Page 52 of His Realm

I glanced at Zev. “Did Leda ever…”

“Did she ever what? Tell me she loved me? Is that what you were going to ask? Did she have some epiphany about her son before she killed herself?”

“Yes.”

He scoffed. “She hated me from the second I was born to the day she died. That never changed. Isabella kept us separated because the moment she turned her back, Leda would come at me like a wild animal.”

“It wasn’t you, Zev,” Sabira chided. “She didn’t hate you. She hated what you represented, nothing more.”

“Pardon me if I only remember her wild eyes and snarling mouth. She had a knife once and would have gutted me but for Isabella’s interference.”

“But that wasn’t her,” Sabira insisted. “She wasn’t herself anymore.”

His chuckle was mean. “Make no mistake, she hated me. Isabella had to keep me with her, in her chambers, with Varic and Cassius. She never let them or me out of her sight.”

“You all grew up together?” I asked, trying to change the subject from maternal filicide.

He nodded. “And when we were older and the king went to war, we all followed. He made me kenningar and named Hadrian rekkr.”

“Did you want to be rekkr?”

He shook his head. “No. Being rekkr makes you champion of the house of Maedoc. I had far more freedom as head of the king’s guard. One can’t leave in the middle of the night to visit the queen if one is rekkr.”

I smiled at him. “You left the king to visit Isabella?”

He nodded. “So many times. She’s the only mother I’ve ever known.”

“Well, she’s a good one.”

Quick eyebrow waggle for me.

“You love her.”

“Everyone loves her,” he said, then looked at Sabira. “Except Decimus.”

Sabira nodded. “Yes. She removed Leda from his house, and he has never forgiven her.”

“That sounds ominous.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Please. Decimus would never lay a hand on her outside of Ophir, and more importantly, Varic’s dreki would never allow anyone to hurt his mother. That’s impossible.”

I certainly couldn’t imagine such a thing.

“And on her island, she is completely safe.”

I knew she had her own champion, Emil. He and I had gotten off to a bad start on our first meeting, but lately he’d warmed up a bit. “Emil is that formidable?”

“Yes,” Sabira told me. “He’s a druid as well, and the wards on that island are terrifying.”

“I want to see it someday.”

“You will,” Sabira assured me with a smile. “But along with Emil, there are also the skjaldmærs, her shield-maidens, and like Varic’s dreki, they will allow no harm to come to Isabella.”

“What if they were overwhelmed?”

She squinted at me. “Jason, no one in the Noreia would plot against the queen, save Decimus, and even he is not so insane to think he could hurt her if she didn’t allow it.”

“Allow it?”