The evil queen is in her evil country, standing out on her evil balcony and eviling.

Oh, and whining, because we have yet to see this POV serve an actual point.

The Queen had ruled her kingdom with an iron grip for over a century, but now the lack of new slaves had created a novel problem: internal unrest.

So, first of all, slavery is evil and all that. But second of all…how bad do you have to be at both slavery and economy that one failed (not even failed; mildly delayed) shipment is fucking over 100 years of establishment? I’m just saying, if this is actually true, then it wasn’t Kelsea that upset things, because things must have already been pretty shaky.

I’m sure it’s just that the book wants to have Kelsea be uber special without putting in the time commitment to move bureaucracies, but fuck that, if you’re going to put Game of Throne comparisons on your covers, you can’t have government-altering plots that are this easy! Complex, my ass, this is a toddler’s understanding of how things work.

Well, we do at least get some new information out of all the queen’s whining about how her country is QUITE SUDDENLY falling apart. She doesn’t really want to invade people because taking over means you have to actually manage all that new territory, and she doesn’t want to. (Probably because she’s a micromanager.) Much easier to threaten and get all the spoils but not put in any of the work. That’s logical. (As a villainous motivation, at least.) Also apparently there’s some mystery ‘project’ that she doesn’t want to be distracted from.

Then the queen muses for a while about who Kelsea’s father might be, giving some very disturbing lines about genetics and how Kelsea’s mom was weak and vain so must be the father’s genes making Kelsea awesome. FFS, now this “feminist” novel is saying Kelsea’s awesome isn’t even awesome, it’s just inherited from her dad? Fuck that evopsych bull. I mean, yeah, genetics plays a part in personality, but not 100% of the part, and the narrative focus in this part is just…super uncomfortable.

Also why does it matter who her father is? Even if you subscribe to the genetics-is-everything, hey, genes are already distributed, knowing wouldn’t really change things in a practical way? It’s just more BS trying to masquerade as a mystery because the book has decided that you should be curious about that now.

Juliette bowed again and backed away to the far side of the hall. The night guard stationed against the wall gave Juliette’s ass a frankly lascivious glance, and the Queen paused briefly on the threshold, thinking that she should do something about that. Her pages weren’t supposed to suffer any sort of harassment; it was one of the perks of a difficult job.

Wow, the evil queen provides better job security/protection than our main character? Sad times.

We get several pages of philosophical blathering from the queen as she requests a drugged child so she can use “innocent blood” to summon some mysterious spirit and do magic. Which is a waste of our time because this evil spirit thing just tells her not to invade the Tearling or kill Kelsea. Apparently the evil spirit thing is the source of the queen’s power, and it threatens and intimidates the queen before eating her child offering and then disappearing.

Despite the heat, her nipples had hardened to tiny points, as though she were cold, or excited.

[…]

The Queen shook her head frantically. Her nipples were rock-hard now, almost aching, and she moaned as the thing slithered off her

What the fuck? No, really, what the fuck? These two lines are the only two of this type, the rest of the time the queen is either scared or desperate for information, so WHAT THE FUCK? This feels like just “sexy is evil” type bullshit, but so far out of line that I just can’t even figure out what the fuck was going through anyone’s heads when this was approved. You can’t even call this sexy. It’s just…ticking off a box. “Evil thing is happening, better throw in some sex imagery. Ish. I guess. Box checked, on to child murder. Why? BECAUSE IT’S ON THE GRIMDARK LIST, I AM SERIOUS AUTHOR.”

Back to Kelsea, who has been asleep for a day and a half. She wakes up to find the battle (if you could call it that) is over and everything is already settled and Mace made all the decisions. Because apparently being queen doesn’t mean actually ruling or dealing with any fall out or such, no, it’s just showing up for some grand gestures and then leaving all the annoying bits to someone else.

That’s really all Kelsea has been so far in this book: a magical shock-and-awe campaign. She could be replaced with a WMD and have very little change.

Javel survived, and he’s cooperating, but the guards want to see him executed as a traitor because…ya know, he’s a traitor. Kelsea says no, because she saw him trying to open the cage that was on fire. (Didn’t Javel catch fire in that scene, too? Is he not injured? It doesn’t mention anything about that in this chapter.)

Also, they’ve found which queen’s guard was the traitor: Mhurn. I’m sure that means nothing to you readers, because I haven’t been using names for people thus far. Frankly, I can’t really keep them straight, they’re all so similar. Anyway, turns out Mhurn is a fake-heroin addict and that’s how Thorne got to him.

“How did you find out?”

“Arliss. He and Thorne compete in several markets. Not an ounce of narcotic moves through New London without going through Thorne’s backyard, Lady.

…okay, but your Littlefinger-wannabe isn’t here on this mission, so he must have told you before you left, and you still let him come? That makes no sense.

There’s a lot of GRIMDARK talk about honor and Mhurn going on about being already dead inside because of the GRIMDARK things that happened in the last war. Kelsea decides that, well, traitors are traitors, but if anyone is going to die for betraying her then she’s going to do the execution herself.

…well, I didn’t see that coming, so points for that I guess? Except…there’s kind of a reason we don’t let decision makes also play executioner, that shit fucks you up and then you can’t decision make for a while. Like, I get the idea behind it, the whole “If I’m going to approve this it should be something I’m willing to do myself” kind of attitude, but it’s really not that simple in practice, you don’t just murder someone and then cry a little and carry on, even if it was “just.”

Then again, Mace is the one that’s actually doing all the leading around here.