“Was his marriage bond to the queen-consort faulty, then?” Samir said, referring to the fact that generally bondmates were incapable of feeling much of an attraction to anyone other than their spouses.
Dalatteya gave a shrug, her face terribly blank in a way that told Samir that she was hiding some strong emotion. “His telepathy had become erratic after he fell off a zywern and hit his head when he was a boy,” she said in a toneless voice. “All his telepathic bonds were very weak, including his marriage one. He never cared for his betrothed and spent all his youth chasing after me, even though I was betrothed to your father and married him eventually.” Her lips thinned. “The king killed him, you know.”
Samir whispered, “What?”
“It was Emyr who had your father murdered; it wasn’t the muggers. Emyr hated him, hated that your father touched what he considered his.”
What he considered his?
Samir went cold. “Mother, did King Emyr—did he force you…?”
Avoiding his eyes, Dalatteya laughed, the sound sharp and broken. “You don’t say no to a king, Samir.”
Samir sprang to his feet and started pacing, feeling sick to his stomach. Gods. So many things made sense now: the way the king had kept them in the palace, even though they were members of a different House, the fact that the queen-consort had hated his mother, and the fact that his mother had looked pale and haunted after his father’s death… The way Dalatteya had looked almost relieved when the royal couple had died in the terrorist attack.
The terrorist attack.
Samir came to an abrupt halt, his back to his mother. “It wasn’t a terrorist attack, was it?”
There was only silence in response.
At long last, his mother spoke, her voice so toneless and quiet it was barely audible. “I was sixteen when it happened the first time. I endured being the subject of his sick obsession for twenty-three years, Samir. I endured his wife’s hatred for as long. But him killing my husband was the last straw. I couldn’t bear letting your father’s killer touch my body. So I killed him. The day he died, I was finally free.”
Samir inhaled shakily, not sure what to think. He definitely understood why his mother had done it, and he very much empathized with her, but…
“Did you intend for the queen-consort to die, too?” he said, hoping desperately that she’d say no, that she’d say that the queen-consort had been collateral damage.
“Yes,” Dalatteya said in the same toneless voice. “I had to. The moment Emyr died, she would have had us both killed. She had attempted to poison me twice, and nearly killed you when you tried my food. You probably don’t remember it—you were just three. She hated me, Samir. That kind of hatred doesn’t go away. I had to protect us. She had to die too.”
Samir closed his eyes. “What about their children? They were innocent.”
She sighed. “I’m not a monster. I didn’t intend to do anything to them at first. But I knew they’d become suspicious of what happened to their parents when they grew up—and then they might find out the truth. Warrehn was already starting to ask questions about the terrorist attack. I had no choice. Besides…”
When she trailed off and didn’t say anything else, Samir turned and looked at her.
There was a strange, mad sort of fire in Dalatteya’s eyes as she said, “It was my revenge too. I knew he would hate the fact that you, the son of the man he hated, the boy whose existence he hated, would inherit his throne instead of his own flesh and blood. And he hates it, I know he hates it so much.”
Samir stared at her before saying slowly, “King Emyr is dead, Mother. You do realize that, right?”
Dalatteya blinked, as if waking up from a dream. She scowled, her lips pursing tightly, before looking away. “Of course I know that—I’m not insane.”
Samir nodded, not really convinced. He suddenly wondered if Emyr’s obsession had been entirely one-sided. After all, it was possible to be obsessed with a man you hated and despised. People said losing someone one hated passionately was as difficult as losing someone one loved—and as difficult to move on from.
Pushing the thought away to examine later, Samir focused on a more pressing issue. “But apparently Prince Warrehn isn’t dead, after all. What happened, Mother?”
Dalatteya stroked her lips thoughtfully. She truly was still an exquisitely beautiful woman, Samir noted objectively. She was fifty-nine, middle-aged by Calluvian standards, but she still outshone most young women. It was no wonder King Emyr had been so obsessed with her despite his own wife being a golden-haired beauty. Although Samir looked like her, he’d always felt like he was just a poor imitation of his mother. A pretty good fake that didn’t have her ethereal appearance.