Valerie

Chapter Nineteen

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My goal was to become King. 

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The Queen Dowager was a tall woman, with long, dark hair and eyes like the night sky⁠⁠—black, with white reflections in them. Her skin was dusky brown, and her mouth large. She turned heads when she walked⁠, made men sigh, made women cry, and captured the eyes of babies who knew no better than to look toward beauty.

And deep down, I think she was one of the smartest people I'd come across thus far. I'd have to watch her.

The morning Aeneas meant to bring me to his mother, a maid came, and helped me into a dress, something bright yellow and soft. Then he twined his fingers through mine (he'd been clingy since my last facility trip) to lead me into a sunny sitting room, where there the woman sat. She blinked at me, before smiling wide.

"You must be Valerie. I've heard stories about you."

It sounded neither good nor bad. But a prickle went up my spine. "It's nice to meet you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is it?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but Aeneas had already cut in on top of me. "Mother, you look well. How was your time in the East?"

"Oh, it was fine. A bit wild, but they've always had pride in being the last to fall to this kingdom." Her eyes became sharp as knife blades. "But I hear the West more and more resembles the East these days."

"That's just a rumor, Mother," Aeneas said.

"And let it stay that way." She took Aeneas's arm in her left hand and my own in her right. Her hands were soft and warm, though her nails dug into my skin as she folded my hand into her and set in on her lap. "I never had a daughter. I had trouble enough just having a son," she said. "You don't know how happy I was when I heard the news."

"Yes, Mother," Aeneas said. But she was looking at me. I nodded and she smiled, her eyes crinkling in their corners and feeling sharp at each line.

"How old are you, Valerie?"

"Nearly eighteen."

"So it's been almost a year since you came to us. Although I hear you were a maid far before you and my son found each other."

Found each other. I held a laugh because the Queen Dowager was still stroking my arm. "Yes, I was, ma'am."

"Call me Mother."

"Yes, I was, Mother."

She stroked my arm again. She wasn't a vacant-eyed woman. I doubted she was sentimental and really looking for a daughter. She meant to frighten me. She wanted to assert control over me; she was touching me because she could and she was daring me to pull away. And I couldn't.

"So how, then, did it take so long? This is a big palace, but not so big."

Aeneas cleared his throat. "Mother⁠⁠—"

"I want to hear it myself," she said, still looking at me. Her grip grew just a bit tighter, enough to make me take notice. "How?"

"Scent blockers," I said. "Hormones. Pills."

"And I wonder what devastation that would've wrought to your body."

"Anything that did happen had been correct," Aeneas said. "Show her your teeth, Valerie."