14. Warrior Queen
~ YILAN ~
“Yes… Turo,” I sighed, shaking my head. “It’s breaking my heart.”
“You told him?” she gasped.
“No. I couldn’t. He’d fall apart—and then pick himself up and crown Melek. He’s such a stickler for protocol and… I couldn’t put him in that position only to have Melek deny it, or break the bond, or…”
“He thinks you’re still betrothed?!” Diadre hissed. “Yilan!”
“I haven’t had any choice!” I knew I sounded defensive. I was. “He’s been so worried, so convinced that I was violated , he’s been frantic. I ended up having to tell him that I… I gave myself to Melek, so he’d stop talking about how Melek had manipulated me and—”
“You told him what?!”
I sighed and sat up straighter, meeting eyes with my friend as I took a breath. “Nothing about this is good. Nothing is easy. And there is no way to get through this without hurting him. Turo is a good man and he’s been loyal and… and selfless. But he is not my mate. And he will not be King.”
As Diadre shook her head in disbelief, I blinked back a fresh round of tears. “It’s hurting him terribly. He thought I was raped. I had to tell him I gave myself just so he’d stop being so frantic, convinced that I’m scared. Now he knows that much, but he’s… I’ve broken him. I know I have.”
“Well, of course,” Diadre said sadly. “He loves you.”
“I know.”
She blew out a breath and took another mouthful of wine. “He wasn’t right for you though.”
“Wait, what?” I stared at her, shocked. She’d never spoken against Turo. Not once. She was the first one I told when I asked him to marry me, and she celebrated with me. She was supposed to stand with me at the wedding…
“He was never the right one. I could tell,” she said, staring into the distance, still shaking her head.
I bristled. “What? If you knew—why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you’re Queen. You’re supposed to choose the right man for the people, not the right man for you, right? Unless, I mean, God chooses for you,” she said, half-laughing.
“But you knew?”
Her face grew serious then. “I was always afraid you wouldn’t be happy in the long run, but I thought you chose for duty, and I wasn’t going to make that harder on you. He would be an excellent King. Just… not an excellent partner for you.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too… he’s known you too long. I know he loves you and admires you.
I know he’d die for you. He would be loyal until his dying breath.
But… he knew you as a child and I don’t think he’s ever gotten past that.
I think sometimes he still sees you as… the princess.
Not the Queen. Not a woman in your own right. ”
I was stunned. I hadn’t ever articulated it, but… she gave words to my unease.
The screens he had installed without my knowledge…
Showing up among the Nephilim because he didn’t believe my messages from the scouts…
Dragging me in front of Melek like a recalcitrant child…
It was as if a curtain pulled back and I could see the whole landscape, not just the sliver I’d been peering at through the gap. A part of me was still wrestling with not selecting Turo as King. Because he would be an excellent ruler. But he would have truly ruled—even me.
“Oh my god, Diadre… you’re right,” I breathed .
She gave a low huff of laughter. “I usually am. But in this case, it’s because Jhonas does the same thing to me, and it makes me insane.”
I stared at her. I knew her brother often lorded his will over her, it was a battle she fought often. But he loved her, and she loved him. I hadn’t thought it too heavy of a burden…
I sat back in my chair. “You’re right,” I repeated. “But that doesn’t solve the very real problem that my mate feels as if I am a fraud and a betrayer, and—”
“Oh, no,” Diadre said firmly. “That part is easy.”
She rose from the couch, leaving the wine on the table between us, and started towards my drawers on the other side of the suite.
“I assure you, it isn’t,” I called after her. “What are you doing?”
“No, Yilan, listen to me. This is the part where you can take control.”
“What? How?”
I sat up, frowning. Diadre rifled through my drawers, pulling things out and tossing them atop the dresser as she spoke.
“There was a feast—do you remember the Starnight last year? Remember how you threw that ball? I was excited. My first ball as a Captain. The men would get to see me… pretty.”
“Yes. I remember.”
“Two of my men flirted with me outrageously that night.”
My brows rose. “You had an affaire?”
“Of course not. They report to me. I would never.” She shrugged. “We had a fun time and left it at that. But the following day…” Her tone said it hadn’t ended well.
