Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
All that was left down here was us.
16
Sebastian
It was another three hours before I was able to make it up and into the castle. The crowd had slowly dispersed, disappointed but accepting that there was no changing the queen.
When I stepped into the castle, I was alone.
Henry and Genoveve had wanted to stay with me. I was pretty sure Henry might have truly thought my own mother would kill me if I walked into the castle, but I assured him it wasn’t the case.
As I went inside, I knew it was the last time I would ever walk the halls of Frostmonte. This home that never felt like a home. That was a prison for so long. And of course, now, I only felt exhausted.
I jumped when I saw that my mother was already waiting, right in the first great room, sitting on the sofa. The chandelier above her cast her in a strange light.
For the first time, I felt like I was seeing my mother as a person, instead of a symbol of power. Power over me and over everyone around her.
She looked frail, almost.
“I’ve tried for a long time, you know, Sebastian,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet mine.
I stood frozen in place.
She’d been crying. A lot, apparently, from the look of her eyes. They were sunken and swollen around the lids. My mother almost never cried, let alone showed any emotion.
Something was different.
“Come. Sit,” she said, nodding at the sofa opposite her. I walked over slowly, sitting down.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” I said, hating that there was a slight tremble in my voice.
“Oh, you might not change your mind,” she said. “But everything else has changed.”
“What are you talking about? I know you aren’t going to change your mind about the decree.”
She nodded once. “I never will, no,” she said.
“Then we have nothing to discuss,” I said. “I’m giving up my right to the throne.”
“It might be harder for you to give it up when you feel how good it is to sit in it,” she said. Her blue eyes held so much sadness.
“What?”
“This place is no longer mine,” she said. “It was made abundantly clear, today. Frostmonte must be yours, and no one else’s.”
I swallowed, my throat tight.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ll understand very soon.”
“Tell me what you’re planning,” I said, my voice stern.
She let out a defeated laugh. “Everything that I was planning is over now,” she said. “So I am going to make you king.”
I was silent. Frozen in place. I watched her with suspicion, not believing a word she said.
“Why?” I whispered.
She swallowed, searching my face for a moment as if she was finally seeing me for the first time.
“When your father died, I was so lost,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “It was so long ago, now, but to me it feels like just yesterday. I didn’t know how to rule anything. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like nobody, from nowhere, and suddenly I was all alone and expected to represent an entire kingdom.”
“I thought you loved the power.”
“I would do anything to protect Frostmonte,” she said. “But I didn’t love being Queen.”
“You certainly always acted the part,” I said bitterly.
“I struck a deal,” she said forcefully.
“What?”
She looked out the window, her eyes somewhere far away. “The night I found you and Henry in the park, I was down in the village for a reason, Sebastian. I was alone in the church your father loved so much, the one he attended every Sunday with your aunt and uncle.”
I furrowed my brow. “I didn’t know you ever still went to the church.”
“Never when other people were there. It made me too sad. But sometimes at night, I would. I’d light a candle for your father. And I would cry.”
“So that night in Berrydale… you’d been there?”
She gave me a single nod. “I was weeping. As lost as I’d ever been. And a woman approached me, telling me she could help.”
“What woman?”
“I still don’t know her name,” my mother said. “There was something… off about her. She had this strange necklace, a tiny mirror that would catch the light and flash into my eyes every time she moved. But then again, everything always felt off since your father had died. It was like I was underwater. The woman being strange didn’t matter.”
“Because she told you she could help?”
“Yes,” she said. “She told me we could strike a deal. And claimed that she could cast one spell for me. Anything I wanted.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“I told the woman it was absolute nonsense, of course,” she said. “I never believed in spells. I just wanted her to go away, so I could be alone and cry again. So I told her to just cast a spell already and get it over with.”