Once Broken Faith

And their handmaiden, that sad-eyed, downcast Barrow Wight, looked openly terrified. She was staring at me, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. How had I not noticed her the first time?
The answer followed the question without pause. I hadn`t noticed her because she was just a servant, and I`d been focusing on the purebloods as the important ones. I`d done to her exactly what so many of them had done to me. I had ignored her.
I`d known I was losing my humanity, but that was the moment when I realized I was never going to get it back.

The Luidaeg wasn`t done. She turned to Arden and said, "Now`s your turn to play taxi. Get us to the conclave."
Arden blinked, raising her eyebrows. "I`m the Queen here."
"And I am clearly coming around too often and putting up with too much of your monarchist bullshit, because you seem to have forgotten the essential fact that I. Will Fuck. You. Up." The Luidaeg took a step toward Areden. Her eyes were suddenly black, and while her features hadn`t shifted, there was an element of menace to them that hadn`t been there a second ago. She didn`t need to change her form to be as brutal and mercurial as the sea. "Familiarity may breed contempt, Your Highness, but I recommend you find a way to shake off that tendency, because you have no power over me, no authority to command my actions, and no reason to expect my good will. Now, are you going to be a smart girl and open a door for us, or am I going to remind you why even the rulers of the Divided Courts listen when the Firstborn decide to speak?"
Arden had gone white. She didn`t say anything, simply sketched an archway in the air with her hand. It opened, smelling of blackberry flowers, to reveal the stage in the arcade. Then she curtsied to the Luidaeg. Curtsied deeply, until her forehead was almost pressed against her knee, revealing the swan`s-wing slope of her back, graceful and vulnerable in her white gown. The Luidaeg stepped forward, resting her fingertips against Arden`s spine. Arden shivered.
"Don`t mistake me for a friend because I sometimes choose to be friendly," said the Luidaeg. "Don`t pretend you have some sort of control over what I do. I`m Fistborn. That means something. Even here, even now, in this washed-out mockery of Faerie, that means something. If you forget again, I`ll have to leave you with something to remember me by. So please, Arden. Because I loved your father, in my own way, in my own time, don`t make me remind you."

Kings and Queens werer made when their parents got tired of being in charge and stepped aside in favor of a younger generation. It happened more often than most people would think. Yes, purebloods enjoyed having power, but after a few centuries of not being able to travel or take a weekend off, finding something else to do started to seem extremely attractive. And there was always the option to wander away for a century or two, come back, claim the throne was still yours by right, and lead a dandy war against your own kid. Fae parents weren`t always as attached to their adult children as my human upbringing told me they ought to be. I guess when you were a thousand years old, your eight-hundred-year-old kid looked less like your baby, and more like the competition.

"My wife had never been my queen. I wanted her to have safety and the freedom to move through the world as she liked. She never desired the pleasures of a throne. I want you to go to her. I want you to tell her, 'you are a widow now'. I want you to tell her that our son will rule in my stead. He`s young, yet. too young for such a burden. My seneschal will help him. My seneschal will probably also try to assassinate him." He smirked, looking more at ease now that he was talking about backstabbing and betrayal. "My boy is quick and clever. He`ll learn. He`ll adapt. And he`ll be a better king than I ever was."