I followed this new guard out of the Lilac Salon and down the hallway on our way to see my mother. The palace hallways were as familiar to me as my own bedroom, their many colored tapestries and glowing faerie lamps fading into the background as I focused on something far more important.

“So, what’s your name? I don’t recognize you,” I said, sidling up to the guard as she led the way. While I knew the palace layout like the back of my hand, I didn’t actually know where my mother was at that particular moment, and the guard had so far declined to tell me. I didn’t mind the chance to get to know her though.

“Emily Loste, Your Highness.”

“That’s a pretty name,” I smiled at her, letting the pointed tips of my canines peek over the edge of my lip. I didn’t know what it was, but women often went crazy for my little fangs. Eddy used to compare me to his Wolves when we were kids but it made me cry and eventually he stopped. He could be a good guy sometimes, although I still wanted to beat his ass into the ground. “Has anyone ever told you they could get lost in your eyes?”

She stopped abruptly and turned to face me, as dead-eyed as before. “Yes, Your Highness. Many women have used that particular pick up line on me. I’m sorry to say that you are hardly original.”

I feigned a pout, but secretly I was delighted. She’d said women. That meant I wasn’t barking up the completely wrong tree. I was more than happy to take on a challenge.

“Has it ever worked?” I asked insouciantly, letting my smile return.

She paused for a moment before facing forward once more and resuming her stride down the hallways.

“Highness, your mother is waiting for you. We should not tarry.”

I followed after her obediently, unable to keep my lips from forming into a smirk.

This is going to be fun

A few minutes later we arrived outside the Crane Study, one of Mother’s favorite rooms for dealing with the paperwork and minutiae that came with being a queen. While I continued to badger Emily, she maintained her reserve throughout the entire walk. Frankly, I would have been disappointed if she’d been that easy to crack.

I stalked dramatically through the wooden doorway, its lintel decorated with intricate carvings of waterbirds stalking and eating their prey and flung myself into a deep curtsey.

“Presenting,” I said in my best pompous herald impression “Her Royal Highness, the Princess Evariste Alouette Vidania Saliir, heir to the throne of Lymnis.”

“You may rise,” Mother said drily.

I lifted my eyes to meet her own, just as piercingly gray as my own if more lined with wrinkles and dark bags. “Mama, you haven’t been sleeping enough,” I exclaimed. “How will the poets write odes to your beauty when you look like this?”

Truthfully, she was still a beauty for the ages. While I’d inherited her eyes, my own dirty blonde hair wasn’t nearly as lustrous and shiny as her own impressive mane. I’d also gotten the short end of the stick when it came to the body that poets had in fact written quite a number of odes about. There were no sculptures of my father, a kind man with a slight and delicate frame, and I’d inherited his slender boyish build rather than my mother’s. Looking up at her now, it was no mystery where I’d gotten the mischievous dimple in my left cheek that I saw mirrored in her own as she took in my antics.

“The poets will have to figure out something else Ris. Maybe we can take this opportunity to have you sit for your royal portrait, since I’m obviously unfit to be captured in such a state as this.” She gestured down to the comfortable maroon dress she wore, loose enough to move around or lounge, unadorned by embroidery but still the quality shone through in the lines of the fabric. Even something so simple was made stunning by her. When I wore something like that, I looked like I’d decided to don a potato sack as a bet.

Faux-aghast, I gaped at her. “I would never dream of attempting to usurp your place, Mother.” I dropped again to the floor, this time taking one knee and bringing my right fist to my chest. “I swear to you, Your Majesty, I am loyal.”

“Oh do get up Ris and come give your mother a hug. It’s been a long day.”

I popped right up and slid around the table to do as my queen commanded, leaning in to trade kisses on the cheek. From my new angle I could see that Emily had followed me into the room and was standing at attention by the door. It was impossible to tell from her stony expression whether she found my antics amusing or childish, but as usual I chose to err on the side of assuming that everyone around me thought I was delightful.

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“Thank you darling,” she said, clasping her hand around mine and bringing it to rest on her shoulder. “Now, what is this I hear about you trying to get yourself embroiled in yet another duel?”

