The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(66)

“And here I sit,” the man said lightly. “Ready to be snipped.”

“Not quite,” the empress said reluctantly. “My nephew grows more paranoid by the day. Do you know how many guards are standing outside your door? You have Set’s interest now—you’ve become the key to his conspiracy. The thing that proves to his mind how dangerous Lu truly is. If I am the last person to see you alive, what would he make of that? What would he do to me?”

“And what of the princess? Are you not worried about her?”

“Lu? Please. She’s more na?ve than she is anything else. I may not be the girl’s mother, but I did watch her grow up.”

Min whipped around to face the empress. Not Lu’s mother? No. She had misheard—

Did you? The shamaness’s hiss echoed through the room, but when Min spun around to find her, she wasn’t there.

“Na?ve?” the prisoner repeated with a faint smile. “Perhaps. But I think you underestimate her other qualities.”

Her mother sniffed. “Still playing the part of enigmatic savant, are we? Well, it won’t work on me. I wasn’t lying when I told Set that I’d been tracking her for years, that I have spies everywhere. If she’d had any wits at all, Lu would have had her own. She would have had the network of support, of loyalists that Set thinks she has. Even her beloved Shin Yuri—your old friend, wasn’t he? What an opportunistic man he grew up to be. He’s been in my pocket for years. She has no one.”

“She has me.”

The empress’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe she did. But now I do.”

“So, where does that leave us?” the prisoner asked, drawing himself up straighter.

Her mother shrugged daintily. “We find ourselves in a strange alliance, don’t we? I intend to take the secret of Lu’s parentage to the grave, and I imagine—out of whatever misplaced loyalty you still bear to Daagmun and that witch mother of hers—that you will do the same. Only, I fear you will reach the grave much sooner than I. Between Set, his men, all their combined paranoia, and your age, I needn’t bother trying to kill you myself.”

That seemed to amuse Omair—or was it Ohn? “I admit, I’m surprised you haven’t told Set about Lu’s birth yourself. It would delegitimize her entire claim. It’s the answer to your nephew’s problems.”

“His problems, perhaps. But what of mine?”

Omair searched her face with keen, curious eyes. “What holds you back, exactly? It can’t just be your pride.”

Her mother flared. “Don’t speak to me of pride. I have already given everything else I had—my name, my birth, my youth, my beauty, my life— to a husband who wanted none of it. I’ve spent the last seventeen years planning and plotting on my nephew’s behalf. I deserve to keep this bit of pride for myself. Have you ever considered what it might feel like to have the entire empire know my emperor husband flouted our union for some lowborn foreign shamaness?”

Min’s eyes widened. A shamaness? Lu’s mother was—she couldn’t mean. No. Not the same shamaness . . . She cast about again for the girl in white, but she had not reappeared. Somehow, Min knew she would not again, not here.

Her own mother inhaled sharply. “And what for? Nothing. It is all done and in the past. No one is left who can attest to the truth of it. All it would do now is cast more uncertainty, more instability into the court. They may start doubting Minyi’s legitimacy—insist Set annul his vows to her, even. It’s too risky.”

The empress sighed, walking toward the door, picking a delicate path amid the soiled rushes. “I’ve worked too hard to secure Min’s place in this world to chance losing it.”

The man tracked her mother’s movement with a sedate, cautious curiosity.

“You truly love your daughter,” he said in mild surprise. “You would do anything to protect her.”

“What mother wouldn’t?”

The prisoner slumped against the wall of the cell, and Min once more felt the pain sparking from his side, the absence in his mouth where his missing tooth had been. He was powerful, whatever he was, but clearly even he had his limits.

“I think you and Tsai had more in common than you know.”

“Princess?”

Min felt a sharp tug on her arm. She blinked. Before her eyes, the cell dissolved, taking her mother and the prisoner with it.

“Princess?”

Another tug. Harder now, almost painful. She winced, blinked—

“Princess Min!”

She opened her eyes. Brother kneeled over her. She was on the floor; she must have fallen from her seat—

“What did you see?”

“I saw . . .” She pushed herself up on shaky arms.

Tell him. Tell him about Lu. It will please Set. It will give him all he needs to secure the throne. Maybe he’ll stop hunting Lu. Maybe he’ll even let her come home and everything will be—

Her mother’s words echoed back to her, though: They may start doubting Minyi’s legitimacy—insist Set annul his vows to her, even.

“Princess?” Brother persisted.

“I saw—I was h-having a nightmare,” she stammered. A thin, naked slip of a lie. “Amma Ruxin was angry with me. She was screaming.”

For a breathless moment, Brother searched her face with those unyielding, temperate eyes. Then he sighed, clearly disappointed. “Very well,” he said, helping her to her feet. “I fear I’ve overextended you. Let us get you back to your apartments.”