Page 62 of Queen's Crusade
Putting every single one of us into horrible danger. Not just from arguably the strongest living Triune queen, but her goddess as well.
Kill the Dauphine to protect my family…
And simultaneously put everything I fucking loved in this world on the line.
Esetta had been moving me into position before I’d even been born. Clearing the board before I even knew the game had started. Bringing in the pieces she thought I needed, even if that meant sending people she loved into nightmares I didn’t want to even begin to comprehend.
The fucking scope of her game. At least a century in the making.
The fucking audacity.
She didn’t know me. She couldn’t have known what kind of daughter I would be. What kind of queen.
What if I was fucking insane like Tanza? Tainted by something dark and twisted? What if all I’d wanted to do was torture the Blood she’d sent to other courts once I found them? The people she’d loved. Lew. Thierry. Who else was suffering this very moment, wondering where the fuck I was? Why their queen had abandoned them to endless torment?
“Maybe you should ask her,” Rik suggested, his voice a low, gentle rumble. “Make her tell you where the rest are. At least then we can go get them.”
My throat felt like Lew’s talons were shredding me from the inside out. “It’s not that easy. I can’t talk to her whenever I want.”
“Why not? You’re Shara fucking Isador. We’re in the house Esetta Isador built. Where she planned every step of your birth in the shadow of the former Skye Tower.”
I was born in this house. If there was any place in the world where I could talk to my mother, it’d be here.
Pulling on a robe, I nodded and turned toward the door. “You’re right.”
I didn’t have to tell him to stay. Even—especially—my alpha who was always at my back.
* * *
SHARA
Pausing to gather myself, I traced my fingers over the carvings on the door. A large tyet, the Knot of Isis, framed by two hooded cobras with more snakes winding over the dark wood.
Irrationally, it made me even more angry.
Even before I was born, she’d known I’d carry the cobra queen inside me. Had she seen me kill Rik and Okeanos, the same way she’d killed Guillaume?
Holding my breath, I lay my fingers on the doorknob, not sure it would open. Magnum had used an old-fashioned iron key to open it the first time I stepped inside this house. I hadn’t asked her to lock the room again, so the doorknob turned, the door cracking open easily. Letting out a sigh, I entered the small room and shut the door behind me.
Nothing happened in this house until its queen commanded.
Automatic lights flickered on overhead, softly illuminating the beautiful panels of murals on the walls and ceilings. Esetta hand painted papyrus herself in painstaking detail and then wallpapered the entire room. It must have taken her years.
Years she’d spent planning every moment of my life. Bringing me into this world. Sending her Blood to wait for me. Tortured. Trapped. Wondering where the hell their queen was. If I’d ever come to end their misery.
I could have died a thousand different ways. I could have been stillborn. I could have been killed by thralls dozens of times before I ever fled Kansas City. Looking back over the past few months, I couldn’t even list all the ways I might have died. All the tiny, seemingly insignificant decisions I’d made where things could have gone wrong so easily. Over and over and over.
If I’d cleaned that honeymoon whirlpool tub in Eureka Springs a little quicker, I might have ended up killing myself to avoid being eaten alive by the thralls—before Rik and Daire could reach me.
I might have refused Guillaume’s bond, too afraid he would kill my alpha.
Ra’s priests almost pulled me through the portal in my bedroom, which would have allowed the Soldiers of Light to slaughter my Blood while they lay spelled in the very bed where we’d just made love.
I’d almost lost Xin because he wasn’t sure I’d be willing to use him like the blade he is.
I’d hesitated before taking the twins after Mayte had kept the geas on her nest hidden. What if I’d been too intimidated by court life to even attempt to arrange a sibling arrangement with her? I’d never have found Keisha’s geas in the first place.
If I hadn’t found a way out of the blood petition she’d put before the Triune. If I’d failed to reach Rik in that demon circle. If Rik died…