Page 97 of Queen Takes Triune
What kind of fucking game was that? Who else had suffered or died for hercontingencies?
“That was a fine, fine game your mother played, Shara. I mean it, sincerely.” Marne clapped her hands several times, a mockery of applause. “Maybe Undina told her that I’d taken her powerful king kraken as hostage. Or maybe your mother had actually seen my possible move long before there was a need to call on someone trustworthy enough in Skolos to keep her secrets. Either way, you were born, and we began to play the game in earnest.”
My life had been a fucking nightmare of a chess game before I’d even been born. Ironically, I didn’t give a fuck about the game. I didn’t want the Triune seat that so many queens had been willing to murder and kidnap innocent pawns in order to win.
And yeah, rape and torture, if I added Ra to that list. He’d wanted a queen of his own, surely to get his bloodline on the Triune and corrupt the very courts the Great Mother had created.
“The next move is yours, Shara.” Marne stepped closer, a smile still playing on her lips as if she was inviting me back to tea. “You’ve been called to the Triune, but as your dear mother foresaw, you don’t have to choosethisTriune.”
In my head, I heard her replacethiswithmy.
This Triune would always be hers.
Though the Dauphine might have something to say about that.
Goddess above, I couldn’t imagine being the voice of reason between a woman willing to kidnap and hold a man for ransom for a hundred years just in case she needed to blackmail his mother, and a woman willing to resurrect her adversary’s poor dead mother and send her as a fucking zombie with a message to mentally torment her.
Though I knew very little about the Skolos Triune, I certainly didn’t want to force another woman to step down just to save her son. Though if it’d been my son that Marne had imprisoned…
Rome would have been wiped off the fucking map by now.
The vision I’d seen at the bottom of the koi pond filled my mind.
A chamber, so very like this one, beneath my heart tree. Was it really the third Triune statue? The one we’d lost?
My magic hummed with certainty.
The choice was mine. As my mother had intended from the beginning. As Isis had intended.
I closed my eyes, and I felt the softest touch on my cheek. I smelled something sweet, like sugar cookies hot out of the oven, and heard the gentle tinkling chimes in my head. My mother, Esetta.
She’d made the ultimate sacrifice for me.
She’d died. So I could be free. Free to choose my path. Free to decide which Triune court I wished to rule.
Fly, oh dark wings. Run, oh silent feet. Rise.
The words Esetta had left for me in the room where she’d delivered me in complete darkness. Safe from Ra’s corruption. Safe from the Triune queens’ games.
“Lo, Father of Monsters, look down from Heaven and see what we have wrought,” I whispered, opening my eyes. Tears slipped down my cheeks and I felt her ghostly hand brush them away.
I stepped closer to the Great Mother and dropped to my knees. Her features were soft and vague, but Her eyes saw straight into my soul. She knew my decision, and I felt only abounding love as I kissed Her rounded stomach. “Blood flows from the Mother through the Great One to the Daughter of Chaos. I have heard Your call, Great Mother, and I choose to take the Triskeles Triune.”
Marne laughed. “You can’t take what doesn’t exist, Shara. Triskeles is gone. Lost to the sands of time.”
I stood and backed away, deliberately shifting my path until I gently collided into Rik’s solid bulk. He wrapped his arms around me. This mighty warrior, my invincible alpha, on his knees, waiting for me to make my choice.
Loving me whatever I decided to do.
:Always,:he rumbled in my head.
“There are two very important things you should know about me, Marne.” For the first time, I used her given name without her title. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth flattening slightly, as if she’d bitten into a bitter lemon. “What this queen takes, she loves, and what she loves, she keeps for all time. I am taking the Triskeles Triune. I will love and guard it with every drop of the Great One’s blood in my veins. It won’t ever be lost again.”
“And the second thing?”
“Could you delay recording House Isador’s visit to House Ceresa in the official Triune record for a few days?”
For the first time, her mask slipped.
