The room went silent.
"My Lord Ragnar," he said, his voice a dry, reedy whisper. "I have… a request."
"You are in no position to make requests, old man," I said, my voice a low, dangerous purr.
"It is not for me," he said, his gaze flicking to his granddaughter, who stood at my side, her face a mask of cool, professional competence. "It is for her."
He looked back at me, his old, weary eyes filled with a new, strange, and deeply, profoundly inconvenient emotion.
Hope.
"You have taken her from me," he said. "You have made her a monster. A queen of monsters."
"I have made her a queen," I corrected him.
"Then let her be a queen," he pleaded. "Do not make her a tyrant. Do not make her… you."
The audacity of it was breathtaking.
He was telling me how to run my own godsforsaken kingdom.
And the worst part was, he was right.
I looked at Isabelle. At the impossible weight she now carried on her shoulders.
She was a bridge between two worlds. A human queen in a monster's court.
