Page 18 of The Kingdom's Crown

"Heck!"

I stifled my laugh at her bark of outrage and moved forward into the dark.

"Peony, that had better be you and not your ghastly daughter again."

"Ghastly daughter, I'm afraid," I answered, strangely gleeful.

My grandmother gasped, and then let out a series of shocking, gasping, shredded coughs. I rushed forward to the bed at the sound, afraid my teasing might've just killed the dowager queen, but she recovered with a few squeaking wheezes of breath.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"About time you showed up. Vincent, light another candle for goodness sake, it's like a tomb in here. What on earth took you so long? Were you trying tomissthe main event? If so, I am pleased to disappoint you."

Vincent, another of my grandmother's Chosen, a very handsome and notably younger man than Hector or my grandmother, appeared by the flick of a match, lighting a candle by the bed. The glow brightened, and even through my damp eyes, I caught the wince of my grandmother at the flame, until it was shaded by an opaque lamp lense.

"Are you blubbering? What for?" Grandmother snapped at me.

I was not blubbering, I was just a little teary-eyed. "I am practicing my mourning," I said instead, and Hector chuckled behind me as my grandmother scoffed.

She'd grown so frail so quickly, or so it seemed in the wavering shadows, with her bundled up in the tall bed, surrounded by pillows and silk quilts, a little bonnet covering her hair.

"We visited with Wendell's family on our way south," I explained. "And then last night when we arrived, they told me I shouldn't see you. Mother wanted me to wait for us to come together—"

"That's the council in her ear. They think you've influenced me or I've influenced you, whichever tips Peony in the direction they want her fretting." Grandmother's hand twitched in my direction, and I reached out to her. I remembered her grip around my wrist as she snatched novels out of my grasp to drag me off for a lecture, and it was hard to believe these trembling fingers could ever have been responsible for such force. "I'm sorry I didn't see the cage our line has built for itself before now, but your mother seems far too content and—"

Grandmother's words halted, her body seizing and trembling. Hector pushed past me, and together he and Vincent pulled my grandmother upright as she began to release wracking coughs, her breaths stolen on strangled gasps. I stood and stepped back, my hands clutching at the waist of my gown as I held my own breath and waited for my grandmother to recover.

Gradually, the fit released her, Grandmother growling weakly as her Chosen moved her slowly back into the pillows. Vincent brought a glass of water to her lips, and my grandmother glared at him as he smiled back patiently. There was something else too, she was annoyed with him, but mostly with her own body, and there was a softness flowing between the two of them, between Hector as well. These were the Chosen who loved my grandmother, really loved her as my Chosen loved me.

"Grandmother, what happened?" I murmured.

"Took ill after a dinner party," Grandmother muttered with a scowl.

I pursed my lips. "Poison?"

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps?! Isn't that… Shouldn't youknow?"

Grandmother sighed and sank into her pillows, eyes closing for a moment, and I wondered if she wasn't planning on answering me. "I've been poisoned before. Long time ago. It wasn't so successful then. To be quite frank, Bryony, Iamold—"

"But—"

"And when I returned from the north, I…I dismissed some of my Chosen. Most of them." Hector's hands slid over the sheets and clasped around my grandmother's. "I didn't have much Hunger left in me anyway, and not all of them made very good company," my grandmother said primly.

"And without the Hunger…" I trailed off, freezing at the implication. "What exactly is wrong though? Why aren't the doctors helping?"

"Her lungs are taking on water. They don't know why, only that it's coming on quickly and nothing they or the mages can think of to do seems to be working," Hector said.

"They think my time is up," Grandmother growled, but her voice squeaked with effort. "And perhaps it is."

"Vi," Vincent chided softly.

"You could have my magic! I have plenty," I said, reaching out.

My grandmother only twitched away from me. "The magic isn't working, Bryony. What Hunger I have left is doing what it can for me, but it will run out."

She ignored her Chosen, her eyes fixing to mine, and I sat down at her side again, the weight of truth landing heavily in my bones. This was more than just a plot against me. This was age and ill health and the nature of our magic.

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