The Queen's Mage

The door closed behind him.

A moment passed.

No lock.

Serali heard no bolt slide, no key turn, no metal tongue biting into place.

The absence was loud.

Allandra stood very still.

Serali looked at the door.

Then at her.

“He really is terrible at subtlety,” Serali said.

“Yes.”

“He thinks he is helping.”

“He often does.”

“Is he?”

Allandra’s gaze held hers. “I don’t know.”

That was enough to pull the room taut again.

Serali turned back to the desk because looking directly at Allandra felt like stepping too close to a ledge. She picked up the oath draft and pretended to read it.

The words swam.

She read the first line three times and retained none of it.

Finally, because the room was already full of dangerous things, she said, “Should we discuss the mate thing?”

Allandra did not move.

Serali kept her eyes on the page. “Or are we still pretending that old magic is not standing in the corner making everyone foolish?”

“Not pretending,” Allandra said.

“Could have fooled me.”

“I am trying to keep it separate from the council decision.”

Serali looked up then.

Allandra’s face had gone careful.

“The council does not know,” she said.

Serali’s fingers tightened on the page.

“They cannot know,” Allandra continued. “Not now.”

The words struck harder than Serali expected.

Of course they cannot know. She knew that. She understood statecraft well enough. A prisoner named Royal Mage while also bound to the queen by some ancient, inconvenient magic? The council would smell scandal before breakfast. They would call it enchantment, corruption, madness, treason, bedding the enemy, weakness, every ugly thing a room full of powerful people could use to turn a woman into an argument.

Still. The words sank under her ribs like cold water.

Serali set the page down with care. “Are you ashamed?”

Allandra’s expression changed.

Just slightly.

Enough.

“No.”

“You answered too quickly.”

“I am not ashamed of you.”

The correction came fierce and immediate.

Serali looked away first.

That was worse. That was much worse.

“All right,” she said, too lightly. “Not of me. Of the bond, then. Of wanting Vulmar’s bastard in a way that makes your ancestors rattle their pretty glass windows.”

“No.”

“Of kissing a prisoner.”

Allandra went silent.

Serali smiled. “Ah. That one.”

“Yes,” Allandra said.

The honesty cut the smile from Serali’s face.

Allandra stepped closer, then stopped herself. The movement was small, but Serali saw it. She was beginning to know the shape of Allandra’s restraint too well: the arrested motion, the hands folding behind her back, the careful half-step away from anything that might become touch.

“I am not ashamed of wanting you,” Allandra said.

Serali’s breath caught despite every effort to prevent it.

Allandra’s voice lowered. “I am ashamed that I wanted you before I had any right to. I am ashamed that I touched your chin through cell bars and called it interrogation. I am ashamed that I threatened you and then found you beautiful. I am ashamed that the first time I kissed you was in a room where you were not free to leave.”

Serali’s throat tightened.

“I am still not free to leave.”

“No,” Allandra said. “You are not.”

“Then where does that leave us?”

Allandra looked toward the unbolted door.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Careful,” she said.

Serali laughed under her breath.

Not because it was funny.

Because if she did not laugh, she might do something worse.

“Careful,” she repeated. “That is your answer?”

“Yes.”

“I ask if you are ashamed, and you say you are careful.”

“I say I am careful because shame makes people hide things for their own comfort.” Allandra looked back at her. “Care is different.”

Serali stared at her.

“That sounds rehearsed.”

“It is not.”

Serali snorted before she could stop herself.

Allandra almost smiled.

“I cannot tell the council,” Allandra said. “Not because I wish to deny you. Not because I intend to tuck you away like a scandal. Because if they know now, before you have standing, before the appointment is secure, before you have any protection that does not depend on my private will, they will use it to destroy the proposal.”

Serali’s mouth tightened.

“They will say you enchanted me,” Allandra continued. “They will say my judgment is compromised. They will call for your removal from the palace, from my presence, perhaps from life, depending on who speaks loudest.”

Serali looked toward the door.

Unbolted.

Guarded.

Still not free.

“And if they find out later?” she asked.

“Then I would rather they find out when you are Royal Mage, not prisoner. When there is law under your feet and not only my hand over your head.”

The image should have repulsed her.

A hand over her head. Protection. Possession. Nearly the same shape from certain angles.

But Allandra had said law under your feet.

Not my protection. Not my bed. Not my bond.

Law.

Position.

Ground.

Serali hated that it mattered.

“You think a title will save me?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good. I was about to lose all respect for you.”

Allandra’s mouth twitched. “I think a title gives them something to trip over before they reach you.”

That was better.

Serali leaned back against the desk, arms folded. “And what do you tell people while we are being careful?”

“As little as possible.”

“Do I have to pretend I don’t feel it?”

Allandra’s face tightened. “No.”

Serali’s pulse jumped.

“No?”

“You do not have to pretend anything for my comfort.”

“That sounds expensive.”

“It may be.”

“What if I say something?”

“To whom?”

“The council. Mara. Daravan. Everly. The decorative swan fund.”

Allandra closed her eyes briefly. “Please do not tell the swan fund.”

“Why not? It sounds dormant. Perhaps it wants gossip.”

“Serali.”

There it was again.

Her name in Allandra’s mouth.

The room shifted.

Serali looked down.

“I am not good at pretending,” she said.

“I have noticed.”

“I can lie. That’s different. Pretending requires agreeing with the room.”

