Page 80 of The Queen

His velvet rumble startled me. I hadn’t realized he was still listening. “I don’t see anything in this section, but I’ve barely scratched the surface.”

“You might check what it says about the Altairan royal line,” Grey suggested. He’d told us about Altaira’s tragic history with multiple mates. It sounded like a logical place to start.

I was grateful my horse was so agreeable, finding his way through the falling twilight without my direction, while I navigated through the records, not paying attention to our shadowed path. “Found it. The lineage is similar to Verden, with multiple mates recorded in the past, but not recently. There’s a note about the last queen who had more than one bond, though. It’s in a different format, like it was added after the fact. It says, four generations ago, Aranka of Altaira had six Star-blessed mates, but…”

I paused, biting the inside of my cheek, unsure if I should go on. They needed to know just as much as I did. “But it says that the bond killed her. The issues started when she used her men’s political positions on their home planets to insinuate control, annexing Pyxis and Pyraxis and,” I swallowed hard, “had the Queens murdered to claim their crowns for herself.”

I didn’t want to believe it. How could anyone do something so awful?

Here I was, looking for the best in people when they didn’t deserve it again.

Despite my reluctance to accept the horrible possibility, the Imperatrix did control those planets. Which only made sense if the Queens were gone. Or dead. Or Murdered.

I shook off the heavy thoughts and continued reading. “Aranka used the bond to manipulate her mates. The misuse of their connection made them ill, but she didn’t stop. In pursuit of more power, their ties became unstable. She was an empty husk when they died at her feet. She succumbed to the poison she sowed into their union, leaving one frail, sickly daughter behind.” I filled my lungs with cool, moist air. What I’d read so far was bad enough, but I was only halfway through the entry.

“There’s more.” I shifted uncomfortably in my saddle, four sets of eyes suddenly heavy on me. “The daughter outlawed multiple mates, blaming the tragedy of her parents’ death on that, and attempted to destroy any record of the abuse.” My thoughts turned to the charred shelves in the library. The library that had been protected behind our shield until my mother was murdered.

“You don’t think the Imperatrix killed your mother just for the records, do you?” Grey asked softly.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m part of this somehow.” The longer I thought about it, the more it made sense, but there was something beyond just keeping their secret.

My fingers skittered across the touchpad, halting. “Search Edeth…”

Lex turned in his saddle, watching me as I sifted through the files. His mouth was drawn in a grim line, and his brows were furrowed in thought. He was always intense but this was even worse than usual. It seemed like he blamed himself for what had happened and was just as mad at himself for missing the clues as he was at Edeth for doing it.

The screen lit up with logs going back hundreds of years. The entries would have stopped updating near my mother’s death, so the Edeth I was looking for had to be a recent addition.

She was there. Right at the top.

Edeth Lochlan, citizen of Verden. I tapped the entry and blinked at the results. How did I not know this until now? Did no one think it was important enough to mention? Lex was too young, but Titus should have known. Was he covering for her?

I read out loud. “Edeth Lochlan, daughter of Lord and Lady Lochlan of Altaira. Assigned to Verden as a child companion to the heir, Esmeralda of Verden, along with her aunt as a chaperone.” My fingers were numb around the suddenly heavy weight of the tablet.

“That’s not her name anymore. It’s Edeth Knight now. Since she married the regent, she changed her surname. No doubt to flaunt her new position,” Lex spat, his normally smooth voice was rough with anger.

Surely, Edeth hadn’t been sent all the way from Altaira to keep a secret. That was such a minor reason to take a life. She could have stolen the records or burned the library herself at any point.

My horse came to a stop, and I looked up from the screen. Night had fallen while I’d been reading. The moon cast a diffused silver glow through the thin blanket of fog hugging the treetops. The sound of the burbling creek and the mist drifting from the hot springs just in sight up the hill alerted me to the fact that we’d arrived at camp.

Rainbow sparks flickered through the wisps of clouds overhead where the shroud broke apart, jarring me from thoughts of Edeth’s betrayal. Cascading hexagonal patterns shot across the sky in shimmering streaks.

A jolt of fear raced up my spine as I watched the ominous light show. “What’s that?”

It was Ghost who answered as he helped me from my perch. “It looks like the armada is testing the shield. Probably shooting at it to see if anything can get through. The lights would be the resulting interaction.”

“They’re here, then.” I wasn’t asking. I already knew.

“Right on time.” Ghost kissed the top of my head and pulled my horse’s saddle off, taking it to stow with the others.

“Will they be able to get through?” I wondered out loud, trying to keep the concern from my voice.

Ghost traded the datapad for my horse’s lead rope and a brush. “Not tonight.”

The unspoken ‘Not while you live’ was a silent weight hanging over my head.

My fingers trembled as I brushed my gelding down. The repetitive motion soothed my worries, and my mind drifted back to Edeth and what else she was doing. “If Edeth came here as a child, why would she wait so long to do what she did?”

Grey set a kettle of water over the fire Shadow had built while the rest of us were tending the horses. His voice drifted through the fog across the clearing. “It does seem strange that she waited, if that’s all she was here to do. Maybe she didn’t know at first, and hesitated when she found out what was expected of her. If Maddox and his father are to be believed, the shield would’ve warded off any direct threat. Assassination wouldn’t work. The only way to get through might have been the innocence of a child.”

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