Lucent looks up at Maeve with flashing eyes. Then she pushes herself up from the ground and starts to walk away. “Never in my life have I seen Raffaele raise his voice like that to anyone. We all knew that Tristan would never be wholly like how he was before … but it’s worse than that, isn’t it? He is dying, all over again.”
“He is not dying,” Maeve calls angrily to her. “He is exactly the way he’s supposed to be.” She runs a hand along her high braids. “Don’t tell me I should have done differently.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Lucent shakes her head. “Tell me?”
Maeve scowls at her. “I am your queen,” she says, lifting her head high. “Not your riding confidant.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Lucent blurts out. She extends her arms, as if she can no longer feel the pain in her injured wrist. “We haven’t been riding partners for a long time, Your Majesty.”
“Lucent,” Maeve says quietly, but the other girl goes on.
“Why didn’t you write more?” she says, stopping in her tracks. She shakes her head in despair. “Every time you wrote, it was business and politics. Tedious matters of the state that I never wanted to know.”
“You needed to know,” Maeve replies. “I wanted to keep you updated on the affairs of Beldain, and on when I thought you could return from your exile.”
“I wanted to hear about you.” Lucent takes a step closer to her. Her voice sounds anguished now. “But you just went along with your mother, didn’t you? You know what happened with Tristan was an accident. I dared him to walk out on the ice—he fell through. I never meant to hurt him! And you just stood by and let your mother decide my fate.”
“Do you know how hard I begged my mother to not execute you?” Maeve snaps. “She wanted you dead, but I insisted that she spare your life. Do you ever think about that?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Tristan?” Lucent says. “Why? You let me live with the guilt of thinking that my actions almost caused his death! You never even told me about your power!”
Maeve narrows her eyes. “You know why.”
Lucent looks away. She swallows hard, and Maeve realizes that she is trying to hold back her tears. She starts to walk away again, back in the direction that they had come. Maeve follows beside her. They walk in silence for a long time.
“Do you remember when you first kissed me?” Lucent finally murmurs.
Maeve stays silent, but the memory comes back to her, clear as glass. It was a warm day, a rarity in Beldain, and the plains were covered in a sheet of yellow and blue flowers. They had decided to follow an old, mythical trail through the woods that the goddess Fortuna was rumored to have once taken. Maeve remembers the sweet smell of honey and lavender, then the sharpness of pine and moss. They’d stopped to rest by a creek, and in the middle of their laughter, Maeve had suddenly leaned over and gave Lucent a kiss on the cheek.
“I remember,” Maeve replies.
Lucent stops in her tracks. “Do you still love me?” she asks, her face still turned toward the sea.
Maeve hesitates. “Why do we even try?” she replies.
Lucent shakes her head. The wind blows strands of hair across her face, and Maeve can’t tell if the wind is of Lucent’s creation or of the world itself. “You are queen now,” she says after a moment. “You will have to marry. Beldain needs an heir to the throne.”
Maeve takes a step closer to her. She touches Lucent’s hand softly. “My mother married twice,” she reminds her. “But her true love was a knight she met much later. We can still be together.” In this moment, Lucent looks so much like the girl Maeve used to go hunting with in the woods, with reddish-gold curls and a straight stance, that she pulls her forward. She kisses her before Lucent can stop her.
They linger for a long moment. Finally, they break away.
“I will not be your mistress,” Lucent says, meeting Maeve’s eyes. Then she looks down again. “I cannot be so close to you and know that a man will have you every night.” Her voice turns quiet. “Don’t make me bear that.”
Maeve closes her eyes. Lucent is right, of course. They stand together in silence, listening to the distant roar of the waterfalls. What would happen after all of this ends? Maeve would take Kenettra’s throne with the Daggers at her side. She would return to Beldain. And she would have to birth an heir. Lucent would stay with the Daggers.
“It cannot be,” Maeve agrees in a whisper. She turns her eyes toward the cliffs from which they’d come. The two stand together, not talking, until the wind changes directions and the clouds overhead start to move away.
Lucent breaks the silence first. “What do we do now, Your Majesty?”
“I’ll send my men out to hunt down Adelina,” Maeve replies. “Nothing changes. Raffaele has damaged Teren’s relationship with his queen, and my navy shall arrive soon.” Her eyes harden. “We will have this country.”
Raffaele Laurent Bessette
The others pound on Raffaele’s door that night, asking if he is all right, and Leo tries to bring him a plate of soup and fruits. But Raffaele ignores them. They will talk about Enzo. Raffaele’s heart aches at the thought. He cannot discuss the prince yet. Instead, he pores through his old parchments, his years of careful study on how threads of energy work in each new Elite he comes across, his meticulous recording of Elite history and science to be left for future generations, his journals attempting to understand all there is to understand about Elites, where they had come from and where they will go. All that he had managed to save from the Fortunata Court’s secret caverns.