The Tears of the Rose by Jeffe Kennedy Page A

carry within you all of Her goodness and thus you can’t bear to think ill of others. But you are also brave and strong. You may have to face that the woman you thought was your sister was never truly human at all.”
    The even click of Marin’s needles hitched and she muttered about dropping a stitch.
    â€œI’ve heard tell”—High Priest Kir lowered his voice, turning a shoulder to the midwife—“that those in Princess Andromeda’s presence sometimes felt a strange creeping sensation, a visceral fear, perhaps, such as when one sees a poisonous spider.”
    The staunchly loyal part of me protested. Sometimes the people at Castle Ordnung had whispered cruel things about Andi. But I had always, always defended her. They just didn’t understand her. Andi had been shy, preferring to ride her horses instead of participating in the feasts and dances. Even when I encouraged the men waiting for their turn to dance with me to at least talk to her, she hadn’t tried to be pleasant to them.
    She always had to be difficult, it seemed. Still, she was human.
    Wasn’t she?
    Kir read the confusion on my face, because he took my hand, folding it between his in a fatherly gesture. “Such loyalty. You have no ill thoughts in you, so you cannot imagine them in others. But we all heard the truth of it from Her Highness Ursula’s own lips. Glorianna’s spirit in you drives you to absolve the creature who carelessly, viciously murdered your husband. Your son will grow up without a father. Is there any way this cannot be the manifestation of a cruel and malicious will?”
    My throat clogged, all of those unshed tears still trapped in there, locked in forever, stuck with pieces of my destroyed heart. I didn’t feel like Glorianna’s avatar. I felt more the five-year-old that Ursula scornfully accused me of being.
    â€œYour mother was one of them,” Kir continued, his smooth voice relentless. “Many are the tales told of how she beguiled High King Uorsin and forced him into her devil’s bargain. Ask yourself this—what did she get out of the marriage? They had no love for each other. What was her demonic plan?”
    My stomach churned and Marin handed me a cup of tea from her flask. I might have imagined it, but it seemed she cast an angry, sideways glance at Kir. Taking the cup allowed me to withdraw my hand from the priest’s grip, and I wrapped my own around the delicate mug, wishing my fingers weren’t so cold.
    â€œI don’t know,” I admitted. “I never knew her. She’s always been a cipher to me. No one would ever talk about her.” So much so, in fact, that I’d never heard of the Tala until Rayfe demanded our father make good on their old treaty to give him Andi for his bride, much less that our mother, Salena, had been one of them.
    â€œThere is a school of thought in Glorianna’s temple that explains much about the late queen.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œPerhaps Your Highness should have a bit of a rest,” Marin interrupted. Kir flushed angrily at her lack of manners, and she cringed. “Your color isn’t what I’d want it to be, is all, Princess.”
    In truth I felt ill. The tea wasn’t helping. But I needed to hear this. Nobody had ever said to my face that I killed my mother by being born, but they didn’t have to. I knew when they lied about it. How they told me it wasn’t my fault, that I bore no guilt for it. All the time the stink of lies ran beneath.
    â€œI want to hear this.” I handed the mug to Marin. “This isn’t helping.”
    â€œYou see, Your Highness”—Kir templed his fingers and bowed to me over them—“Glorianna created you to fight these battles for Her. Once the demon spawn Andromeda was born, Glorianna saw what a great evil had been released into the world. So She created you , perfect in every way. Your beauty is a