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nursery only when her children stepped out of line for some supposed infraction or another. She delighted in disciplining them, or even better, disciplining the tutors and nursery maids instead. Arianna put her foot down when it came to Camilla interfering with her own children. She would be Queen one day—and while she left the daily care to the governesses and maids, Arianna had final say and authority over her children and how they were to be raised. And Camilla was to have zero private interaction with Arianna’s children.
    She knew she wasn’t the ideal mother, but she wasn’t just their mother—she was to be Queen. Her life was not her own. Split between her duties as queen-presumptive and mother, Arianna regretfully lost much of her time as a parent. It was little hardship on the bad days—she didn’t regret the diplomatic trip to Elysian when all of her then five children had the chicken pox. On the good days, though, she missed their little smiles, their grasping sticky hands, and their pleas for story time and coloring sessions.
    “You better start behaving! What would your father think? Or the King? Are you always going to be a disappointing child?” Camilla scolded, and Arianna frowned. No one but Ari, Malcolm, Camilla, and the king knew where Mason was, and Arianna went cold to her core. Camilla had to know the state her own husband was in and what was happening to him, she must—how could any royal wife abandon her prince? Even a wife as atrocious as Camilla had to realize that without Mason, she was naught but a gaudy decoration amongst those of the blood. Why wasn’t she protesting his treatment, or even visiting him?
    “Grandpa never comes here! And Daddy isn’t home! I don’t care what they think, and I don’t care what you think! I hate you!” her nephew shrieked at the top of his lungs, and Arianna smirked as the young boy stormed majestically from the nursery, his siblings and cousins cheering from around the room.
    Arianna looked out across the room, trying to block out Camilla where she fumed, taking her anger out on the boy’s hapless tutor. Her own children, from her oldest child, the future king, young Simon, to her youngest daughter, Selene, and the middle girls, sitting quietly nearby doing their lessons—and then to her nieces and nephews, Camilla and Mason’s children. She drank the sight of them in, for once thinking about what would happen if all of this was taken away. What would happen if Mason was right—a part of her was so angry, so mad at him for even suggesting the horrible reality he told her days before—but another part of her, the part of her that loved Cassia, loved her husband, and loved her children—if Mason was right, then she had two choices, and her rarely exercised conscience was demanding to be heard.
    Her children, the succession, the crown and throne—all of it hinged on Mason and whether or not he was lying. Because the anger in her heart battled fiercely with fear—she ached from betrayal. Surely she couldn’t believe him. Her children, Malcolm’s and Mason’s children—they were innocent in all of this, yet to them fell the greatest betrayal.
    Well, if Mason was to be believed, if his radical story was true, then they weren’t his, and her children…..dear God, by the Saint’s grace, he must be lying.
    “Molly, take him, please,” Arianna called to Airric’s nurse, who promptly appeared and took the youngest princeling from her arms. She touched his soft cheek and gave him a strained smile, and all but ran from the room. She caught a glimpse of Camilla watching her leave, a frown on her typically dour face, but Arianna ignored her sister-in-law.
    She had to find out. Her nerves were unraveling, and she couldn’t lose it in front of the children, or Camilla.
    She left the nursery, and took off down the hall in the direction of the king’s rooms.
    “He has to be lying.”
    Yes, that was it. Mason was lying. He was always causing