VULPINE: Her Second Chance

The Madame's Broken Heart

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21. The Madame's Broken Heart

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"Gods damn it all; I have s**t to do!" Thalia muttered under her breath, hoping the owner of these chambers couldn't hear her.

Thalia had known it was a mistake to go back alone when she'd decided to leave the party as soon as the toast were over, but she had thought that she would remember the turns they'd taken to get to the hall. As it was, she had taken a wrong left or right at some point, and was now quite lost. She'd considered mentally calling for a family member, but had instead followed a faint sound and then light until she ended up here.

"Here" was a large palatial sitting room, decorated liberally with white furs and soft blue rugs. The wall Thalia faced as she came out of the tunnels had a dark round door that looked black in the waning light coming from the fireplace to her left. A large indigo chair sat in front of the flames, with an open book laying facedown in the seat.

On the righthand wall hung three large paintings, two of which were framed in black. The central one, framed in a rich mahogany that stood out from the azure wallpaper, pretty clearly denoted whose living area Thalia had stumbled into. She winced as she heard the other door behind her open and the homeowner enter.

"Your Majesty?" Turning from stern face to stern-er face, Thalia found herself looking at the flesh and blood version of Madame North Sky. "To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

Despite her current higher status, Thalia felt compelled to curtsy to the older female. Suppressing the urge, she instead nodded in greeting and said "I apologise Madame North Sky; I was lost in the tunnels for a moment. I was trying to find my rooms and thought in the end that perhaps any rooms would do, rather than being lost forever in the mountain." She tried for the tiniest bit of humour and was pleasantly surprised when it worked and the Madame let out a quiet chuckle.

"We can't have that, can we?" Madame North Sky drew closer and patted her daughter-in-law's shoulder reassuringly. "Our Daniel is the happiest he's been in quite some time, since he found you, and it's only been a week. I hope you'll stay here and stay safe while you do so." Ah. It seemed Daniel had come by it honestly, his talent for smacking Thalia's casually serious semi-jokes out of the air with sentimental truths.

"To be honest, I thought that you had some level of distaste for me, like the other members of the council. Would you not have rather preferred that I be more like the first queen, Madame?" Thalia asked, genuinely confused as to where this warm and accepting air was coming from.

The Queen Mother smiled, a wan pulling up of the corners of her mouth, as she walked past Thalia and stood under the painting farthest away from the door to the other rooms. Thalia had been avoiding looking closely at either portrait beside Marie's, as they held images of shifters long dead, but of great import to the king and his mother. She also did not want to begin to compare herself to the female whose ghost she had been fighting all evening.

Unaware or perhaps uncaring of Thalia's murky feelings towards the matter, Madame North Sky stared at the mourning portrait of the late Queen Yerenikova. The female in the painting was deathly pale, even in life, with straight platinum blonde hair and eyes that looked like chips of ice. She would have looked quite fierce were it not for the roundness of her eyes, and her slight chubbiness. Her rosy cheeks and smiling lips completed the image and took away all of the chill and severity her colouring could have brought, and instead she looked like a porcelain doll or a snow fairy.

"Svetlana was a fearless shifter and a great match for Daniel at the time, that is surely true." The Madame touched the gilt edge of the frame and Thalia noticed the pumpkin vines and holly berries that were carved into the black wood. Winter scents, like King Jackson's. The Queen Mother turned away. "But a fearless shifter is one who may not notice or expect treachery in their own home. And her death changed Daniel into someone else entirely. I believe what he needs right now is someone courageous, instead of fearless."

"I see." Thalia said, though she really felt she didn't. The older shifter chuckled and pulled out a curtain that had been behind the frame, covering the portrait. She then went to the other to do the same, but paused with her hand still barely grasping the cloth.

"I was fearless, once. But it didn't cost me my life." She touched the lips of the dark skinned male in the painting, then drew the curtain. "I used to have these hanging in the main hall, with the other ones."

What other ones? Thalia thought but didn't ask, as Madame North Sky returned to her side.

"I would gaze at Eli's portrait for hours on end, talking to him." The Madame smiled as she averted her eyes, but the smile quickly dropped as she pursed her lips before speaking, "I finally had to get over it when Daniel apologised for looking too much like me. For not being able to replace his father or ease my heart."

