Page 57 of The Prisoner's Throne
Once upon a time, there was a woman who was so beautiful that none could resist her. When she spoke, it seemed that the hearts of those who listened beat for her alone. In time, she caught the eye of the king, who made her the first among his consorts. But the king’s son loved her, too, and wanted her for his own. When he got a child on her, however, he was afraid. Although the king favored his son, he had other sons and daughters. His favor might change if he knew that his son had taken the king’s consort to bed. And so the prince slipped poison into the woman’s cup and left her to die.
“I don’t understand,” said Oak.
“People can be greedy about love,” Oriana said. “It’s all right if you don’t understand, my darling.”
“But if he loved her, why did he kill her?” The story made Oak feel strange, as though his life didn’t quite belong to him.
“Oh, my sweet boy,” his mother told him. His second mother, the only mother he would ever know. “He loved power best, I’m afraid.”
“If I love someone—” he started, but he didn’t know where to go from there.If I love someone, I won’t kill themwas a poor vow. Besides, he loved lots of people. His sisters. His father. His mother. His other mother, though she was gone. He even loved the ponies in the stables and the hunting dogs his father told him weren’t pets.
“When you love someone,” Oriana told him, “be better than your father was.”
Oak shuddered at the wordfather. He’d accepted that he had two mothers and that he might act like or look like Liriope because he inherited part of himself from her, but until that moment, he’d never thought of the villain of the story, the “king’s favored son,” as someone with whom he shared anything other than blood.
He looked down at his hooves. The Greenbriars were noted for their animal traits. Those must have come from Dain, along with his horns. Maybe along with things he couldn’t see.
“I—”
“And be more careful than your mother. She had the power to know what was in anyone’s heart and to say the words they most wanted to hear.” She gave him a look.
He was silent, afraid. Sometimes he knew those words, too.
“You can’t help what you are. You can’t help being charming. But look into too many other hearts, and you may lose your way back to your own.”
“I don’t understand,” he said again.
“You can become the embodiment of someone’s—oh, you’re so young, I don’t know how to say this—you can make people see you the way they want to see you. This seems harmless, but it can be dangerous to becomeeverythinga person wants. The embodiment of all their desires. And more dangerous for you to twist yourself into shapes others choose for you.”
He looked up at her, still confused.
“Oh, my darling, my sweet child. Not everyone needs to love you.” She sighed.
But Oak liked everyone loving him. Oak liked it so much that he didn’t understand why he would want it to be otherwise.
CHAPTER
14
Half the Court seems to have come out to watch the ship touch down in the water near Mandrake Market. When the hull drops with a splash, it sends salt spray high into the air. The sail luffs, and Oak hangs on to the rigging to keep from stumbling around the deck like a drunk.
He can guess that the onlookers have come, in part, to see the Crown Prince home and, in part, to get a look at the new northern queen, to decide if she and Oak might really be in love, to determine if this is meant to be a marriage, or an alliance, or the prelude to an assassination.
The Living Council stands near the back of the crowd in a knot. Baphen, the Minister of Stars, strokes a blue beard threaded with celestial ornaments. Beside him, Fala, the Grand Fool, dressed in purple motley, pulls a matching purple rose from his hair and chews on the petals, as though he has been waiting long enough for their landing to need a snack. Mikkel, the troll representative of the Unseelie Courts, looks intrigued by the Hying ship, while insectile Nihuar, the representative of the Seelie Courts, blinks blankly. With her bug-like eyes, Oak has always found her to be eerily inscrutable.
Oak’s family members aren’t far off. Taryn’s skirts blow around her from the last of the wind that propelled the ship. Her head is bent toward Oriana while Leander runs in circles, as restless as Oak was as a child, playing while dull, important things happened around him.
Sailors aboard the ship throw down the anchor. Small boats launch off the shore of Insmire to ferry the passengers home. A collection of vessels—none of the armada, but pleasure boats. One in the shape of a swan, two carved to appear like they are fishes, and a silvery skiff.
As Oak watches, Jude emerges from a carriage. Ten years into her reign, she doesn’t bother waiting for a knight or page to hand her down as would be proper, but simply jumps out. She hasn’t bothered with a gown today, either, but wears a pair of high boots, tight-fitting trousers, and a vestlike doublet over a shirt poufy enough that it may have been borrowed from Cardan. The only sign that she is the High Queen is the crown on her head—or perhaps the way the crowd quiets upon her arrival.
Cardan emerges from the carriage next, wearing all the finery she eschewed. He is in a black doublet as ink dark as his hair with lines of scarlet thorns along the sleeves and across the chest. As if the suggestion of prickliness isn’t enough, his boots come to stiletto points. The smirk on his face manages to convey royal grandeur and boredom all at once.
Knights swarm around them, full of the alarm the king’s and queen’s expressions hide.
After the pleasure boats arrive at the ship, Hyacinthe goes below and emerges with Wren at his side. She has recovered enough to dress for the occasion in a gown of cloud gray, which sparkles when she moves. Her feet remain bare, but her hair has been braided high on her head, woven between the tines of the jagged onyx crown. And if she leans heavily on Hyacinthe, at least she is dressed and upright.
“I will go across first,” Randalin informs the prince. “And you may proceed next, with the queen. I have taken the liberty of instructing your armsfolk to bring up the rear, with Bogdana. That is, of course, if you approve?” The question is clearly meant as a formality. The command was already issued, the procession set. The Minister of Keys may have been unusually quiet since the ship was attacked, but that hasn’t cut down on his pompousness.
