Fury flashed through the king’s gaze and he took a menacing step toward her, fists clenched at his sides.
Magnus stepped between them and he forced a smile to his face. “Tempers are rising with the heat of the day. Perhaps it’s time we leave.”
The king’s fiery glare fixed on him instead and slowly cooled. There was still a smudge of blood on his cheek from before, just under his left eye. “Yes. It’s time. Meet me outside when you’re ready.”
He turned his back on them and, a guard at each side, moved out of the cavernous temple and back into the bright light of day.
“We must go.” The queen’s voice caught as she turned in the same direction.
Magnus placed a hand on her shoulder before she’d taken more than a few steps. He turned her to face him and raised her chin so her tear-filled eyes met his. The pain he saw there reached into his chest to squeeze his heart. “I don’t remember the last time I saw you cry.”
She pushed his hand away. “And you shouldn’t be seeing it now.”
“He doesn’t take well to argument. You know this already.”
“He deals with argument as he always has. With an iron fist and a heart carved from ice.” She searched his face. “You don’t want this marriage, do you, my son?”
“What I want is irrelevant, Mother.”
It always is.
She was quiet for a moment. “You know I love you, don’t you?”
Magnus willed himself to remain impassive in the face of this unexpected sentimentality. The woman before him had been cold and distant for so long he’d forgotten she could be the opposite. “What has triggered this, Mother? Are you really that distraught over my being placed into a loveless marriage to strengthen my father’s grip on this slippery kingdom? Or is this due to something else? Lucia’s condition perhaps?”
The queen’s expression shuttered as she drew in a long, shaky breath. “It’s been a difficult year for us all. So much loss. So much death.”
“Yes, I know you were quite heartbroken over the king’s mistress being incinerated.”
A muscle in her cheek twitched. “I don’t mourn Sabina’s passing, nor do I spend much time distressed over the manner of her death. All I care about in this world is you and Lucia—you’re all that matters to me.”
Her unfamiliar words of devotion confused him. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Mother. My father wishes me to wed the Bellos girl, and if it truly comes to that, I will do so without argument. It will strengthen my place in the kingdom.” And it would keep him fully in his father’s confidence when it came to the road and the secret search for the Kindred.
Queen Althea searched Magnus’s face. “Is that what you’ve come to crave, my son? Power?”
“It’s what I’ve always craved.”
Her lips thinned. “Liar.”
The word felt like a slap. “I’m the crown prince, Mother, in case you forgot. The heir to the throne of Limeros—now the throne of all of Mytica. Why would I not want that, and more?”
“Your father is a cruel man who searches for a treasure that doesn’t even exist. His obsession borders madness.”
“He’s driven and focused on what he desires most. And I would caution you not to call the king mad. He wouldn’t take well to such statements.”
Now that the king had left their presence, she didn’t look concerned. She looked more confident about her words with each one she spoke. “Will you tell him?”
His jaw tensed. “No. But when you insult the king, you insult me as well. Father and I—we’re very much the same. We’ll do whatever it takes to get what we want, and we’ll hurt whomever gets in our way, no matter who they are. Without conscience or remorse.”
This bold statement finally brought a glimmer of a smile to her face, which immediately helped ten years vanish from her age as if by magic.
Magnus watched her warily. “Did I say something to amuse you?”
Her gaze was soft, as soft as he’d seen from her in recent years. “In looks, yes, you’re just as handsome as Gaius, without any doubt. But that’s where the comparison ends. Oh, Magnus, my son, you’re nothing like him. And you never will be.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. “You’re wrong.”
“You think I mean this as an insult? I don’t.”