"Your Majesty?" The timid voice of one of Annoura's newest young Dazzles — a sixteen-year-old featherhead with more br**sts than brains — called from outside the garderobe door. "Are you all right?”

"Oh, yes, I couldn't be better," Annoura snapped. She snatched open the door and stalked into her bedroom, ruining the effect of her regal ire when her knees gave out and she nearly tumbled face-first onto the floor.

The Dazzle— Mairi? Miranda? What the Darkness did Annoura care what the little slut's name was?— caught and steadied her. Annoura checked the urge to smack the girl's cheek for witnessing her queen's near-humiliation.

"Help me to my bed, then get out," she snapped. "And find out what in the name of the Seven naming Hells is taking the physician so long."

The girl helped Annoura back into bed before tucking the covers around her. "Are you sure I can't get you something, Your Majesty? Maybe a nice porridge?"

Porridge? Annoura's eyes bulged. Just the sound of the word made her stomach clench. She leapt from the bed and raced for the garderobe yet again.

This time, when she was finished, the little Dazzle stood there with eyes as big as dinner plates.

Now Annoura did smack her. "I heave my insides out and you ask me if I want porridge! Idiot! Ninnywit! Would you offer fire to a burning man? Get out!" She flung a hand towards the door and glared at the other Dazzles gathered in the suite. "All of you, get out now. And the next person to walk through that door had best have a brain between her ears."

The buxom Dazzle burst into tears and fled out the door. The rest of the morning attendants scuttled after her.

Annoura staggered back to her bed and lowered herself gingerly to the mattress. Good, sweet Lord of Light, she felt terrible. She hadn't felt this bad since . . . well, she couldn't remember.

She put a hand over her eyes to block the weak sunlight streaming in from the draped windows. Gods. Even that made her feel like retching. She flopped back into her mountain of pillows, scowling and feeling frighteningly close to tears.

Where was Dorian? Why wasn't he here? The few times in their married life that she'd been ill, he'd always come to her bedside and stayed there, holding her hand, stroking her brow, weaving cool webs of Spirit to soothe her discomfort until the physician's remedies took effect. Where was he? Surely by now one of the yammer-mouths who called themselves her ladies-in-waiting would have whispered the news of his wife's illness into his ear.

Surely he would not be so coldhearted as to continue their estrangement when she was in ill health?

A knock sounded, and the heavy door to her bedroom swung inward. Annoura looked up, a surge of hope lifting her spirits. "Dorian?"

But the feet that stepped over the threshold did not belong to her husband. Annoura sank against her pillows, blinking back tears. Well, at least it wasn't that useless Dazzle or another idiot just like her. The woman walking through the bedroom door did indeed have a brain between her ears—and a face nearly as pale as Annoura's own.

Jiarine Montevero dropped a graceful curtsy to her sovereign as she entered, then approached the bed. "Mirianna said you were taken ill, Your Majesty."

Mirianna. That was the dim-skull Dazzle's name.

"If by ill you mean that I've been retching until my intestines nearly saw daylight, then yes, I suppose I am," Annoura snapped. She hated being sick. The loss of control that came with illness was an agony to her, and she had never borne it graciously or well. "Fetch a cold compress at once."

"Of course. Your Majesty." Without the tiniest blink of hesitation, Jiarine made her way to the nearby nightstand, where a bowl, a stack of scented towels, and an ewer of fresh water had been laid out earlier. Moments later, she laid a damp cloth over Annoura's forehead and eyes.

Annoura sighed as the cool darkness soothed the frayed edges of her temper. Calm, efficient Jiarine. She'd been such a help these last weeks. For all that Annoura had never been keen on keeping female confidantes, she'd come to rely rather a lot on Jiarine recently. Especially after the queen's Favorite, Ser Vale, had disappeared from court with nary a word save some useless, impersonal scrap of a note claiming a dire emergency on his family estate.

Lady Montevero and Ser Vale had been good friends. She had, in fact, been the one to initially sponsor Ser Vale at court and introduce him to the queen's circle. Now, with Vale gone and no word from him in months, Annoura had found herself talking more and more to Jiarine, hoping Jiarine might have news about the handsome Dazzle who had so quickly become Annoura's indispensible confidant and Favorite. Alas, the lady had received no word from their mutual friend either.

Annoura plucked at the coverlet with restless irritability. "Where is the king? Has he been told of my illness?"

Silence. Then, "I delivered the message myself, Your Majesty. Half a bell ago."

Half a bell.

Half a bell and still Dorian had not come. Time was he would have been at her side in mere chimes, breathless from having run through the palace to reach her. But now, even with half the court afflicted by this mysterious stomach illness, he'd not roused enough concern to visit her?

"I'm sure he will come to see you soon, Your Majesty," Jiarine soothed, "but the Tairen Soul and his mate arrived this morning.”

Annoura's fists clenched around the comforter, pulling until the satin was taut. "The Fey ... are here?"

No wonder Dorian wasn't by her side. The Fey. It was always the Fey. They—not she—would always be first in his heart. She could be on her deathbed, and if a single flaming Fey crooked a finger, Dorian would abandon her without a qualm and go running to his magical master's side like the obedient lapdog he had become.