LITMIR.BIZ

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was unaware that he looked for me.” The traitor had spun the story in his favor! How like a Faery male. “I thought his own business had brought him…to where we were.”

      Beside the throne, Malachi spoke up. “Likely, it did.”

      Her mother ignored him. Of course, the one time he seemed to be on Cerridwen’s side, the Great Queene Ayla would consider his opinion beneath her. “He looked for you because of the announcement I made. Last night was a celebration of your coming of age. I had hoped you would have been proud to show the entire Court the fine Faery you have grown into.

      “Instead, you showed the Court the reason I had to make a very difficult decision. I know you cherish your freedom, Cerridwen. I know you feel you are stifled by life at Court, but if life at Court had truly clipped your wings, you would not have been able to fly from the Palace at a whim.” She stood and came down from the throne, down from the dais. Malachi stayed behind, watching the exchange from beneath his dark, furrowed brows.

      “I fear I have not taught you the discipline you need to grow into your full potential as the Royal Heir. And I’ve come to accept that I am not the one to teach you. The influence of someone more experienced with Court manners and life, but someone who has also managed to balance the demands of Court with the demands of a happy life, is what you need.” Her mother reached out, touched Cerridwen’s face briefly. “That is why I have chosen Cedric to be your mate.”

      Individually, all of those words made sense to Cerridwen. She knew what it meant to choose something, knew what it meant to choose a mate. She understood that, occasionally, Faeries decided to bind their lives to each other for reproduction and mutual gain.

      What she did not understand was the concept of someone making this choice for another person. The idea that her mother had chosen a mate for her. And that the mate she had chosen was…Cedric.

      The room seemed far warmer than it had a moment before, and her feet did not rest easy beneath her. She pressed a hand to her stomach and took a step back, hoping her balance would return. She closed her eyes, but it only made the feeling worse, so she opened them again.

      “It seems that, despite your confidence, the Royal Heir does not see it from your perspective,” Malachi said and laughed bitterly.

      “Shut up!” Cerridwen shouted, hearing the tears in her voice. That he had uttered his opinion, that he’d been privy to this humiliation at all, was more than she could bear.

      “I did not make this decision to punish you!” Her mother held out her arms, as if to comfort her.

      Cerridwen backed away. “No!” Her breath burned in her lungs, and no words, no matter how hurtful she might be able to make them, would put out the fire. “No! You do this to…to push me off on someone else! To get rid of me!”

      “Cerridwen, please.” Queene Ayla did not look so queenly now. Just pathetic and sad in her daughter’s eyes. “You cannot understand—”

      “No, I cannot understand!” Cerridwen’s fists pounded her thighs of their own volition. “I cannot understand how you think I could love him. That I could…lie with him. It’s disgusting!”

      Her mother’s expression grew hard at this. “To become Queene, I had to do a great many difficult things.”

      “I do not wish to become Queene!” Her shrill scream rang off the stone walls of the throne room. “And yes, you did a great many difficult things! How difficult was it to kill my father? If he were still alive—”

      “Your father is not still alive, and thank the Gods I saw to that!” Her mother’s words, dark with rage, rang out even over the loud crack of her palm colliding with Cerridwen’s cheek.

      She expected the blow to her pride to be greater than the physical pain, but the intensity of the sting shocked her. Tears sprang to her eyes, and though she wanted desperately to stop them falling, they poured onto her cheeks.

      “I hate you,” she spat, and turned to flee the room.

      

      Her hand still throbbing from the slap, Ayla stared at the closing doors her daughter had fled through.

      “You did not have to strike her so hard,” Malachi said quietly from his place on the dais.

      Ashamed, Ayla could not face him. “I should not have struck her.”

      The sound of his descending footsteps echoed through the empty hall, but they did not drown out the searing memory of her daughter’s invective. “No, you were well within your right to strike her. I’ve wanted to, myself, on occasion.”

      “I am a poor mother.” Self-pity was not becoming of a Queene, and Malachi certainly did not allow her to wallow in it in his presence, but she did not care at the moment.

      He took a breath, his mouth close to her ear, and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You are stubborn. And prideful. So is she. But you cannot truly judge yourself a poor mother, as you had none, and I cannot judge you one, either.”

      “Twenty years have slipped through my fingers like water. Try as I might, I cannot hold on.” She closed her eyes. “I am a fool to think that Cedric will be able to hold her, either.”

      “You are fool to ask it of either of them,” Malachi agreed with a gentle squeeze. “I will put an extra guard at her door. No doubt she will run away again.”

      “And this time, for good.” Shaking her head, Ayla turned. “Perhaps she is right. Perhaps, if her father were able to have a hand in raising her…”

      Malachi frowned down at her, and the frown deepened the faint lines on his brow. “If Garret had lived, he would have killed you and her both.”

      She had not meant Garret. It surprised her how easily Malachi confused their daughter’s parentage himself. But now was not the time to correct him. “Cedric did not return last night. He was not at my morning audience. Do you think—”

      “I think he is still angry with you. And I think you would do well to avoid each other for a while. But he is too loyal to ignore your orders for long. He will return.”

      Malachi spoke of loyalty as though it were something foul. It seemed strange to her that he, of all the creatures in the Lightworld, would have this opinion. He’d been wholly, unquestioningly subservient to his One God—he still was, she knew, having overheard his whispered prayers—and content to stay that way, it seemed, mourning his separation from that life of duty. If he looked down on such a quality in Cedric, she could only surmise that it was because Cedric’s devotion was to his Queene, a being Malachi knew as imperfect and prone to mistakes.

      In truth, Ayla would not have preferred the same slavish dedication from Malachi. It was one of the things she treasured most about his company; he did not find her infallible. The adoration and confidence the Courtiers all showed her seemed to disappear at the worst of times, and Malachi would not disagree with her then. But when the Court loved her, he became critical, lest she forget how tenuous her grasp over her kingdom was.

      As they were alone, she let him take her into his arms. Closing her eyes, she remembered a time not so long ago, when she had run through the perils of the Darkworld for him. There were moments she wished she could escape to that time again, to not know of the dangers that had laid ahead of them or of the hardships they would endure. To not have the worries of running a kingdom, raising a daughter, being under constant scrutiny…feeling suffocated by duty.

      There were times that that escape seemed possible, when they lay together in the dark, limbs twining, skin sliding over skin. Though so much had changed over time, that never had changed, and she was glad for its familiarity.

      His mouth moved against her ear as he spoke and he did not speak to her as her advisor or her friend. He spoke to her now as her lover, her life mate, and without judgment in his tone. “If I do not understand your choice in this, I do not doubt you mean only good. Do not grieve the loss of my faith in you, for it is still strong.”

      The

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