Allandra’s expression softened in a way Serali did not want to look at too closely.

“Then do not agree with the room,” Allandra said. “Only withhold what you choose to withhold.”

“You make secrets sound noble.”

“They are not.”

“Then what are they?”

“Sometimes necessary. Often corrosive.”

Serali looked up. “Is this one necessary or corrosive?”

“Yes,” Allandra said.

Serali stared.

Then, despite herself, laughed.

The sound startled them both.

Allandra looked briefly pleased. Not triumphantly, not possessively. Pleased as if Serali’s laugh were some small creature that had landed near her and might startle if approached too quickly.

That undid Serali more than heat would have.

She pushed away from the desk and paced to the window.

No tether stopped her.

The room felt too large now. Or not large enough. She could cross it end to end. She could put space between them. She could walk to the door and open it.

She could not leave the palace.

But the door was unbolted.

This was how they would do it, then. By degrees. By inches. A leash slackened until she stopped noticing the hand that held it.

She looked over her shoulder.

Allandra stood exactly where Serali had left her, hands clasped behind her back, posture too straight for comfort.

Careful.

Infuriatingly careful.

“What if I do not want to be careful?” Serali asked.

Allandra went very still.

Serali’s face warmed, but she refused to look away.

“I don’t mean now,” she said sharply, though she was not entirely sure that was true. “I mean—this. Us. Whatever old magic has decided to call itself. What if I am tired of every feeling I have being managed by kings and queens and healers and laws?”

Allandra’s voice was quiet. “Then I would ask what you want.”

Serali hated that answer.

She hated it because the question opened too much space.

What did she want?

Freedom, obviously.

A ship.

A name no one knew.

A room where no one locked the door.

Her family alive, impossible.

Cillian safe.

Vulmar dead, perhaps.

Rania frightened, definitely.

Allandra’s hands on her again.

No.

Yes.

Damn it.

“I want to know what this is without everyone telling me what it cannot be,” Serali said.

Allandra’s breath changed.

Only slightly.

Serali heard it anyway.

“It is dangerous,” Allandra said.

“I know.”

“It is politically impossible.”

“I know.”

“It could be used against you.”

“I know.”

“It could be used against Everly.”

That stopped her.

Allandra saw.

Of course she saw.

Serali looked out the window again, jaw tight.

The city beyond the glass was bright now, morning advancing over the terraces in merciless gold.

Everly. Four years old. A crooked dragon. Sorry you are hurt and locked.

“Then we are careful,” Serali said, hating the concession even as she made it.

“Yes.”

“For her.”

“Yes.”

“And for me.”

“Yes.”

Serali looked back. “And for you?”

Allandra’s expression shifted.

There was the queen. The widow. The woman who had learned to make herself last on every list because kingdoms praised that kind of self-destruction and called it duty.

Serali recognized it with sudden, unwelcome clarity.

“Allandra.”

The queen’s eyes lifted at her name.

“For you too,” Serali said.

Allandra did not answer.

Serali’s mouth twisted. “You are terrible at being cared about.”

That seemed to surprise her.

Then, quietly, Allandra said, “I am out of practice.”

The honesty hurt.

Serali wished she could stop rewarding it by softening.

She crossed back to the desk and picked up the oath draft because paper was safer than eyes. “Fine. Careful. Secret. Law under my feet. No telling the swan fund.”

Allandra’s mouth curved faintly. “Thank you.”

“But I want one thing clear.”

“Yes?”

Serali looked at her over the page. “If anyone does find out, you do not say I bewitched you.”

Allandra’s face went cold.

Not at Serali.

At the thought.

“No.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“If your council, your brother, your people decide you made this choice because the Night Fae witch got into your blood, you do not let me carry that.”

Allandra crossed the room before she seemed to remember she was trying not to.

She stopped short, just beyond arm’s reach.

“No,” she said again, voice low and fierce. “Never.”

The force of it shook something loose in Serali’s chest.

She looked down at the page.

“Good.”

“And if they say it,” Allandra continued, “they will answer to me.”

Serali’s mouth went dry.

“That sounded very queenly.”

“I am occasionally reminded of the office.”

“Convenient.”

“Sometimes.”

They stood too close now.

Not touching. Not even almost. But close enough that Serali could see the faint shadow under Allandra’s eyes, the ink near her thumb, the places exhaustion had frayed her edges.

Close enough to remember the kiss.

Allandra looked at her mouth.

Only for a heartbeat.

Serali saw.

The room caught fire.

Neither moved.

Then Daravan knocked.

One sharp rap.

The sound broke them apart like a dropped plate.

Allandra stepped back.

Serali turned toward the desk so quickly she nearly scattered the papers.

Daravan’s voice came through the door. “Majesty. Lady Verya has sent the oath clerk. He looks nervous and expensive.”

Serali closed her eyes.

Allandra did the same.

For one absurd second, they were united entirely in irritation.

“Tell him to wait,” Allandra called.

“He has been told. He appears emotionally unprepared.”

“Then prepare him.”

Serali snorted.

Allandra looked at her.

The heat between them softened into something almost bearable.

Almost.

Allandra gathered the papers. “We should review the oath before he enters.”

“Yes,” Serali said. “We should.”

The words meant more than the paper.

Both of them heard it.

Allandra returned to the opposite side of the desk.

Careful.

Serali let her.

For now.