Fairest: The Lunar Chronicles: Levana's Story (16 page)

It did not help that Evret spoiled her mercilessly. They were never together for more than a moment before the dandy child was hoisted up on his shoulders or swung around like a spinning toy. Though Evret refused to ever dance with Levana at the royal balls, she had caught him teaching Winter what waltz steps he knew. His pockets seemed to always be full of those sour apple candies the princess was so fond of.

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.

She cried because she could feel the gossip rustling through the court, her barrenness a regular topic of closed-door conversations. Thaumaturges and family heads moved around the palace like pawns on a game board, forging alliances, plotting their moves should the throne ever be left without a suitable heir.

She cried because there would be bloodshed and uprisings should she fail. In the end, someone would place the crown on an undeserving head and a new royal bloodline would begin. Levana hadn’t the faintest idea who would fall and who would rise to take her place.

She refused to give weight to those fears.

The throne needed an heir and
she
would be the one to produce it. The stars would smile on her eventually. They had to, for Luna’s sake.

But fate would be on her side only if she could prove that she was the only ruler this country needed.

Luna
was
thriving. The city of Artemisia was more a paradise now than it had ever been. All of the outer sectors were producing goods at rates never before seen, and whenever there were rumors of unrest, Levana had only to complete a tour through the domes to visit her people and remind them that they were happy. That they loved her, and they would work for her without complaint. Being among her people was as close to a family as she’d yet to find.

The stronger Luna’s economy grew, the more Levana wanted.

She cried now because she wanted so very, very much.

She wanted everything for her people.

She wanted Earth.

She
needed
Earth.

All of it. Every mountain. Every river. Every canyon and glacier and sandy shore. Every city and every farm. Every weak-minded Earthen.

Having control over the blue planet would solve all of her political problems. Luna’s need for resources and land and a larger labor force. She did not want to go down in history as the fairest queen this little moon had ever known. She wanted to be known through history as the fairest queen of the galaxy. As the ruler who united Luna and Earth under one monarchy.

The yearning grew quietly at first, taking the place in her belly where a child should have been. It thrived somewhere so deep inside her she hadn’t even known it existed until one day she looked up at the planet hanging, mocking her, just out of reach, and she almost fell to her knees with the strength of her want.

The more time that passed, the more that desire dug its talons into her.

She deserved Earth.

Luna deserved Earth.

But despite all her plotting, all her long meetings spent discussing soldiers and plagues, she still wasn’t sure how to take it.

*   *   *

“Why is it always a prince?” asked Winter. “Why isn’t she ever saved by a top-secret spy? Or a soldier? Or a … a poor farm boy, even?”

“I don’t know. That’s just how the story was written.” Evret brushed back a curl of Winter’s hair. “If you don’t like it, we’ll make up a different story tomorrow night. You can have whoever you want rescue the princess.”

“Like a doctor?”

“A doctor? Well—sure. Why not?”

“Jacin said he wants to grow up to be a doctor.”

“Ah. Well, that’s a very good job, one that saves more than just princesses.”

“Maybe the princess can save herself.”

“That sounds like a pretty good story too.”

Levana peered through the barely open door, watching as Evret kissed his daughter’s brow and pulled the blankets to her chin. She had caught the end of the bedtime story. The part where the prince and princess got married and lived happily for the rest of their days.

Part of her wanted to tell Winter that the story was a lie, but a larger part of her knew that she didn’t much care what Winter did or didn’t believe.

“Papa?” Winter asked, stalling Evret just as he moved to stand. “Was my mother a princess?”

Evret listed his head. “Yes, darling. And now she’s a queen.”

“No, I mean, my real mother.”

Levana tensed, and she could see the surprise mirrored in Evret’s posture. He slowly sank back down onto the bed’s covers.

“No,” he said quietly. “She was only a seamstress. You know that. She made your nursery blanket, remember?”

Winter’s lips curved downward as she picked at the edge of her quilt. “I wish I had a picture of her.”

Evret didn’t respond. Levana wished that she could see his face.

When his silence stretched on for too long, Winter glanced up. She appeared more thoughtful than sad. “What did she look like?”

Like me,
Levana thought.
Tell her. Tell her she looked like me.

But then Evret shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he whispered. It was a sad confession, and it struck Levana between her ribs. She took a step back in the corridor. “Not exactly, at least,” he amended at Winter’s crestfallen expression. “The details have been stolen from me.”

“What do you mean?”

His tone took on renewed buoyancy. “It isn’t important. What I
do
remember is that she was the most beautiful woman on all of Luna. In the whole entire galaxy.”

“More beautiful than the queen?”

Though she couldn’t see his face, Levana could see the way that Evret flinched. But then he stood and leaned over his daughter, pressing another kiss into her full head of wild curls. “The most beautiful in the entire
universe,
” he said, “second only to
you.
”

Winter giggled, and Levana stepped away again, backing up until her back hit a solid wall. She tried to brush away the sting of rejection, the knowledge that she was still
not good enough
, not when compared with his precious Solstice and his lovely daughter. She pressed the feelings down, down, letting them turn hard and cold inside, while her face was smiling and pleasant.

When Evret emerged a moment later, he looked startled to find her there, but he covered it easily. He was not as good as some of the guards at disguising his emotions, but he had gotten better at it over the years.

“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” she said, “about this afternoon.”

Shaking his head, Evret shut Winter’s door, then headed down the hall to his own chambers.

Levana followed, wringing her hands. “Evret?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The lights flickered on as he entered the room and started taking off his boots. “Was there something you needed?”

Levana took in the bedroom she’d rarely seen in the light. Evret had never bothered to bring much personality into it. After ten years, the room still felt like a guest suite.

“I wanted to ask you why … why did you agree to marry me?”

He froze, briefly, before kicking the second boot across the room. “What do you mean?”

“In hindsight, I sometimes wonder. It seems that back then I had to coerce you for every kiss. Every moment we spent together you were fighting me. At the time I was so sure it was just you being … a gentleman. Honorable. Loyal to … Solstice’s memory. But now I’m not so sure.”

With a heavy sigh, Evret sank into a cushioned chair. “We don’t have to talk about this now. What’s done is done.”

“But I want to know why. Why did you say yes, if you … if you didn’t love me. And you didn’t want to be royalty. And you didn’t care if Winter was a princess. Why say yes?”

She could see him struggling through a long silence, before he shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Of course you had a choice. If you didn’t love me, you should have said no.”

He laughed humorlessly, leaning his head against the chair’s backrest. “No, I couldn’t have. You made it very clear you weren’t going to let me say no. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you would have just let me walk away.”

Levana opened her mouth to say that, yes, of course, she would have allowed him his freedom, if that’s what he’d truly wanted.

But the words didn’t come.

She remembered that morning still so clearly. Her blood on the sheets. The taste of sour berries. The bittersweet memory of his caresses, knowing that he’d been hers for one night, and yet never hers at all.

No.

No, she would not have let him walk away.

She shuddered, her gaze dropping to the ground.

What a stupid child she’d been.