The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(82)

Who cares about her? a voice within hissed. Who cares about any of them?

Lu’s nunas, her own, it didn’t matter. They didn’t matter.

They’re just maids, anyway, the voice sneered. Was it hers or the other? It was so hard to tell, lately.

“We need to leave soon. Brother says . . .” Set’s voice rose in the other room, penetrating the doors and overtaking her own.

“As though what that creature says matters to me,” her mother snapped.

Min glanced anxiously toward where Brother was still sitting, hands crossed in his lap. He didn’t seem to have heard, though of course he must have.

“There is a prophecy!” Set raged. “My reign over the empire will only be secure if I can take the North, and I can only take the North if I have Yunis! Brother has seen it!”

“What do you really know of that man?” her mother demanded. “You should hear the things people say about him, Set, when you’re not around! And you leave him alone with my daughter to do heaven knows what!”

“He saved me!” Her cousin’s voice thundered, his rage so palpable it hit Min like a fist. She backed toward the windows. “He showed me there is still magic in this lousy, worthless world. Don’t you ever, ever speak ill of him!”

“Magic . . . ? This is absurd. Minyi is my child. My only child. I won’t have you and some quack monk telling me what to do with her.”

They went quiet. For half a ragged breath, Min wondered if they’d left. Then her door burst open and her mother strode into the room, making straight for her as though Brother wasn’t even there. Min flinched as her mother swept down upon her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders, her belled sleeves settling like wings.

“Min, come with me. We are leaving for the Eastern Palace. You went there once as a child, do you remember? You loved the lake.”

Min did remember, but she hadn’t loved the lake, which had seemed a vast, swallowing maw. It had been Lu who stripped down to her waist, splashing around in the shallows with Hyacinth, then swimming out farther than the others would dare, until her head was just a speck of black in the silver water. Min had stood on the rocky shore and wept in fear as Amma Ruxin shrieked for Lu to return this instant, the gods help you, child.

How had her mother so misremembered things?

“That wasn’t me,” Min whispered, but no one seemed to hear. Perhaps she hadn’t really spoken at all.

“What you’re proposing is treason,” said Set. “I order Min to come with me, and if you take her away I swear I will have you locked up, Aunt Rinyi. No one is stopping me. Not Lu, not the court, and not you.”

Her cousin filled the doorway, leaning heavily against the rounded frame with both hands. His handsome face was stiff with frustration and spite, blazing eyes locked on her mother. A hank of black hair had fallen loose from his plait.

Brother stood, holding a steadying hand up in Set’s direction. “Let’s all calm down—”

“Why, Set?” her mother demanded over him. “Tell me what on earth you could need Min for. She’s just a girl, and she belongs with her mother.”

I’m no girl, Min thought in outrage. You told me yourself, I’m a woman now!

“Minyi.”

Set’s voice was still and even, ringing in cold contrast to her mother’s ragged yelling. He straightened, released his hold on the door frame with some effort. Then he smiled—false and faint—and held out his hand.

“Min, come here,” he said.

Her mother’s arms tightened, pulling Min against her chest so hard she could feel the give of the empress’s flesh beneath the layers of her robes. Instinct and discomfort made her move to pull away, but her mother did not let go.

“We’re going, Min,” the empress said. Min could feel the vibration of her voice, and in it the tremor of doubt undercutting her words.

She looked up at her mother’s face, then to Set’s. One taut and self-righteous, the other frenzied and furious. Both pale. Both expectant. Waiting for her to choose.

Between what, exactly? What were they each offering?

Nothing, she realized, in that voice that was hers, and also not.

They were each asking something of her. Demanding.

The choice between the dangerous unknown, and the stifling, unbearable familiar.

She had to go to Yunis, didn’t she? For Set. But how to make her mother see? What do I do? she asked the no one within her.

In the end, she didn’t have to do anything. Set strode across the room and seized her by the hand. With one firm yank, she was torn free from her mother’s grasping embrace and tumbled into his own.

“Tell her, Min,” he said, his voice wet and overeager. “It’s time. Tell her what’s inside of you.”

Min’s whole body trembled. I have to stop. I’m not a little girl, I can’t be scared . . .

“Be gentle, my emperor,” Brother said, his voice still inappropriately calm, as though he were in some other conversation.

“Why, Set?” her mother said, and Min was astonished to hear how small and broken she sounded. How defeated. “Tell me why. You promised me you would protect her.”

“Min can protect herself. She has strength beyond what you can imagine. It was foretold.” He shook Min’s shoulder, sounding absurdly cheerful. “Come on then, cousin. Wife. Tell her what you are.”