“What happened?”
She slapped something to the dresser top, then yanked another drawer open. “Those two began to disrupt after roll call the next morning. At first, I put it down to hangovers. We were all tired, all a little off. But it didn’t stop,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I was forced to call them in for discipline—confront them with it. And it wasn’t until I had them on hard labor that one of them spoke the truth.”
“What did he say?”
“He said they had forgotten I was a woman until the night of the feast. And now they would forget again. He meant it as a reassurance.”
“What? Why? ”
“Apparently, until that night, they’d seen me as akin to a man. Seeing me in a dress and with my hair down… it weakened me in their eyes.”
“What?! Those insecure pigs! ”
She flapped a hand over her shoulder, but she didn’t meet my eyes.
Diadre wore the pinch of masculine disdain far more than she wanted to admit.
She’d been told since she was young that she wasn’t feminine enough, and she had hated it.
When we were young we often spoke about the frustration of curbing ourselves so that we fit among noble society.
And yet, among the military men, Diadre was often dismissed as too much woman.
It was a set of traditions I’d been working on breaking since I came into power, and she loved it. Yet here she was, telling me that these men had respected her less when they saw her pretty?
“In any case,” she continued, “I learned something that day, and I think it will help you.”
I frowned. “But… Melek didn’t have any issue with my strength. He’s never treated me—”
She turned to face me, grabbing the stack of clothing and throwing it at me. I caught it and looked through the set of fighting leathers, along with two of my knife sheaths.
“I’m not talking about the uniform… or maybe I am,” she said quietly, “but the picture of you in his mind. You said he told you he no longer trusts you. What if what he doesn’t trust is the picture he’s had of you?”
“Picture…? I was dirty and—”
“That’s precisely my point. He saw you as an equal—of sorts. You were a soldier and dirty and in the thick of the war. And then he opens his eyes here, in a place he doesn’t recognize, and with a noble woman in front of him he doesn’t recognize either. Not just a noblewoman, but a Queen?”
I stared at the clothing she’d given me. “Clothing won’t change what has happened—”
“No, but it will make him open his eyes and see you again,” she said firmly.
Then it clicked. “I seem like a different person to him now.”
“Exactly. But knowing you, I’d lay money that you were more of yourself there, with him, than you have ever been at Court.”
I swallowed, nodding. “It’s true. I wasn’t… stifling myself. ”
“Exactly as I thought. I am the same on a mission. I lose the shackles of etiquette. Those boys saw a true difference in me—but they were too immature to see that both sides of my nature are true. Melek, hopefully, is not. Wake him up, Yilan. Remind him that he knows you. Let him measure this bond, not against a strange Queen he’s never met but with the woman he has known and loved. ”
There was that sensation again, truth and clarity clicking into place.
“You’re right,” I breathed.
“I think we already established that I usually am,” she said, smiling.
“Thank you, Diadre.” I started towards the bed, my breath growing short with nerves. “And now I need to reward your wisdom by asking a new favor,” I said, tugging off my cloak and pulling the diadem from my hair and tossing them on the bed.
“Anything,” she said, delighted.
“Please help me get this god-awful corset off. And then… could I trouble you to deliver some messages for me? And perhaps help me distract a few guards?”
“You know you can,” she said. I was turned from her so she could help me with the laces at my back, but I heard the smile in her voice. “Go show him, Yilan. Show him that he’s lost nothing. Only gained.”
I blew out a breath as she tugged at the laces. “I’ll try.”
“No,” she said firmly, tugging on the corset laces. “You will show him. He should be on his knees thanking God for the mate he was given, not brooding in a tower considering severing the bond with her.”
I nodded, but the bottom was falling out of my courage, because I’d just forced him to listen to the pining of another man and screamed at him to humble himself. I doubted he was much in the mood to hear more of what I had to say.
Diadre was right. This couldn’t go on. It was time. I would not take his power from him, but I would not let him convince himself of lies either. He needed to choose.
I sighed with relief as the corset gave, and I could take a deep breath again.
“Thank you, my friend. Now, while I’m dressing, I need you to run some messages for me. For… interference.”
Diadre grinned. “My favorite kind of mission.”