In other words, when she was afraid.
She saw him realise it, too. Their eyes met, and she discarded formality for simple, horrifying bluntness. “If we cannot kill the Dragon, then I will give myself up to it.”
“No!” Galen leapt forward, hat falling from his hand. “No, Lune, you cannot—”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what Aspell wanted!”
“And perhaps he was right.” She didn’t move from her chair, not even to stand; for once he towered over her, and it felt wrong. “A last resort. A choice between my own death, and the death of my realm—not just the Onyx Hall, but London as well. Thousands of mortals, hundreds of thousands, who for years now have dreaded a fiery death at the comet’s return, without ever knowing why. Should I stand living, when that disaster comes?”
Galen’s hands ached. He’d clenched them into fists, without any target to use them on. “What if it fails, though? What if we lose you and the Hall both?”
The peaceful acceptance in Lune’s eyes terrified him. “Then at least I will have done everything I can.”
Even unto the sacrifice of her soul, obliterated by the Dragon. Galen felt too light, as if he would drift away; his breath was coming too fast. Had his shouts carried above, or had the watchful roses kept his cries from Delphia’s ears? He wondered if the Goodemeades knew of this. They were Lune’s friends, beyond the bond of subject to sovereign; surely they could not stand by while she proposed such madness!
But they know her. Perhaps they know she won’t be dissuaded.
He shoved that thought away with almost physical force. The Lady Chamberlain, when he looked to her for help, sat white-faced and staring. Lune laid one hand on hers. “You know why you’re here, Amadea. I won’t leave the Onyx Hall without a mistress. If it comes to this pass, I’ll renounce my claim, and you must take it in my place.”
Her mouth says if; her mind says when. Amadea shook her head, little more than a tremble. Lune’s hand tightened. “You must. The court needs a Queen—a Queen, I think, and not a King, because it also needs a Prince of the Stone.” She transferred her attention to Galen once more. “She will need your help.”
He backed up a step, then another. His own head was moving, back and forth, slow denial. “No.”
“Galen, we have no choice.”
“Yes. We do. Or at least I do.” He should have been rigid with tension, but he wasn’t. His body felt loose, supple. Ready to spring. “It would be an insult to the men who have gone before me if I let you die while I still lived.”
“Galen—”
He stopped her with one hand. “No. I swear by Oak and Ash and Thorn that I will give my life before I let you die.”
An echo of his oaths, when he became Prince of the Stone. Lune’s face paled to pure white. Galen bowed to her, then went up the staircase, through the hidden opening, past the Goodemeades and Delphia, and out of Rose House, and he did not look back.
“Begging your pardon, your Majesty—you’re an idiot.”
Lune didn’t flinch at the accusation, much less protest. Irrith would have gone on even if the Onyx Guard were there with swords out to stop her. “You know what he’s like. You know he’s in love with you. And you thought he’d stand by while you put yourself in danger?”
More than just danger, but neither of them would say it directly. Not here, inside the Onyx Hall. Irrith had heard it from the Goodemeades. If she could have gone to the cells beneath the Tower and dragged Aspell out of his hundred-year-sleep, she would have spit in his face. He’s still succeeded, even after being defeated.
And Irrith herself was partly to blame. She was the real idiot. Not the Queen.
Me and Galen. We’re both too stupid to be let out without keepers.
They were alone in the chamber, with strict guard on the door outside. Lune sat with her head bowed, but in thought, not penitence. Her slender hands rested atop the pillar-and-claw table at her side, as if she were sitting for a portrait—probably some study in melancholy.
“Do you love him?”
The question rocked Irrith back on her heels. “Who? Galen?”
The Queen nodded.
“No. I don’t.”
One pale finger tapped against the table’s pearly surface. After a strange pause, during which Irrith could not begin to guess the thoughts in her head, Lune said, “You’ve been his lover, though.”
Most of the Onyx Hall probably knew, without need for royal spies. “I was. Until he got married. He means to keep faith with his wife.”
“But he doesn’t love her.” Lune shifted, leaningback in her chair, still thoughtful. It wasn’t idle thought: she was more like an owl, searching out suitable prey. “I’ve watched them closely, because I hoped he might, but no. They feel nothing more than friendship for each other. In time it might grow to love… but not soon enough.”
Irrith regretted it even as she asked, “Soon enough for what?”
The Queen’s mouth settled into a line Irrith had seen before, determination in the face of impossibility. “To save him. He might not throw his life away if he felt it would hurt another. Unfortunately, he’s done his duty by his family—their wealth is restored—and he has no children yet. I am the only one he loves, and he knows too well that I do not love him back. I would regret his passing, but not deeply enough.”
Her silver regard settled on Irrith, who suddenly felt like the mouse the owl had been waiting for. “You could make that choice.”
To love him. It was a choice, on the part of the fae; that was why they adored stories of mortal passion. The notion that love could strike without warning and sweep away all reason was alien, baffling. Fondness could happen that way, even infatuation, but not love. That required a conscious decision to give over one’s heart.
She’d wondered, ever since she met this Queen who loved a mortal man, what it would be like.
But she also knew the price.
“Tell me this,” Irrith said, crossing her arms and tucking her elbows close against her body, as if to warm the chill inside. “What Dr. Andrews did to you, that ‘cleansing.’ Did it take away the grief you feel for Michael Deven?”
The first Prince of the Stone, dead these hundred years and more. Lune said, “No.”
So even alchemy could not end the mourning of a faerie who gave her heart. Irrith shook her head. “Then no. I won’t. Even if it did stop him, I’d have at most, what—fifty years more? Sixty, if his health is very good? Then an eternity of grief. And he would hate me for having made him choose between me and you.” If it was even a choice. Just because one person loved, didn’t mean the other would. Galen’s fruitless devotion proved that.
Something finally broke through the serenity Lune had maintained all this time, ever since her rescue from Dr. Andrews’s knife. “He’ll throw his life away,” she said, helplessly. “For no better reason than to save himself from watching me die.”
Much as Lune herself proposed to do. But it wasn’t a fair comparison; she at least had some hope of appeasing the Dragon, even if only for a while.
“Stop him,” Lune said. “Please, Irrith. I cannot.”
The only way to stop him would be to find a better answer. One that didn’t end in either a dead Queen or a dead Prince, much less both.
Irrith didn’t know if such an answer existed. But it wouldn’t do any good to say that, and so she answered, “I will.”