The Tears of the Rose by Jeffe Kennedy Page A

unrest. The advent of this new, male heir came at exactly the right moment for him to seize upon this as the road to a better era.”
    â€œUorsin never did get over Salena’s providing him with only girls,” Zevondeth agreed. “In you, Amelia, he sees his chance to thwart her machinations.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Her redemption, surely, not her machinations? “No woman can control the sex of her babe.”
    â€œCan’t she?” Zevondeth laughed that cackling sound that put my small hairs on end. Marin handed me her special tea and a plate of thin toasts with fruit spread. “Salena was no ordinary woman; make no mistake of that, little Ami.”
    â€œYou speak of power that belongs to Glorianna alone—not to any human. Or demon.”
    â€œI speak of what Andromeda is learning, following in her mother’s very powerful footsteps. Watch that you’re not left in the dust.”
    â€œI wish for nothing more to do with her. Except justice.” The tea scalded my tongue and I almost welcomed the burn. Everyone saw me as worthless, powerless. And here Zevondeth was talking like Andi was so wonderful when she was nothing more than a murderess and traitor. “She killed Hugh.”
    â€œDid she?” Zevondeth cast a white-eyeballed glance in Ursula’s direction, and to my surprise, Ursula fidgeted. Was that . . . guilt? The sour scent of it drifted through the air.
    â€œWhat aren’t you two telling me?” I demanded, setting the plate aside. Then I snagged one of the toasts anyway, so ravenous for food, I couldn’t resist.
    â€œIs Ami’s babe truly a boy?” Ursula asked. She wasn’t avoiding the subject, however. I could see that much. She seemed to need the answer.
    â€œWhy? Did you have other intelligence?” Zevondeth smiled, the sweet old granny no one would ever mistake her for.
    I snorted. “Andi seems to think she’s some sort of prophetess now—she told Ursula that I was pregnant with a girl.”
    Ursula focused her keen gaze on me, raising her hawklike brows at me gobbling more of the toast. Glorianna help me—if I wasn’t puking, I was eating.
    â€œA little fact she knew before you did, I might point out.”
    â€œWhat else did Andromeda tell you?”
    â€œWe didn’t have much time to talk,” Ursula hedged.
    â€œAmi, dear, would you send your midwife and ladies away?”
    I nearly refused Zevondeth her demand, though we both pretended it was a request. In truth, however, the old woman scared me. Some things you never outgrow.
    After the ladies withdrew, Ursula stood and moved away from the fire. Always more comfortable moving, she paced the chamber as she spoke. “She showed me the border to Annfwn and bade me—”
    â€œFancy name for a dismal place,” I remarked. “It just means the Wild Lands. It’s not even a real word.”
    â€œIt means ‘paradise,’ in the old language.” Zevondeth folded her hands over the top of her cane. “Make no mistake, Princess—Uorsin’s appetite for the place has never diminished, though Salena led him away from it. And a man does not hunger for the undesirable.”
    â€œWell, it sounds dismal.” They ignored me, as if I hadn’t spoken.
    â€œShe bade me to try to cross the border,” Ursula continued.
    â€œAnd?” Zevondeth licked her brittle old lips. “What happened when you tried?”
    Ursula shrugged, holding up her palms in bewilderment. “I could not.”
    â€œBut the Tala could.”
    â€œYes.”
    Zevondeth thumped her cane on the floor, face flushed with triumph. “That’s my girl. She’s truly taken the reins of her mother’s power, then.”
    â€œI wouldn’t have believed such a thing was possible if I hadn’t experienced it myself,” Ursula said.
    â€œWell, I don’t believe it.” I poured myself