Suicide

It was the first time I had ever been in such close contact with death, and the weight of my mother's passing crushed me like a boulder. She had died suddenly, taken by a fever that swept through her village, and I wasn’t even allowed to attend her funeral. Leon ordered my mother's body to be returned to her tribe for a traditional burial, and I begged him repeatedly for permission to accompany it—pleaded with tears streaming down my face, clinging to his hands as I begged to say one last goodbye. But he ruthlessly refused, his purple eyes hard as stone, saying the journey was too dangerous for his mate. Leon locked me up in my room for three days, the doors guarded day and night, and I never even got a chance to whisper a final farewell to the woman who had raised me alone. I hate Lydia for killing my mother. Lola told me that Lydia was still queen, and that she had not been punished. I, on the other hand, was stripped of the title of queen. "I think the king is doing this to protect