Abandoned Queen

Queen Peydra has refused to submit to the curse's inevitability for nine years, but...

Still struggling against the darkness of the ever-nearing curse and growing affections for her mysterious attendant, Peydra has occupied the throne of Drayden for nine years. During that time, she has spent untold hours crafting a proposal to remove the Protection Dictum from the Law Books, but her hope flounders after a meeting during which Ruling Council ignores the main tenants of it, even in conversation.

The evening after the discouraging meeting, an assassin brings a crooked blade down upon her bedclothes and Anthony is wounded as he fights with the intruder. He hides it behind machismo, but it backfires. While he recovers, and as things seem to be calming, hooded men abduct the queen and demand she give them the Stone of Drayden, a legendary object that grants the possessor important monarchical rights.

When she is found and returned to the palace, she is not the same. Anxieties that she could quiet before the abduction roar in her ears and give her chest pains. Then Speaker Glorienzel is found dead at his estate and a new enigmatic man comes to take his place just as her proposal to remove the curse from law is threatened by The Cleaning of the Law Books, a tradition which she knows has the power to destroy her proposal's viability, and the nine years she spent crafting it. With that hope-squashing thought, she soon begins to lose confidence, especially as Anthony abandons her for Theôran.

Questions about Anthony's identity and whether he will return shroud her days. His absence leaves her vulnerable to the machinations of the new Speaker of the Council. Will she abandon hope of defeating the curse and listen to Ruling Council's demand that she ignore her intuition and place the handsome new Speaker on the throne?

Abandoned Queen is the second of Fleming's four book series, Curse of Royalty. Queen Peydra continues her struggle against the darkness of the curse, endures consequences for her bad decisions, and denies the growing affections for and dependence on her attendant. Anthony attempts to keep the queen safe despite her foolish decisions.

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