here just to leave again in a matter of days. We’ll have traveled more days than we’ve visited.”

Helena was right but Mareleau didn’t care. So long as she could attend Cora’s wedding and return home by her due date, she was happy. She was hardly in danger of harming her pregnancy due to travel conditions. Their progress was ridiculously slow and careful, taking ten days when it could easily have taken seven. She knew this, because that was how long it had taken to return to Dermaine Palace when she and Larylis left Ridine last summer. And that had been with an injured Teryn in tow. Mareleau had been babied even more than him, her traveling coach the epitome of luxury. It was so large it might as well have been a cottage on wheels, with a built-in divan and ample room for her ladies and midwives to remain at her side.

“What if you go into early labor?” Helena said. “Seven devils, what if you give birth here ?”

Mareleau rolled her eyes. “We’ll be home just in time.”

What did it matter where she gave birth? She had several midwives in attendance night and day, and at least one stood outside her door now, awaiting her needs. Even if she were to go into labor on the road, she could handle it. After surviving a monster, a blood mage, and three straight months of morning sickness, there was little that intimidated her anymore.

“I just don’t understand why you want to attend your brother-in-law’s wedding so desperately. Larylis could have come without you.”

“I’m not here for my brother-in-law,” she said with a scoff. Though she didn’t hate Teryn nearly as much as she used to, it was true that she wasn’t here for him. “I’m here for Queen Aveline.”

Helena gave her a patronizing smile. “Dearest, you know she only invited you out of formality. You weren’t obligated to come.”

Mareleau barked a laugh. If only her mother knew that Cora had specifically asked her not to come and to stay home and take care of herself instead. If Cora had wanted her to stay home so badly, she shouldn’t have ordered her to stay away, for Mareleau was nothing if not stubborn. Just seeing those words penned in Cora’s hand made her want to prove her wrong—that she could take care of herself and attend her wedding.

“It’s not like Aveline had the decency to attend your wedding feast,” Helena muttered.

Mareleau shrugged. “We weren’t friends then.”

Helena pulled her head back and blinked at her a few times. “Does that mean you consider Queen Aveline your friend now?”

“She’s not just a friend. She’s my best friend.” Her cheeks flushed at the confession. She hadn’t intended to admit her friendship to her mother. Not that she wanted to hide it either. She just wasn’t used to being candid with her mother or talking about emotions. Though she tried not to push Helena away as often as she once did, she still harbored a grudge for how her mother had treated her, how she’d ignored the emotions she’d shared, how she’d refused to take Mareleau’s love for Larylis seriously, even going so far as intercepting her letters to him and having a scribe forge her heartfelt words into ones that drove them apart for three years. How Helena had failed to show any sympathy or concern when her unwanted suitors had hurt her.

Recalling that now sent waves of fury through her, but she did her best not to turn herself over to the emotion. Mareleau had made mistakes in the past. She could forgive her mother for hers. Or try to at least.

“I didn’t realize,” Helena said softly.

“Well, now you do,” Mareleau said as she rose from the bed and took a few steps away from her mother, “so please stop insulting her home.”

A beat of silence followed, then her mother’s footsteps slowly approached. “Dearest,” Helena said, a hesitant waver in her voice, “I’m glad you told me, and I’m happy you have a friend. I hope you know you can tell me anything.”

Mareleau’s chest tightened. She couldn’t bring herself to meet her mother’s eyes. She was too afraid Helena would see the truth and all her secrets would spill out then and there. How could she voice the shadows in her heart, ones that buried her burdens, her guilt over her father’s death? That was a level of vulnerability she wasn’t ready for, not with her mother.

So she did what she did best. She lied.

Summoning her magic trick , she wrapped an air of indifference around her like a protective shroud. “You never know when a friend might become useful,” she said, tone cold. “The closer I keep Aveline, the easier she’ll be to use later.”

Helena’s expression hardened in an instant, closing like a shuttered window, but Mareleau was almost certain she saw disappointment in her mother’s eyes.

Mareleau had spent a lifetime disappointing Helena, so that was nothing new, and it was far more comfortable to the alternative—opening up, forgiving, and trusting the person who’d once rent scars upon her heart.