A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“Do you want the court to know? Is that what you want?”

“I want a child who values his people and their welfarebefore his own.”

The silence in the room was profound. It was as if all of us took a breath and held it. It was as if the very blood in our veins ceased to move for just that instant. Andais had admitted that Cel valued nothing but himself, something I had known for years. She had raised him to believe that faerie and the sidhe and the lesser fey owed him. He had been the apple of her eye, the song in her heart, the most precious thing in her world for longer than this country had existed, and now she wanted a child that valued others above themselves. What had Cel done to so disillusion his mother?

Dormath spoke into that silence. “My queen, I do not know how to give you what you desire.”

“I can give you what you want.” Maelgwn’s voice had lost its usual amused smoothness. He sounded serious and gentle at the same time, a tone I’d never heard from him.

Andais looked at him, and with only her profile I could tell it wasn’t a friendly look.

“Can you, wolf lord, can you truly?” Her voice held that edge of warning, like the pressure in the air before you even know the storm is coming.

“Yes,” he said softly, but the word carried through the hall.

She settled herself against the back of her throne, her hands very still on the carved arms. “Illuminate me, wolf.”

“There are two children of your line who have come of age, my queen. One child has reawakened the queen’s own ring, and now offers almost anything to be allowed to enjoy the ring’s magic. A child who says bringing children to all the sidhe is more important to her than gaining the throne, or protecting her own life, or filling her own belly with life. These are all things that most of the nobles in this room, perhaps everyone in this room, would give anything to have. Is that not a child who puts her people’s welfare above her own?”

I sat very still. I did not want to draw her attention to me. Maybe what Maelgwn said was true, but the queen didn’t always like or reward the truth. Sometimes a lie got you further. Andais’s most beloved lie was that Cel was fit to rule here. She herself had opened the door to the nobles finally speaking the truth. That Cel would have been almost no one’s choice, if they’d had any other choice that didn’t include a half-breed mortal. Only my father had ever had the courage to tell Andais that there was something wrong with Cel. Something that went beyond just being spoiled or privileged.

Andais spoke as if she’d heard my last thought.