Four Dead Queens(36)

Corra was Eonist, but only by blood.

Unlike her sister queens, Corra hadn’t been raised in the quadrant she would one day rule. Instead, she’d been raised in the palace—her mother had been unwilling to part with her on her birth date.

Eonists were not as unfeeling as the other quadrants believed. Yes, they learned to control their emotions and suppress their desires from an early age, but they were not immune to emotion, and certainly not to the strongest emotion of all. Love.

Corra had been told by her mother that she was a perfect newborn: silky dark skin, a smattering of soft black hair upon her head and the warmest large brown eyes anyone had ever seen. To see Corra was to love Corra.

And so her mother had decided to give Corra to her wet nurse, who had recently suffered a stillbirth. The nurse would raise Corra as her own, hiding her from the rest of the palace to ensure, when it was Corra’s time to take the throne, that no one would recognize her. Everyone else would assume baby Corra had been sent to live with relatives as required by Queenly Law.

Corra’s mother wanted to have an influence on her life, let her daughter see how she ruled Eonia, hoping that Corra could one day follow in her footsteps.

At an early age, Corra was told that her birth mother was the Eonist queen. The queen visited Corra only a few times a year, ensuring her presence within the palace remained a secret. But she never missed Corra’s birthday. She would explain that while ruling your emotions was fundamental to Eonia’s peace, it was also important to open your eyes to the other quadrants’ ways of life. And that not everything stemming from the heart instead of the head was wrong.

Her mother would end each visit with the same words.

Be patient, child. Be calm. Be selfless. Wait for the right moment. Wait for your time. Rule with a steady hand. A steady heart.

It became a mantra over the years, informing how Corra should and shouldn’t behave. When a young Corra desired the world outside the palace, outside the rooms she shared with the woman who’d raised her, she would hear her mother’s voice.

Corra remained in those two rooms for her entire childhood. She played with the toys that wouldn’t be missed, she read the digi-scrolls that had already been read. She devoured all she could about her quadrant through comm chips. The memories captured Eonia with such vivid detail she could smell the crisp air, see the sleek silver skylines and taste the unpolluted rain as it fell from the sky.

Her mother’s voice had once again echoed in her head after the inspector’s initial questioning.

Be patient, child. Be calm. Be selfless. This is your moment. This is your time. Have a steady hand. A steady heart.

But Corra couldn’t shake the visions of Iris’s lifeless body and her blood splattered against the flowers she loved so much, her crown discarded as though it were nothing. While she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d heard it described so many times, she couldn’t rid herself of the image.

Once in her rooms, Corra ordered her advisor to take leave. She needed time, space. Time to grieve. But Corra wasn’t sure there would ever be enough time to accept a world in which Iris was no longer.

Be calm, child. Steady.

But she couldn’t. Not this time.

There was no one here to see her break or judge her behavior as un-Eonist. Connected, emotional, passionate.

Passion . . .

Corra shook. She would never again feel Iris’s soft skin against hers. Her pale cheek next to her brown skin. She would never again press her mouth to hers, Iris’s pink lips on her curved mouth. They would never again share a breath as if they were one. She would never again see the way Iris’s cold exterior dissolved at the mere sight of Corra. And all those cherished smiles for her. Only for her.

Now it was all gone. She was gone. And there was no getting her back.

Corra flung herself onto her bed, pressing her face into her pillow so even she couldn’t feel her tears as they fell. Tears that shouldn’t fall for another. And certainly not for an Archian.

She let out a moan, grief clawing her throat.

Like all queens, they weren’t allowed love; it was seen as merely a distraction. For if a queen was to love another, she might place the love for this person above her quadrant. But for the years Corra and Iris had secretly been together, they’d built a fortress, not only making them stronger, but their quadrants too. Corra didn’t believe Iris completed her, for Corra was complete, always had been—her mother had seen to that. But Iris was vital to Corra, allowing her to rule with a sense of ease. A sense of peace. Corra felt as though she was honoring her mother’s wishes. Ruling with a steady heart.

Iris was the first queen Corra had met after her coronation, even though Corra had heard of Iris, or rather, had heard Iris’s booming voice through the palace passageways across the years. Corra had never known anyone so completely ruled by their emotions. Iris hated easily, threw fits when she didn’t get what she wanted, roared at anyone who dared look at her the wrong way or for too long. When they finally met, Corra had been shocked to see such a voice belonged to a woman so slight.

Iris had studied Corra before offering her a small pale hand to shake. In her other hand, she held out a gold watch. “For you,” she’d said.

Corra took the handcrafted Archian watch, confused by the hour and minute hand displaying 12:30 with the second hand stuck horizontal—fracturing the face in four.

“It’s broken,” she’d said, her voice quiet, unsure of what to make of this fiery waif of a woman.