Venom & Vow by Anna-Marie McLemore

Author:Anna-Marie McLemore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CADE

If my mother were here, I’d ask her what to do. But she’s not, so there’s only one place I can go. The place that taught me to be a man. The same place that gave me my Saint Marinos tattoo, oak leaves and acorns and water inked into my side.

I don’t want to think of my mother right now, not when there’s so much else I need to figure out. But I can’t help it. Every time I take this road, I think about her. She’s the one who first sent me to live among the monks who would become my brothers.

My mother saw me as I was, and she told me I could be who I was.

But she didn’t see everything.

Once my mother knew who I really was, she told me I could still rule one day. They will accept you, she told me. They are ready for a prince and king like you.

I asked her what would happen if there were people who weren’t.

My mother wasn’t one for lying, even when I was a child, and she didn’t lie then. She didn’t say everyone would accept me.

There are always challenges, she told me. In every generation—yours, mine, the ones who came before and the ones who will come after—there are those who want things to be different and those who want things to stay the same.

But as she said those words, all I heard in my head were the arguments about her reforms. Advisors telling her she was changing too much, too quickly, and that people would rebel if pushed too far.

I was sure I would be that final push too far, and that she would be blamed for who I was. That there would be a price for me living as who I am, and that my mother would have to pay it. Everyone in Adare would have to pay it. If my mother fought for me, she’d lose somewhere else. She’d have to concede, to lay aside reforms Adare needed.

My mother set herself in the space between tradition and change. She held close this castle, the tree with our family’s gems, the lore of the staff passed down from queen to queen. But I couldn’t live in that space with her, no more than I could turn myself into a queen who could inherit that staff. No matter what ancient stories I loved, no matter what traditions I held on to, I would always be too much change, too quickly.

My mother had more faith in who I could be than I did. She didn’t realize that everything about me would mean choices, trade-offs, things lost.

Before she lost anything else because of me, I had to choose between who I was born to be and who I truly was.

When I told my mother I didn’t want to rule Adare, she asked only once if I was sure.

When I said yes, we never spoke of it again.

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