Page 28 of The Forgotten Queen
“I’m Meldrum McKane,” he said.
Sydria quickly curtsied out of respect.
“Please, don’t,” the woman next to him said. Her light hair was tucked back from her face into a regal twist. She wore a pink blouse decorated with two oversized pink buttons and a fitted pink pencil skirt. “You’re going to be family,” the woman said as she smiled up to King McKane. “Actually, you’re going to be queen.”
Sydria’s stomach twisted together into a giant knot.
The woman smiled warmly, reaching out to her. “I’m Malory McKane, Marx’s mother. Oh my! That’s a lot of M’s.” She giggled, then grabbed Sydria’s hands and held them. “We are so pleased that you’re here.”
Sydria held hands with the queen mother, forcing a smile, because that is what the queen mother wanted—she could see it in her light brown eyes.
“Yes,” King McKane said, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders, which seemed odd because his wife was still holdingherhands. “We want you to feel welcome at Cristole Castle.”
“Thank you.” Sydria pulled her hands away, clasping them together so there could be no more spontaneous hand holding. She didn’t want to be touched anymore. “I was hoping to meet with the king before the…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“I’m sure you do want to meet him, and wewantyou to meet him.” The queen mother smiled nervously at her husband. “I promise we’re not hiding him from you on purpose. He’s running late.”
“Don’t be worried,” the king interjected. “He’s excited about your wedding.”
“Thrilled!” Queen Malory added.
“Thrilled?” Sydria coughed.
That was not what she wanted to hear. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell them that she didn’t want to go through with this, to find out if her mother had really set this up for her, but the king spoke first.
“We’ll give you a minute to get prepared for the ceremony.”
Sydria looked down. She was wearing a wedding dress. Wasn’t she already prepared?
Queen Malory squeezed her arm.
The woman didn’t know how to keep her hands to herself.
“You look absolutely beautiful. I’m so excited.” She leaned into Sydria. “I packed some tissues in my pocket because weddings always make me cry.”
Sydria blinked. Was the queen mother insane? This wasn’t a real wedding. Unless the woman meant to say arranged—arrangedmarriages always made her cry. Sydria would understand that sentiment.
“Come on, Malory,” King McKane said, pulling his wife away from Sydria. “Let’s give Miss Hasler a minute.”
Sydria watched as the royal couple exited the room. She had wanted to talk to them about the absurdity of it all, but she hadn’t.
She had folded under pressure faster than a pre-Desolation lawn chair.
Marx
“It looks like you’ve had some fun, Your Majesty,”Louden said as he grabbed the handlebars of the personal transporter from Marx and rolled the machine into the castle’s garage. Louden took care of the castle’s vehicles, making sure the solar panels were charged, filling the tires with air, fixing the hydraulics whenever Marx rode them too hard.
“Don’t worry.” Marx placed his hand on the servant’s shoulder. “I didn’t break anything this morning.”
“That’s a relief, Your Majesty.” Louden glanced behind him at another PT with its engine open. “I still haven’t fixed the machine you wrecked last week.”
“I wasn’t talking about the PT. I was talking about myself.Ididn’t break anything.” He shrugged. “I would check the PTs solar panel. I think I cracked it when I crashed.”
Louden shook his head as he chuckled. “I should have known.”
Marx grimaced. “Sorry, I make your job harder.”
Louden swiped his hand over the sand that covered the PT. “It keeps me busy.”
