Strange, she thought, how compliments from his lips so often sounded like despair. As if he looked at her every success—every battle won, every highborn enemy circumvented, and felt fear. Sometimes—often—she wanted to pry that fear apart and see its working. She wanted to ask him: You, who named me and gave me the opportunity to seize my crown. What do you fear? Is it me and my choices? Is it what will become of me? Or what will become of men like you?
