Page 39 of His Realm

He grunted. “That’s quite likely, she’s that old.”

“So since she and Isabella are sisters, then Isabella did too?”

“I don’t know. Those could be tall tales. Once you delve into the history and see when mammoths died out, how long there were pharaohs in Egypt, and when Emperor Hadrian’s wall went up, she could be telling you the truth or she could be messing with you.”

“Well, Isabella said she did help drive the Romans out of her homeland back in the day. Maybe that wall was built because of Celts like her and Sabira.”

“That’s why the Celts were so scary, because some of them were vampyrs.”

“As were the Romans.”

“Probably where the stories about the Celts drinking blood come from.” Zev winked at me.

“I’m surprised Isabella married a Roman.”

“It’s more surprising she married at all. None of her sisters did. They all have children, though. Varic has cousins on her side he’s never met, as they live in remote places. None of them have ever visited, and he’s never gone to them either.”

“Why not?”

“I doubt he’d be well received.”

“Why not?”

“They have no use for a prince. They live modestly. Lots of cottages by the sea, in the mountains, far away. All of them practice what the queen calls the old ways, and she believes them to be happy. Only the countess lives like my queen does, surrounded by others, on her estate in Oslo. I think it’s an artist commune, much like the queen’s island except on a much smaller scale. Also, Sabira’s people live and work there in the community as well, whereas the queen’s people don’t leave the island.”

“Do you think Isabella wanted to be a queen?”

“I asked her once,” Zev said thoughtfully. “She said she was bespelled by Messina, who could be—according to her—quite bewitching. She was lured out of the forest by him and into his encampment.”

“You make it sound a bit seedy on his end.”

He scoffed. “She could have gutted him any time she wanted. She still could.”

I thought about it a moment. “Possibly.”

“Please. If Isabella Maedoc killed her husband, everyone would want to know what he did to her to make her finally snap. It’s well known she retreated to her private artist-colony island in Greece to get away from his concubines, courtiers, and courtesans.”

“Yes, but…” I began, and I could hear how wistful I sounded, “the thing is, she loves him. Even after centuries, she still does. I’ve seen it on her face.”

“Yes, well. He loves her too. She’s his queen. She was simply never enough. His appetite, as you well know from drafting courtesan contracts, is unquenchable.”

I did know and wondered what the appeal was. Why have so many lovers when he clearly loved Isabella? Why wasn’t she enough? Varic was all I wanted and needed, and he told me often he was of the same mind. And though he’d declared himself to me quickly, I never doubted him.

When I’d first met him, a group of courtiers had accompanied him from Malta, but he’d sent them home immediately, and even went so far as to have them expelled from court so I would never lay eyes on them again. Not knowing then what I did now, I’d asked Tiago if he thought the king had cared that Varic had dismissed some of his lovers.

“I doubt the king noticed they are gone,” Tiago had told me. “You know as well as I do, the king has so many people in and out of his bed, it would be impressive if he could put names to faces.”

It would. He wasn’t wrong.

“Varic used to be the same,” Tiago had told me honestly. “Until you.”

That was the difference.

Before me, Varic had never wanted a mate. He’d never felt the pull before me, the express need for another. But because he was brave, he’d run toward me instead of away, as so many others would have. His new and frightening reality, where he conceded some of his power and choices to me, brought out his humanity and made him yearn for me when we parted and was not, he believed, something that weakened him. It made him a more balanced ruler, stronger advocate for others, and more than anything, a man who understood devotion to others. He said often that I was the best thing that ever happened to him.

For Varic, there was only one person he ever trusted to sleep beside him, hear his secrets, and keep his confidence. That was me. I was the consort of the next king, and as Tiago reminded me often, I needed to learn my own value. I was working on that.

“Jason?” Zev prompted.