I glared down at her indignantly. “How could you possibly know about that? It just happened, and Emily and I walked straight from there. Do you have spies in the walls? Did you hire a new guard because of her magical ability to snitch on me from the other side of the palace?”

Mother smiled back up at me with a wicked glint in those gray eyes of hers. “I was just guessing darling. Who was it this time, by the way?”

I flushed, the red much more noticeable on my pale and freckled skin than I liked. People like Ed could get away with an occasional blush, but when I was embarrassed everyone could tell.

“Edwin.” I mumbled.

“What’s that dear? Speak up, you know your aging mother is losing her hearing along with her good looks.”

“It was Edwin, okay? He called you a fool in front of my friends and I was compelled to defend your honor.”

She looked at me, the skepticism clear in her eyes. “And?”

“And… he knocked over my pastry tray with those new pistachio rolls I’ve been experimenting with and I finally got them figured out but almost nobody got to try one before he bulled his way into the room!”

“Ah,” she said. “There we have it. Ris, how many times do we have to have this talk?”

“Have to? None. Going to? Well, that’s kinda up to you isn’t it.”

Mother sighed. “I just don’t understand you, Evariste. You’re young, beautiful, brilliant, and you’ve learned almost everything I know about running a country-”

“Stop, please I’m not that-”

“And yet you keep insisting on getting yourself into duels.”

“Aand that’s why I said stop.” I turned to the wall, unable to face yet another repetition of the same discussion we’d had dozens of times since I was old enough to issue an honorable challenge.

She paused and I heard a deep indrawn breath, let out slowly like a cascade.

“You’re right.”

I’m what? I spun around to see my mother with an expression I don’t think I’d ever seen on her face before. She’d been angry, frustrated, even disappointed with me more times than I could count. But she looked… sad. Like she’d lost something precious, that she would never get back. It wasn’t quite that though. Like I said, I’d never seen this particular look on my mother’s face before, and I simply couldn’t place it.

“You’re right, Ris. You’re twenty-five. You’re old enough to take over this kingdom when I pass, and despite your habits I know you will be a remarkable queen. I have to trust that you know what you’re doing, even when I don’t understand it. I probably never will.

“I-” I was at a loss for words. The truth was, I didn’t know what I was doing. There was just something in me, an urge that pushed me forwards. When I saw a fight coming, I couldn’t pull away. It wasn’t anything conscious, I wasn’t baiting Ed because it was a good strategic move. I did it because I wanted more than anything in that moment to hit him until he bled. My flush of earlier was almost instantly replaced by the cold trickle of shame settling in my belly. I don’t deserve this trust.

“It’s time I stopped treating you like a child, and started treating you like a future queen. And it’s time you did the same.”

Oh. Oh no. I knew where this was going.

“It’s time for you to make your bond.”

“No”

It was pity. That was that expression lighting my mother’s eyes like luminescent fish beneath a storm tossed sea. The one I’d never seen before.

“Evariste, you have to. You’ve always known you would have to one day.”

“Yeah, one day. Not today. Not now. Sometime before I became queen, way in the future.”

“It isn’t so far in the future as you might think, darling.”

My blood went cold. “You’re not… are you?”

“Dying?” She laughed. “No more so than always.”

I relaxed a bit, although it always took me a few minutes to return my heartrate to normal after I panicked. Even if this hadn’t become a full blown attack, it would still take more than a reassurance and a breath to calm myself down.

“I’m just… thinking about the future. About my future, and yours, and the future of this kingdom I know you love just as much as I do.”

“Mom…”

“And sometimes we have to make sacrifices for that future. We have to give up our joys and innocence.”

She looked me square in the eyes, all pity gone. This was the stare of a woman who cared, but who would never bend.

“I have never questioned your attachment to your birth talent. Despite its lack of use, I have always supported you as the rest of your peers without true inborn gifts made their bonds. I have never pushed you to follow suit. I wanted to give you time.”

“And now?”

“Time’s up, darling. The delegation from the Crags will be here next week, and they’ll be bringing your dragon with them.”