The queen sat in her private chamber.
Not the throne room, not the receiving hall — the smaller room that she kept for herself and had kept for herself since the pregnancy had begun stealing her sleep, the room where the window faced east and the plateau wind came through it in the early morning and she had learned to sit in the chair by that window and simply breathe.
She was not breathing well right now.
One hand on her belly, the other in her lap, and the specific quality of stillness she wore was the kind that cost something to maintain — the stillness of a woman who had too many things moving inside her chest to let any of them show on her face, because there were maids nearby and queens did not show.
She was thinking about golden nipple hooks.
