"So... if you're Aunt Tara's oldest child, what are you doing here? What is this place anyway?" We sat in silence at the dinner table for several long minutes before I mustered the courage to ask the question. I was surprised that my mouth allowed me to produce any sort of language at all in the presence of the infamous Queen Saralee herself, but for all the horror stories I'd heard about her, she didn't seem half as threatening as I'd imagined her. She lifted pieces of steamed sweet potato to her cherry-red lips with an exacting delicacy that no member of the current royal family could match, watching me with a hint of kindness in her deep, violet eyes as I self-consciously ate my own dinner. 

"It is a very long story," Nemesis sighed, twirling her fork absentmindedly in the air. "Where should we start?" 

"This story started long before you were born, Nemesis," Queen Saralee interjected, dabbing at her mouth with a silk napkin. "Perhaps we should begin with how I survived the grand revolution that brought my daughters to power." 

She scooted back in her chair, raising both her arms as she began her grand narrative. "Long, long ago, when we were still young and unsure of how the Iceheart regime would turn out, Selaeyah Valior and I constructed lab-grown, Aurally-enhanced copies of ourselves. They were intended to be remotely controllable and to stand in for us in dangerous situations." 

"Now, I am arrogant, but I am not an arrogant fool. At the height of the rebellion, as I watched the beautiful city I'd built with my blood, sweat, and tears burning to the ground, I felt my soul shatter inside me for the second time in my unbearably long life. But this time, I did not feel the burning desire to destroy an enemy planet. No, I was older, and wiser. I knew that I had to lose the battle if I wanted to win the war." 

"You had to lose the battle to win the war... so you let my parents defeat you... on purpose?" 

The Ice Queen nodded silently, smiling softly as I sat there, trying in vain to comprehend the complexity of her plan. 

"Your parents, let me guess, Viviana and Aron?" she questioned. "The nominal Heirs of King Airel?"

"Yes," I nodded. 

"So you are half Rhenan," Queen Saralee rested her chin on her hand, watching me with measured interest. "That explains the beautiful eyes." 

It took all of my self control not to spit out a mouthful of water in shock. I brought my hand instinctively up to my gray Rhenan eye, as if to ensure that it hadn't magically changed overnight. But it was the same old eye. All that had changed was my perspective. 

"Are you alright, sweetheart?" Queen Saralee cocked her head to the side, looking concerned. 

"Oh, yes, of course. It's just... 'beautiful' isn't usually the word people use to describe my eyes." 

"Ah, yes," Queen Saralee sighed. "Of course you've been bullied for it. It doesn't matter if I'm on the throne, or Tara, or King Airel himself- the ignorant people of the world will always poke fun at things they don't understand. They're like a mindless herd of cattle, finding comfort in their 'normalcy'. Princess Shehallie was isolated in the court of Lessaenes for being a Rhenan, but she rose up to become a better Lessaenite than all who jeered at her. Of course, I am not advocating the use of questionable medical procedures to change your appearance, but you know what I'm getting at." 

It was then that the Ice Queen did something I'd never have expected her to do. She laughed. It wasn't a bitter, sadistic laugh like I'd heard a thousand times in videos. No, her laughter was warm, lingering, even a little sweet. I didn't know exactly how or why, but my opinions of Saralee and the Icehearts were changing. More than anyone, even my own mother, the supposed tyrant seemed to understand how I felt. And what I thought next surprised me beyond measure.

Perhaps Nemesis brought me here for a good reason. 

"Inspiring as always," Nemesis smiled. "But go on with the story! Tell Swan about the doubles." 

"Ah, yes," Queen Saralee nodded, expertly regaining her composure. "I told Selaeyah we should activate our Aural doubles and flee to a remote Rhenan estate. It was a genius plan- we would convince the enemy that they had won, and then we would strike back- but she was too haughty to listen. She waltzed off to Rhena herself and, as you know, was hunted down and killed shortly after the new government came to power." The Ice Queen shook her head, turning her face downward in regret. 

"I, on the other hand, dug my Aural double out of the basement and dressed it up in my finest clothes. I flew away in a stolen rebel hovercraft- one of dozens in the sky. No one paid me any mind. Then- and this is the best part- I watched from a nearby tower as Aron Faerlen hurled King Airel's staff into a ball of stem cells infused with my DNA," she guffawed. Nemesis joined her, and I watched as the pair cackled loudly for a solid thirty seconds. Finally, the Ice Queen came to her senses, glancing at my downcast expression. 

"Oh dear, I forgot he was your father. That was awfully insensitive of me. Do forgive me, darling, I may not look like it but I'm a silly old grandmother and sometimes I get carried away."  

I froze in my seat. This conversation was getting stranger every minute. Did the Ice Queen of Lessaenes, Conqueror of Worlds , member of the Trio of Evil Awesomeness and professional Iceheart Overlord just ask for my forgiveness!?

"It's...it's really alright," I smiled awkwardly. "You have the right to tell your story as you please." 

"As the battle continued to rage, I flew farther and farther north until I reached Pylea. I put on some Aural illusions and lived in the outskirts of the city for a while. I attended my daughter's coronation in disguise, you know. In an odd way, it was a proud moment for me, although I almost gagged with motherly disapproval when she announced that she was engaged to the likes of Thorel Myers." 

"I don't know why I stayed in Pylea for so long- nearly two years, I think it was, before I heard the rumors that Tara was about to deliver a baby. The palace had confirmed nothing, but I was about to be a grandparent. I just had to go back to Glaisse. I missed my palace and my throne and my city in the mountains so terribly. And so I went, in an unbranded black hovercraft, making easy work of my daughter's rather pathetic security system. I dressed in a maid's uniform and made my way to Tara's suite- the baby had just been born, and her birth hadn't yet been announced to the Empire. When I saw Tara sitting there in bed with her sweet child, when I watched that baby open her brilliant purple eyes- a spitting image of mine- I felt a few of the pieces of my broken soul fall back into place. The baby was so beautiful... small, soft, with little tufts of black hair on her pale head and little hands curled up into fists. I knew right then that she was everything I'd wanted my own daughters to be and more. I couldn't let a little treasure like that rot in the hands of Tara." 

"And so she rescued me," Nemesis chimed in. "The palace searched long and hard for me, but found nothing. In the end, my mother made an immensely difficult decision... she announced to the public that her baby had died. She knew what would happen if she told them the truth- years later, she'd be bombarded with girls claiming to be the 'lost princess'. She'd never know peace again- never be given the chance to heal from her grief." 

"That was when, with my baby granddaughter in my arms, I knew that going back to Pylea would be too risky. And so, armed with necessity, I devised the greatest irony of my lifetime. I, Queen Saralee of Lessaenes, Bane of the Humans, would seek shelter on Earth. It was a place no one would think to look. And besides, who would look for a dead princess and her long dead grandmother? It was my grandest plan yet... and it is still in motion."