Her hand was shaking a little as she accepted a cup of tea, but it was not from being on stage. No, the fear was always there; underneath the love and obedience, thrumming like a barely heard note, there was a cold panic in her bones, when ever she was near this strange creature, this ancient mother of hers. Her eyes watered and her throat itched.
Marie chastised herself for her cowardice, but she could not help herself. She had always felt mute and powerless and distant in her mother's presence. She glanced at the queen's wizened face, lined with wrinkles as heavy and deep as the folds in the curtains behind her. Queen Eleanor was over one hundred and fifty years old.
Growing up, Marie had noticed that the other children who lived in the palace had mothers whose faces were creamy and soft to the touch. Who is this old crone? She'd wondered when the queen visited the nursery. She could still recall the shock and dismay she'd felt when she understood that her mother was not Jenny Wallace, the pretty, apple-cheeked nurse who held her in her arms, but the imposing old woman in jewels and furs who appraised her with a grimace.
Mother and daughter sat across from each other. The queen was dressed in her plain morning robe, which even in its simplicity spoke of power and ease and position. The brocade and embroidery were so fine as to be almost invisible; the fabric was smooth to the touch, weightless on her frail shoulders.
"I am so glad you have joined me today, my dear, as i have a wonderful surprise for you. The Prussian court will be our honored guests at this year's Bal du Drap d'Or."
"The Prussian?" Marie asked. Just a few weeks ago the empire had been determined to crush the tiny obstinate nation, until the smaller kingdom had revealed its trump card.
"You remember dear Leopold, don't you? The Kronprinz? Such a handsome boy," Eleanor said, attacking her breakfast with an uncharacteristic ferocity.
Marie felt the blood slowly drain from her face. She was right to fear this day. Her mother meant to marry her off to Leopold VII of Prussia to secure a lasting peace between the two nations. Marie glanced at the Merlin. Emry's face was impassive, but she knew he had to be behind this. A truce; a marriage; an alliance that would turn a deadly rival into a close friend once again.
The Prussians had once been allies. The royal families of Europe shared common ancestry, and Marie had grown up knowing Leopold. She even counted his younger brother as one of her closest childhood friends.
But the relationship between the nations had slowly deteriorated until it reached full-blown hostility, and the Prussians had gone to war with the empire over the Alsace-Lorraine border for several years, with countless fatalities on both sides. The courage and resistance of the much smaller country—one of the last Pandora's Boxes left in the world, which they had put to awesome use at the Battle of Lamac. The victory they'd won had led to the empire's retreat.
Marie heard that the Merlin had been stupefied and Eleanor incensed at the remarkable and astonishing turn of events. For centuries, the empire had maintained a stranglehold over the world's only source of magic after defeating Jeanne of Arkk and her dark witches five hundred years before. How the Prussians gotten hold of a weapon of such magnitude was unclear, but they had used it to their advantage, and this proposed marriage would be their reward.