Fairest

Levana reached for her throat, wrapping the Earth pendant up in her fist. There had been a time when Evret brought her gifts too.

Down the shore, the children’s laughter sparkled as bright as the sunlight on the lake’s surface, and Evret laughed as much as any of them. Each note was a needle in Levana’s heart, undoing her.

There had also been a time when Evret would have asked her to join them, but it was not queen-like to run and laugh and roll around in the sand. After she had waved away his requests too many times, he stopped making them, and now she regretted every time she’d stood by and watched.

Watched as Evret lifted a squealing Winter over his head.

Watched as Garrison’s wife fixed them cheese sandwiches that were devoured as greedily as anything the royal chefs ever prepared.

Watched as Jacin showed Winter how to build a sandcastle and then how best to destroy it.

This was a family, all of them, happy and carefree.

And despite all her efforts, all her manipulations, Levana had never become a part of it.

“Sweetheart?”

She started, prying her attention away from the children to see Evret clomping toward her. His pants were soaked up to his knees and covered in white, sparkling sand. He was as handsome as the first day she’d laid eyes on him, and she loved him every bit as much. Knowing that made her feel as hollow inside as carved-out wood.

“Is that the charm I gave you?” he asked, his teeth glinting in a refreshing smile. It melted her and stung at the same time.

Levana unclasped her hand. She hadn’t realized that she was still gripping the old, tarnished charm.

“I didn’t even know you still had it,” said Evret. Reaching for her, he looped a finger beneath the chain. The touch was brief and deliberate and made her dizzy with the same spark of yearning she’d felt as a teenager.

“Of course I still have it. It was the first gift you gave me.”

A shadow fell over his expression, one that she couldn’t translate. Something sad and distant.

With a tap against her sternum, he let the charm go. “Are you just going to stand here watching all day?” he asked, eyes twinkling again. Maybe the shadow had been only her imagination.

“No,” she said, unable to return more than a tired turn of her own lips. “I was about to go inside. There’s a new trade contract with TX-7 I need to review.”

“A trade contract? It can’t wait until tomorrow?” He cupped her face in his hands. “You work too hard.”

“A queen does not keep office hours, Evret. It is always a responsibility.”

His expression turned scolding. “Even a queen has to relax sometime. Come on. Come play. It won’t hurt you, and no one would dare to criticize if they saw.”

He said it like a joke, but Levana thought for sure there was tension underlying it. “What does that mean?” she said, pulling away.

His hands fell to his sides.

“You think that people are afraid of me?” she pressed. “So oppressed that they wouldn’t dare say something out of favor? Is that it?”

His jaw worked for a moment, baffled, before he set it in frustration. “People have always been afraid to speak out against the royal family—that’s politics. It isn’t something you alone can lay claim to.”

Huffing, Levana turned on her heel and started marching back toward the palace.

With a groan, Evret chased after her. “Stop it. Levana. You’re overreacting. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You must think I’m an awful ruler. One of those spoiled, selfish queens who cares more for her own reputation than the welfare of her people.”

“That’s not what I think. I know you care what the people think about you, but I also know you care about them. In your own way.”

“And what way is that?” she snapped, ducking into the palace’s overhang.

“Levana, would you stop?”

His hand encircled her wrist, but she yanked it away. “Don’t touch me!”

Immediately, the guards who were always in her periphery stepped forward, weapons at the ready.

Evret halted, raising his hands to show he meant no harm. But his expression was furious—and Levana knew that his honor was the reputation he cared to protect, that he would not be happy if anyone dared start a rumor that he had threatened the queen, his wife, when she was the one who was being absurd.

Overreacting.

“Fine,” he said, taking a step back, before turning away entirely. “Go read your contract, Your Majesty.”

Levana watched his retreating back, her hands clenched into shaking fists, before she marched toward the main stairs. It felt like running away. It felt like giving up.

When she reached her private solar, where she conducted most of her business, she sat down to review the trade contract, but immediately started to cry instead. She hadn’t known the tears were coming until it was too late to stop them.

She cried for the girl who had never belonged. A girl who tried so hard, harder than anyone else, and still never had anything to show for it. A girl who had been certain that Evret loved her and only her, and now she couldn’t even remember what that certainty felt like.

Despite every one of her weapons, the heart of Evret Hayle remained unconquered.

She wasn’t even trying to get pregnant anymore, though she knew that couldn’t last. It was only that for so long her visits to Evret’s bedchambers had felt more exhaustive than passionate. More hopeless than anything.