Four Dead Queens(66)

“Wow,” I breathed, forgetting our purpose. The weight of the room pressed upon me—its meaning and history. We neared the exact point where the quadrants once met. I could tell from the slack-jawed crowd that they shared the same sentiment.

We stepped toward the guard when it was our turn.

“One at a time,” the guard said, holding up a hand.

I exchanged a glance with Varin.

“You can do this,” Varin said. “You’re doing the right thing. Just don’t get yourself arrested.”

“You worried about me?”

He pressed his lips together before replying, “Just be careful.”

I nodded numbly. Something tumbled within my belly. I stepped forward, leaving Varin behind with the rest of the Torian crowd.

Was I about to meet with Queen Marguerite’s advisor? Wouldn’t it be obvious something had happened to her? Why hadn’t they closed court while they waited for the new queens to take up their thrones?

Before I had time to practice what I was going to say one last time, the guard opened the door in the partition and ushered me through. I cleared my throat.

Here we go.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE





Marguerite


   Queen of Toria



Rule twelve: As soon as a queen passes, her daughter, or the next closest female relative, must be brought to the palace immediately to ascend the throne.


Marguerite’s breathing grew ragged, color leaching from her cheeks, light dimming from her eyes.

“We’re running out of time.” People swarmed about her, hands fluttering at her arms, face and hair. “Tell us, Queen Marguerite. Please. Before it is too late!”

It is already too late, Marguerite thought. She leaned against the pillows, unable to keep her head upright. No. I promised myself I wouldn’t. I can’t bring her into this. Not now.

The palace doctor wore a silver dermasuit, a silver mask and a deep frown. The inspector stood beside him, watching every movement with detached interest. They whispered back and forth.

She’s dying.

She did not require him to say it out loud. And yet they would not let her die in peace.

Poison.

The words were whispered among those gathered in the infirmary. She’d been poring over her maps of the palace, trying to work out how the murderer had killed Iris, avoided being caught in the processing room when the palace went into lockdown and then murdered Stessa a day later, when her advisor, Jenri, had rushed into the room. He was covered in ash, a large gash across his arm.

Marguerite had bolted upright, her chair falling backward. “What has happened?”

“My queen,” Jenri had breathed out. “There was a fire . . . Queen Corra didn’t make—” But she did not hear him finish. She’d collapsed, her heavy skirts pillowing her fall.

At first Jenri had thought it was shock. He took her to the infirmary for observation. Then she started convulsing.

Poison—sprinkled over the parchment of her maps and absorbed through her fingers and into her bloodstream.

First Iris, then Stessa and Corra. The assassin . . .

Marguerite could not believe this was happening. It had been less than two days since Iris’s death, and all the queens had been murdered. Now it was her turn to die. She hoped she would not be separated from her sister queens in the next life.

At least she’d had more years. Stessa, Corra and Iris—they were all so young. Too young. Like . . .

No! She would not utter a word. Her daughter must remain safe from the palace’s influence. Especially now. It was far too dangerous to involve her in this mess.

“I need to sedate her,” the doctor said, trying to maneuver his way to her bedside. There were too many people in the infirmary. “It might slow the poison.”

“No,” Jenri said. “We need her lucid. We need to know where her daughter is!”

The doctor glanced at the inspector and shook his head. “Then she is doomed.”

Jenri’s concerned face loomed overhead. “You are the last queen,” he said. “Without your daughter, Quadara will be left with no one to rule—with nothing. Please, my queen.”

“This is what they want,” she managed to say, her voice startling her. It sounded like metal scraping against metal.

“Who?” Jenri asked, smoothing back her sweat-soaked hair from her clammy forehead.

She shifted her face away from him. “Whoever did this to us.”

“Then don’t let them win,” her handmaiden, Lali, replied. She was tracing calming circles on the back of Marguerite’s hand.

With her surviving family all men, Marguerite had feared this day would come. She knew she had to produce an heir; it was Queenly Law, after all. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on your point of view—all matchings since Elias had resulted in no further pregnancies. Marguerite couldn’t bear the thought of choosing between her child and the throne again. And yet here she was, facing the same dilemma, seventeen years on.

Marguerite lurched forward. A bucket was placed under her chin before she retched up what little was left in her system. The doctor had given her a vapor to encourage the expulsions, hoping it would expel the toxin, but all it had done was make Marguerite weaker.

She lay down, her body weightless and her mind full of clouds.