20 Truths About Thayet

1. She doesn't hate her mother for committing suicide, nor does she hate her father for putting lordship above family. She's just hurt that they both left her.

2. She knows that she can never be a true warrior, because above all else, she must be beautiful and gracious and queenly—which meant that protecting her face and body from scarring comes above military training.

3. Alanna would kill her if she knew, but Thayet thinks of her as the little sister she never had. She's just so small, and so innocent when it comes to the womanly arts. Still, sometimes when Thayet catches her husband watching the Lioness, she remembers very painfully that Alanna is just as much a woman as she is.

4. Her first thought when she met Jonathan of Conte was that his looks had been grossly exaggerated. His eyes were not melted sapphires, his skin was not like an unbroken expanse of cream, and his smile most definitely did not cause women to tear off their clothes and fall at his feet. Yes, Thayet thought as the King of Tortall kissed her hand, the rumors were definitely exaggerated. But, by the goddess, they were pretty darn close.

5. She wasn't a virgin when she bedded Jon. When she was escaping Saren, both she and Buri had known that their chances of getting found and raped were high, and she had wanted control over who took her virginity. The boy she gave it to had been handsome, inexperienced, and painfully sweet. He died the next morning with an arrow through his throat while Thayet escaped through the woods.

6. She's been trying to matchmake Raoul and Buri for years, and still can't quite believe that it's the Giantkiller's female squire that finally manages to accomplish what she's been trying to do ever since she watched them argue over the value of longbows over crossbows.

7. She thinks if she'd had complete control over her own fate, she'd have become a teacher. Education seems so secondary when compared to food and safety, but she's seen firsthand how literacy and basic mathematics could change lives.

8. Personally, she thinks that Daine is prettier than she is. The girl is half-goddess, after all, and the mortal woman who bore her won the love of a god.

9. She thought the scariest moment of her life was when she married Jon and realized that she was now queen of Tortall—and then she gave birth to her firstborn. Kalasin is spirited, beautiful, and everything she'd been when life took away her mother and father. Thayet swears to give Kally all the chances she never got, but in the end her daughter's dreams of knighthood are sacrificed for an allegiance with Carthak, and both Conté women cry themselves to sleep that night wondering at the unfairness of the world.

10. She can't carry a tune to save her life, and Jon finds it hilarious when his usually stately wife flees from the room after hearing that the Maren ambassadors want to hear her sing.

11. George is charming, Numair is elegant, and Jon is handsome—but when she meets Liam Ironarm for the first time, she swears he's the sexiest man she's ever seen.

12. She knows she's capable of murder, of coldly slitting a person's throat with the full knowledge that they will die. She found this out after an assassin nearly took Roald's head off and she drove an iron poker straight through his face and watched him die with satisfaction. No one touches her family.

13. She likes to sit down with Cythera over some sewing and gossip about the next generation of heroes, spies, and mages. They even had a bet going on whether Keladry of Mindelan would end up with Neal or his charming cousin—and despite the fact that he is about to get married, Thayet still stubbornly holds that Keladry of Queenscove sounds a lot better than Keladry of Masbolle.

14. She wanted to have twins, because every day she was pregnant was a day the Realm was deprived of three mages, seven healers, and the squadron of soldiers Jon insisted accompany her everywhere. By her last child, things had let up a bit, mostly due to the fact that Thayet had become very adept at losing her bodyguards.

15. Sometimes, she wonders what it would be like to have a god or goddess choose her as their servant. When she voices this to Alanna, however, the shadows in the woman's violet eyes make her stop and suddenly being ignored seems just fine.

16. The Queen's Own never truly belonged to her, but she takes special pride in them in it anyway. Raoul has complained more than once that all the best supplies seem to go to their rival group.

17. Alanna fought spidrens despite being terrified of spiders, and Kel made her way down Balor's Needle, but as Thayet receives yet another letter from her father, she knows that it'll just end up in the pile of unopened envelopes in her drawers. She hopes, however, that one day, she'll have the courage to finally read what he's been trying to say to her for the past five years.

18. People write poetry and literature about how she was born into tragedy, raised in hardship—and survived despite it. Thayet wants to laugh and point to the children who were born into poverty, raised in prostitution and crime—and have no hope of ever digging their way out. Who is going to tell their story?

19. She hates ballads to her—especially those that go on forever praising their beauty. Don't they know being Queen is stressful enough without worrying about looking perfect every second?

20. From the deepest fiber of her being, she hopes her mother somehow knows that she forgives her, that she loves her, that she named her firstborn daughter after her. Sometimes, after a familiar whiff of perfume comes from nowhere or she feels eyes where no eyes could possibly be—she can almost believe her mother does.