Yemi glanced over at her mother across the gardens, seated safely between Cutter and Luzon and his royal guard. The Drakes watched the sky from the opposite end of things, seemingly up to nothing for now. By morning, their rebels would be in prison cells beneath the mountain, and it would be time to forget frivolity for a while again.
“Please,” Yemi replied.
Nova winked and led her around the outer edges of the courtyard and up a quiet staircase behind the administrative building to where a guard opened a door to the residential wing. Explosions still echoed in the vast halls of the palace. The household staff laughed and made merry over a card game in their kitchen, skirts and pants hiked to the knee as they soaked pained joints and undid one another’s braids. They took no notice as Yemi passed, and she didn’t intend to bother them.
Nova went to her own bedroom door and attempted to pull Yemi into it, but Yemi resisted, tugging Nova’s hand instead in the direction of her room. Nova pressed her against the door with a smiling kissuntil it opened, and Yemi cackled as they nearly tumbled backward into the dark.
She uncuffed the stack of royal rings around her throat, freeing the space for Nova to kiss while they each struggled out of their garments with their too many laces, their impossible boots, the wrappings of their subarmor. All went into an unceremonious pile on the floor while they collapsed onto the bed.
Yemi climbed on top, letting Nova revel in the ridiculousness that was removing enough pins to let her hair down. They’d stab themselves on those discarded, lost, and twisted in the sheets at least once before the night was over. She loved watching the change in Nova’s expression when Yemi was stripped all the way down from her Qorrea, her job, to just a woman she could touch out loud.
She’d decided years ago that they’d eventually rule Ixia together as queens, that she could be happy the rest of her life if this view of Nova, grinning impishly in her bed among the royal things, could be part of it.
Nova touched her face and brought it down to where she could kiss her lips and take her time doing it, while kaleidoscope light danced in the colored glass of the windows.
“Yemi, wake up.”
She opened her eyes just barely to see a blurry Nova jostling her in the scant predawn light.
“Wha?” she muttered, blinking until clarity revealed the worry on Nova’s face. The door behind her was slightly ajar, and murmuring shadows passed quickly in the flickering light of the hallway. “What?” she repeated more firmly, alarm seizing her muscles.
“It’s your mother,” Nova said quietly.
In half a moment, she was up with a robe on, immune to the morning chill of the stone floors and flying down the hallway. Household staff still in their night things stood clear of her with their heads bowed. Enna made brief eye contact, her nose red and cheeks glistening.Somewhere, there was sniffling. Yemi’s chest was tight. She felt as if her heart had stopped, and sucked air desperately as if it were the only way to start it again.
“Where?” she barked.
“Quarters,” Nova replied, near sprinting to keep up.
The entryway to her mother’s bedroom was crowded with guards and maids, half of them barely recovered from the night’s reverie and looking the worse for it.
“Move!” Nova roared, and a path was cut to allow Yemi inside without having to break stride.
When she finally stopped inside the doorway, she felt her heart beat again, painful and staccato, as she stared down at her mother, all black and muted stone sunk into the mattress.
“Mo—” she choked, praying for a response. Her legs carried her to the bed of their own accord, and she reached for her mother’s hand, where it was clenched over her stomach. She hadn’t been asleep. Her eyes were open, peering at the nothingness off to her left where Yemi would have lain at least for a few hours on their good nights. Her hand was uncannily warm but completely solid, as immovable as the rest of her.
“Is she dead?” Yemi asked the air in a firm voice, afraid to look away, afraid to blink and encourage the tears welling in her eyes to flow until she’d cried every drop of water from her own body. No one answered, and she looked around more pointedly. “How do we know she’s not still alive in this shell? Where is Selah?”
The more she spoke, the more her voice cracked, the more the tears flowed freely and scorched themselves on her hot cheeks.
Orie cleared her throat behind her. “I’ve sent for her alr—”
“Yousaid we had more time!” Yemi screeched, and Orie blinked herself to silence. Yemi touched her mother’s arm, her face, anything that might crinkle or crack, and finally sat on the edge of the bed as her knees gave. Nova and Cutter seemed to search her face for ways they could help. Even Luzon looked on with reddened, downcast eyes, his hand covering what was likely a trembling lip.
Her mother’s face was still beautiful, as serene as it had ever been. Her left arm extended as if having reached for something or inviting Yemi to take her hand. Had she called for her daughter while her daughter was in someone else’s arms?
I should have been here,she thought bitterly.
“The Bear Queen is dead. Long live the queen,” she heard behind her.
Yemi looked around at the room, now collectively on its knees, apparently having decided that now was the moment to commence the passing of the torch, the naming of the new queen.
“What is wrong with all of you?” She scowled, disgusted. “Get out.”
Many of them hesitated, the elder Kept too old to stand as quickly as she liked to begin with.
“Get OUT!” she repeated, and Cutter corralled them all quickly out the door. Yemi watched with rage building like bile in her throat, replacing the immense sadness.
