Theory #1: The Blue Queen
Kendare Blake has mentioned the phenomenon of the Blue Queens at least once or twice in the main series, and it pops up again in The Young Queens. Now, it could possibly mean nothing, but why introduce such a concept if it wasn’t going to be used?
The Blue Queen, for those who don’t remember, is a fourth queen that is born along with the triplets. She’s considered so rare that she must be blessed by the Goddess, and so the other three queens are drowned and the Blue Queen grows up to assume the throne.
So here’s where @radiodeadgirl and I got to theorizing.
1) @radiodeadgirl pointed out that the novella “kept mentioning Jules + the color blue for no real reason (blue oat grass, wearing a blue shirt).” And at one point the line “and besides, Jules is no queen” appears. It could mean absolutely nothing, but then again I feel like Kendare Blake is trying to throw us off looking into Jules too much. How about the fact that Jules was conceived at Beltane, just like the queens, and born on the same day? Sure, there are a lot of Beltane Begots, and Madrigal remembers giving birth to Jules, and Jules is already very rare what with the legion curse, but what the heck? Gifts on the island rise with the queen, like @radiodeadgirl pointed out, and the war gift is apparently on the rise again, just as Jules is closer to growing into that gift. Could Jules somehow be the fourth queen?
The Goddess no longer favours that royal lineage. Queen “Camille said she felt something shifting in the line of queens.” Could it be that their line is ending? That, somehow, Jules has been favoured by the Goddess? It would explain why she’s such a strong naturalist. It would explain why she’s legion-cursed. So maybe Jules is the fourth queen, but by a different lineage.
2) There’s a fourth queen, but not on the island. In the novella, it’s mentioned that when someone from the island goes to the mainland, they lose their memories. So maybe Queen Camille and Phillipe did find their way back to his country, and they settled down somewhere, forgetting the island. Perhaps they had another child, and while that child wasn’t born on the island, it would still be in line for the throne, no? It’s still carries the royal blood through its veins. I don’t know how long it would take to forget Fennbirn completely, but it’s plausible.
Whether these theories will come to be or not, who knows besides Kendare Blake. But it’s too suspicious that the Blue Queen kept being mentioned.
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