“Don’t you dare speak to me of justice, Azura,” she hissed. Her dark eyes flashed at my mother. “Not when you’re the one who murdered my husband.”
I sucked in a breath, all else forgotten. “What?” I tightened my grip on the sword. “Mother, tell me that isn’t true.”
Orion Grimaldi had been sick for quite a while before he died. The palace healers said it was a lung disease, one they suspected Isabella contracted soon after his death. It was unfortunate, but it was an accident. A natural course of illness. That was what we all believed.
“You were clever, Azura, I must admit,” Isabella said. “And nobody would have known if it weren’t for Rose. One of the Veridians you seem to despise so very much.”
My mind spun. What did Rose have to do with this?
Rose hunched over Leo, pouring some yellow oil from her pouch onto her hands. Leo was still conscious and propped up on his good arm, with Clarissa’s hand resting protectively on his shoulder. His face was sweat-slicked and pale, wincing with pain at Rose’s every motion.
“I thought it was a lung disease,” I said slowly, still taking in Isabella’s accusation.
“He was truly sick,” Isabella admitted. “But he was recovering. And then Azura began visiting and suggested we try an herbal tea, brewed by her own healers.” She took another step toward my mother. “You sat there, week after week, watching him lose his life.Watchingmelose my senses. Until I was nothing more than a ghost of myself confined to that chair, coughing up blood and waiting to follow him to the grave.” Her voice wavered with both anger and despair, those eyes that reminded me of Galen piercing my mother to the floor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bella,” my mother said, her lips barely moving as she gripped her cane tighter.
“Foxglove and hellebore,” Rose gritted out. Her eyes were still locked on Leo’s injury. “I found traces of it in Isabella’s tea. That’s what you’ve been slipping them.” She finally removed her gaze from Leo and stared up at my mother. “Poison.”
Leo’s pale lips pulled into a tired smile from his slumped position on the ground. “That’s my girl,” he wheezed out.
The few members of the King’s Guard around us shifted on their feet, some weapons aimed at Clarissa while others now strayed to my mother.
Mother’s nose twitched. Her eyes narrowed on Rose. “You cannot honestly believe her. We’ve already seen how adept their kind is at lying. Look at everything that has happened in our territories since their arrival. Why would any of you listen to this?”
“Open your eyes, Azura!” Isabella barked. “She sensed it the moment she met me before the wedding. All it took was one of her herbal tonics to counteract the poison and prove her theory correct.” Her arm shook as she pointed to Azura. “I didn’t want to believe it, but the instant the haze cleared and I couldthinkagain, couldbreatheagain…I knew.” Isabella dropped her arm and whispered, “Howcouldyou, Azura?”
I stared at my mother, waiting for a response. Perhaps part of me was hoping for some kind of explanation, some scrap of truth that would make all of this disappear. That would bring back the mother I knew before she let her grand ideas of power get in the way of her ability to show compassion.
But she simply stood there, unmoving. Frozen. Except for those eyes, which darted between those staring at her, the gears in hermind turning to think of a way out of this. To lie and manipulate. Deceive, as she always did.
“It’s true, isn’t it,” I murmured, the last shred of confidence I had in her hardening and shattering.
Mother rolled her lips together, then flattened them into a grim line. For a split second, her eyes found mine and softened, that same look of tenderness she reserved for Marigold shining through.
She blinked, and it was gone.
“It was supposed to be me,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“What was supposed to be you?” I asked.
“The throne. The kingdom. All of it.” Her gaze swept over to Isabella. “Orion Grimaldi was supposed to marryme.”
64
Thorne
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Mother’s jaw ticked. “My parents worked in the palace. I was born here on these grounds and grew up with Orion. My family came from a modest background—not of nobility, but my father served the crown well. Eventually, Orion and I became…close.” At these words, she looked away, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “He promised to marry me. He said it would all be ours one day.”
I remembered the conversation we’d had toward the beginning of the tour in the Mid Territory, when she told me she’d been in love once.
“It was him,” I said. “The man you loved. It was Orion Grimaldi.”
Her eyes flicking back to mine was my only answer. Isabella rocked on her heels, her brow furrowed. “I—I had no idea,” she said.
“How could you, Bella?” Mother replied. “You were the beautiful daughter of a lord, not the little girl who grew up playing in the kitchens and hiding in the gardens.Youwere the one the Grimaldis wanted on the throne with theirson. The one they wanted bearing his offspring. I was simply not good enough.” She steeled her voice. “And Orion agreed.”
