“Yes, thank you.” Azaleen pushed out of her seat and trudged to her mother’s room. Her hand on the knob, she hesitated, taking a bracing breath. She never knew what to expect. Wrapping an extra layer of protection around her heart, she opened the door.
Sarah was nowhere to be seen. Azaleen frowned, then spotted her mother, sitting in her rocker by the window, working yarn with her crochet needle. She hummed an old tune, awakening memories of her childhood. It had been one of Mama’s favorites.
“Hi, Mama, I’m home,” she said, producing the happiest sound she could. She crept across the floor as if one wrong step might shatter the fragile peace.
“Oh, Azaleen!” Twisting toward her daughter, a pleasant smile lit her pale face. She held up the piece she was working on. “Do you like it?”
Relief flooded Azaleen’s soul. “I love it,” she praised, gliding into the chair beside her mother’s.
“Where have you been all day?” she asked. “Aren will be cross with you for gallivanting all over the countryside.”
“Mama, Aren’s gone. I’m queen now.”Have been for nearly ten years.“I’ve been tending to important affairs of state, but now I’m here to spend the rest of the evening with you. Maybe we can play one of those games you like—mahjong or gin rummy.”
“You’re queen now? Then what’s your father doing? He better not have run off with that floozy Mary Jenkins.” Orielle scowled, narrowed her eyes, shook a crooked finger.
“No, he hasn’t,” Azaleen answered with a patient smile. “I wanted to ask you about your crochet work. I need something special—one of your beautiful, handcrafted wraps—to present as a gift to the AlgonCree chief. She’s about your age. It needs to have a story behind it. Can you think of something?”
Orielle’s pale blue eyes lit up, and she dropped her project into the yarn basket beside her chair. “Well, help me up, and we’ll go check in the cedar chest. Lots of my creations in there.”
Azaleen took her mother’s arm and helped her from the chair, slowly guiding her toward the trunk at the foot of Orielle’s bed, which held all her treasures.
“Don’t fuss so, Azaleen,” she scolded, giving Azaleen’s hand a swat. “I can walk across the room.”
Joy that her mother was mostly herself today stirred renewed strength in Azaleen, and her steps seemed lighter. Orielle opened the chest, taking out sweaters, scarves, shawls, and every conceivable crocheted item, placing them in piles on the neatly made bed.
Her mother’s room was surgically clean, with lots of whites, pinks, and lavenders. A handcrafted doll rested among her frilly pillows, staring in curiosity.
“I remember this one,” Orielle said, smiling at a well-worn winter scarf. “My mother made it for me to wrap around my neck and face during the harsh, long winter before you were born.” She clutched it close to her nose, sniffing the yarn with a wistful smile.
A folded piece in the trunk caught Azaleen’s eye, and she lifted it out. “This looks familiar.” The large diamond-shaped drape with scalloped edges sewn in delicate stitches bore alternating rows of Verdancia green and gold, Arctic blue and deep teal, held together and edged in snowy white.
“Oh, that one.” Her mother sat on the foot of the bed beside the trunk, among the stacks of crochet. Smiling, she took it from Azaleen and draped it around her daughter’s shoulders. “I made it for you the winter you werepregnant with Eldrin. We had quite the cold snap, and you refused to wear a coat. You couldn’t decide if blue or green was your favorite color—it changed practically daily—so I used the green, a medium blue, and the teal, combining them, along with gold and white for contrast.”
The stripes were somewhat diagonal, the points coming together on the seam down the back. It was open in the front for easy draping. “Now I remember. I always liked how it felt to the touch and admired the pretty stitch pattern.”
“That’s a seashell stitch—not too tight or too loose—and I used alpaca wool. Remember that alpaca ranch we visited in Troy?”
Images trickled through Azaleen’s mind—her small child hand holding out alfalfa cubes, velvety lips taking them from. It tickled. A smell like freshly popped popcorn, stale hay, and manure. A curious humming sound. She hadn’t thought of the visit to the Troy farm in decades.
“Yes, Mama,” she answered, her azure eyes bright. “I remember.”
“I loaded up on yarn. Your father thought I’d lost my mind, but who knew when I’d come across that quality again? Maybe half the pieces in this chest were made from that wool. Such a shame the animals all drowned in the Big Creek flood of ’99.”
Azaleen was overtaken by a profound sadness. She hadn’t known or didn’t remember the tragedy. Suddenly, all the woes of the day crashed down on her at once—Lark’s grief, Lord Calder plotting against her, the protestors, the hoops she had to jump through to impress a potential ally.Ally. The AlgonCree.
“Mama, this would be perfect,” she blurted out excitedly. “Look.” She took hold of an edge of the shawl. “This blends the colors on our flag with the colors on theirs. Surely the chief will see the symbolism. I’m trying to build an alliance, and the yarn you chose seventeen years ago blends our two nations’ banners together beautifully.” She kissed her mother’s cheek. “You might have saved our future, Mama.”
Orielle laughed. “All I did was keep my fingers busy. Speaking of busy, your father’s meeting with the secretaries must have run late. When will he get home? You should go finish your homework. You know Edric expects nothing but thehighest marks from you. But before you go.” She squeezed bony fingers around Azaleen’s arm and winked. “Tell me about the girl.”
Azaleen’s expression went blank. “What girl?”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother giggled bashfully, pink rising in her pallid cheeks. “With Azaleen Winnifred Frost, there’s always a girl.”
Lark’s face flashed across her mind, hot tears stinging her tawny eyes, carving jagged paths through the dirt and soot clinging to her tan face.I hate you!spewing from her chapped lips. Yeah. There was always a girl—one Azaleen would never hold.
Two days later
“My queen?” Sabine eased open the door to Azaleen’s office. A gentle rain chased away the afternoon heat as the queen met with Treasury Secretary Vera Sutherland, studying ledgers and recapping the economic forecast.
