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“Leave us,” she told the guards.

They gaped at her. “But your majesty…”

“I said, leave us. That is an order.” She glared until they bowed low and withdrew through the gates. “Close the gate behind you.”

They hesitated, then obeyed.

“How old is the boy?” she asked, turning back to Melanthe.

“Five, your majesty.”

“And does the King know of him?”

“He knows there was a child. He does not know he has a son.” I heard the pain in her voice saying this, but she wasn’t the only one affected.

I could see the hurt move through Ianthe, as it was plain that the Queen had known nothing of this until this very moment.

“What is it you want from the King?” Ianthe asked, her lips tight around an emotion I could feel pressing at her edges.

Melanthe hesitated. “I want the King to know his son. I want the boy to have a full belly, and clothes that aren’t two sizes too small. I want nothing for myself. Only to know that my son has a better life than I can give him.” She paused. “He need not claim him as his own. Only take him under his wing and keep him safe.”

The Queen looked at the boy. And I mean she looked, studying every part of him as the silence stretched, filled only with the gentle lap of the moat and the morning birds. And when at last she spoke, there was no venom in it. No cruelty. Only a careful, aching gentleness I hadn’t braced for at all.

“Where do you live?” Ianthe asked.

Melanthe blinked, thrown. “I… what?”

“Where do you live, you and the boy?” The Queen’s gaze moved over the child’s too-small clothes, his thin frame, and something soft and sorrowful crossed her face. “I will have food sent to you. Clothing. Blankets. Whatever you have need of, enough to see the two of you through the winter and more besides. You need only tell me where.”

Melanthe stared at the queen, completely disarmed, as though kindness were the one weapon she had never learned to guard against. And I felt it flicker through her too, the shock of it, the terrible, traitorous temptation of it.

But it didn’t last. Because it wasn’t what she had come for.

“So.” Her voice hardened, the gratitude curdling before it could fully take shape. “You will not permit me to see the King.”

The Queen’s lips pressed together, and that troubled sorrow only deepened in her eyes.

“I understand why you wish it,” she said, and her voice held an apology. “Truly, I do. But he may not see it as I do. And I do not think it wise. Not now.” A pause, gentle and pained. “Perhaps, in time, I could persuade him to think differently, but right now…”

“Then you offer me nothing.” Melanthe spat the words, and the boy flinched at her side.

“That is not true.” Ianthe’s voice stayed soft, but it did not waver. “I offer you the means to fill your son’s belly. To keep him warm through the cold. That is no small thing.”

“My son,” Melanthe hissed, “is none of your concern.”

And there it was. The bitterness, rising up between them like a black tide. Because this woman, this kind and sorrowful woman standing before her, had every single thing Melanthe had lost.

The King. The crown. The life.

The love.

And she hadn’t needed one drop of magic to keep a moment of it. She had simply been chosen, where Melanthe had been used and cast aside, and no amount of kindness offered through a gate would ever be enough to close a wound like that.

The Queen drew a slow breath, and I watched her gather herself to reach for this furious, grieving woman one last time.

“Please,” she said quietly. “Let me help you. It is all I…”

She never finished.