She tried to smile again, and abandoned the attempt as it became wobbly. "He wished he wouldn't have to see those eyes in the mirror, you know. It hurt too much. And there I was, staring every day at an effigy of his pain in the hopes of soothing mine."

The covered painting stared down at them, seeming less imposing now, but all the more meaningful. "It wasn't helping either of us, so I moved it here. Now, I only open the curtains when I need to remember."

"... Remember what?" Thalia was almost afraid to ask, but Madame North Sky didn't act like she had asked a silly question, nor a painful one.

"What it was like to be loved like that. And to love like that. Like I rose the moon for him, and he would raise the sun for me."

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Thalia was a few metres away from the door to her chambers when she felt it. The king's rage, which she had been ignoring the whole night, finally boiled over. She speed-walked the rest of the way and quickly hid herself in her sitting room, and then changed her mind and went into the living area. That way, she would be able to scurry away from either entrance to her space.

Thalia had been so good all night, weathering the disdainful gazes and subtly mocking comments, so why had it seemed like the king had grown more and more dissatisfied with her as time passed?!

"Thalia." She jerked away from the door she'd just come through, retreating to the edge of her hearing, but the king didn't knock or otherwise enter. "It's okay, you don't have to come out or come closer. I just wanted to apologise for tonight."

"I have not summoned the Alpha Council for anything but galas to seek matches for several years. I have been too lax with them, it seems, in the meantime." He growled at his own words. "Take that as a reason, and not an excuse, my queen. Thaddeus has advised me that I should not... replace the Alpha Council, but I will take any form of castigation that you suggest. I was preoccupied during the event, but I can still punish them, now or later. I have no need for a pack full of idiots who can't read the room."

Thalia went back to the door, opening it a crack so that the king would be able to hear her. "Wasn't I supposed to be demonstrating my independent strength? If you do anything about the situation, that proves nothing, except that your queen is unable to solve her own problems." She wasn't upset about the king's "failure" to stand up for her, but at his perceived displeasure. Since that ire was not for her, apparently, she felt much more confident. "Besides, I know that I have strengths beyond the physical."

King Jackson paused for a moment, surprised or pleased that she'd responded. "I understand that, it's just that I want to help, if I can." He sighed before resuming speaking, "You're very strong-minded, I know, but when we're at these political events I will be unable to protect you in any way but physically, so I'd like to... Well, I'm not sure what I'd like to do." This last bit was muttered at half volume, but Thalia still heard it now that the door was open.

"And why will you be unable to protect me socially? Not that I'm fiending for protection in polite society, but I could have used a bit more than just the air of general disapproval, at least tonight." She decided to give him some grace and address the beginning of his statement, but the way the king sucked in his breath told her that it may have been the more tender subject. He paused for a longer moment than before, and Thalia was on the verge of saying that he didn't have to tell her anything he didn't want to when Daniel finally spoke again.

"Can I come inside and talk?" It was Thalia's turn to pause, but the king was able to back-pedal before she could answer. "Actually, let me just sit down in the closet, and we can talk through the panel. How does that sound? Safer?"

She wanted to tell him that she hadn't stiffened up due to fear, but felt herself relax enough to know that it wasn't true. She pondered on how to respond for the briefest of moments. At the very least she would like to keep from lying to him, and at the most she would try not to hurt his feelings with the bare truth. Since he already knew that he'd scared her, Thalia decided to rephrase a bit. After all, it was more her past that made her afraid in this situation than it was King Daniel.

"It does sound more comfortable, yes." She took a couple of steps away, then returned to the open door. "I'm going now."

Once she'd arrived in her walk-in, Thalia grabbed a small grey suede stool, which she usually used to put on shoes, and placed it a few feet away from the separating panel. As she sat, she heard the king's measured footsteps approaching. From the sound of it, he sat right against the false wall, facing the rest of the room with his back towards her. Thalia wondered if that was comfortable, then swatted those thoughts away as he began to speak.

Once again, the king told a succinct and practical tale that ignored his own personal feelings in the matter, but this time Thalia was the only one there to hear it. The true reason why Daniel never argued against the whispers of madness that had marred his reputation. The real story behind the rumours was a secret kept by only the closest pack members, and even the past brides - including Holland Flynn and by association Harold - did not know what she now knew.

Even though she had earlier cried independence, long after she got her errands done and went to bed, Thalia lay awake for hours, at a loss for what she could do to help her mate.

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