“That’s not true,” Lynet said at once.
Mina gave her a sad smile. “You’ll see too, one day. Once you grow older, someone else will be waiting to take your place, someone younger and prettier than you. I knew that day was approaching for me. I knew even when you were still a child. So why am I so surprised to learn that I’m being thrown aside? Why am I always so surprised?”
Lynet reached for her hand. “I would never throw you aside!”
Mina raised an eyebrow. “No? You say that now, but time could change your mind. And what about your father’s commands? He doesn’t want me close to you.” Mina took hold of Lynet’s hand now, grasping her tightly by the wrist. “Are you bold enough to defy your father, wolf cub?”
Mina’s grip was tight, but more alarming was the desperation in her voice, the pleading in her eyes. Lynet had never thought she would ever see Mina like this, but then, she had never seen Mina on the brink of losing something so important to her.
Lynet met her stepmother’s gaze but tried not to let it swallow her whole. “What do you want me to do?”
Mina’s grip relaxed now. “Tell him the truth—that you don’t want the South.”
Lynet swallowed. “I don’t know if I can change his mind, even if I speak to him.”
“You can if you find the right words to say. Your father doesn’t want you to be unhappy. He loves you. How hard can it be to persuade him to do what you want?”
Lynet finally tore her wrist away. How hard could it be? Lynet knew well enough that her father had certain expectations for her, and that he wouldn’t give them up easily. “Mina, I don’t know.…”
“Do you want to rule the South?”
“I … no, I don’t.”
The light of the candle flashed in Mina’s eyes. “Then we both want the same thing. Didn’t I promise you that I would never let anyone turn you into your mother? If you let your father groom you for the throne while he’s still alive, that is exactly what he will do.”
The familiar restlessness was coming over her as she heard the truth in her stepmother’s words. This was her choice, then—she couldn’t make both her father and her stepmother happy, but if she chose her father, then there was the possibility that she would lose herself, lose everything that made her feel like her own person. The answer seemed obvious, and yet she still hesitated.
Mina’s voice pierced through the silence. “What are you afraid of, Lynet?”
“I’m not afraid,” Lynet said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. “I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him.”
Mina wrapped her arms around Lynet and pulled her close. Lynet found being ensconced in Mina’s furs almost unbearably warm, but she clung to her stepmother, searching for comfort even as she tried to give it. After all those years of trying not to hear Mina and her father fighting and trying not to notice the way the Pigeons talked about her, only now did Lynet allow herself to acknowledge that perhaps her beautiful, self-assured stepmother was as uncertain as she was. No wonder, then, that Mina was so desperate not to lose her last connection to her home—it was a piece of her, as surely as Mina was a piece of Lynet. And so maybe for once, Lynet could help Mina the way Mina had always helped her. She would tell her father she wasn’t ready for his offer, and he would concede, even if he didn’t understand, and Mina would be happy, and maybe they could all go back to the way they were before.
“Thank you, wolf cub,” Mina said before she pulled away.
Lynet felt a fierce need to protect her stepmother, to earn the pet name Mina had given her so long ago. If she couldn’t tell her father what she wanted for her own sake, at least she could do it for Mina’s. “Nothing will come between us,” Lynet said. “I promise.” She took Mina’s hand and pressed it gently.
Mina returned the gesture, but there was still doubt in her eyes, in the corners of her weary smile, and she mouthed something low and nearly inaudible as she started to stand. Lynet couldn’t make out the words exactly, but she thought she heard Mina say, I hope you’re right.
* * *
Lynet awoke on the morning of her birthday to the barking of the dogs, excited for the hunt. She climbed out of bed and went to her window, craning her neck to see the dogs gathered at the castle gates, along with the rest of the hunting party on their horses. Her father was there, as well as the head huntsman, the one with the empty eyes. Lynet quickly pulled her head back inside the window; she didn’t want either of them to see her.
Lynet suffered through her lessons for the day, though her stitching was even worse than usual, and she kept forgetting the dates and names of Whitespring’s prior rulers that she was supposed to memorize. She was too occupied trying to decide what she would say to her father and imagining his reactions.
He still wasn’t back later in the afternoon when her lessons were finished, so she went down to the workroom to see Nadia. She took her usual place, piling journals at one end of the table, but at this point, she was sure she knew as much as Master Jacob had known, and it still wasn’t enough. She kept fidgeting on her stool, flipping through the pages with a jittery restlessness. How soon until her father came back? How soon until she had to disappoint him? If she couldn’t convince him not to give her the South, would Mina believe that she had tried her hardest? Would she lose both of them?
Firm hands came down over hers, stilling her frantic movements, and she looked up at Nadia, who was standing over her with a curious frown. “What’s wrong?” she said. It was the first time Nadia had touched her since the tower, and so Lynet knew she must be worried.
Lynet didn’t want to deny that something was wrong. She couldn’t go to Mina this time, not when Mina was part of the problem—and she had no one else to confide in. “My father wants me to rule the South,” she blurted out, and then she told the rest.
When she was finished, Nadia leaned an arm on the back of Lynet’s chair, thinking. “So your father wants you to take the South,” she said, “and your stepmother wants you to talk him out of it.”
“Correct,” Lynet said, folding her hands in her lap and looking up as she waited for Nadia’s solution. Even with all her turmoil, part of her was just happy they were speaking to each other normally again. “What does the court surgeon suggest I do?”
Nadia smiled a little. “The court surgeon recommends a dose of self-interest.”
Lynet shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You’ve told me what your father and stepmother want, but what about you?” Her hand moved from the back of the chair to rest on Lynet’s shoulder, and for a moment Lynet could only stare at it before her eyes traveled from Nadia’s hand up her arm to meet her waiting gaze. “What do you want?” Nadia continued, her voice a little lower than before.
“I … I don’t know. I want them both to be happy,” Lynet said, her throat dry.
Nadia removed her hand. “I mean, what do you want for your future?”
Lynet didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to explain that she always tried not to think about her future, because when she looked into it, she couldn’t see herself anymore. In the end, it didn’t matter whether or not she took her father’s offer now—she would replace Mina and become queen eventually, and when she did, she would become her mother. That was her purpose, to resurrect the dead and die a little in the process.