“Majesty?” he squeaked, his voice so tentative I flinched at the position I was putting him in.
I nodded somberly. Yes, Hashim.
He took several steps closer, his mouth quivering, his eyes glistening with awe.
“Yes, I can . . . hear you. How can I help you, my queen?” he whispered. I extended my hand, and he took it without hesitation. The nerves in my belly eased slightly. I did not scare him. I’d simply surprised him.
I need to get an urgent message to the captain of the guard. Can you send a carrier bird to Firi?
“Yes, Majesty. But the birds can only fly to and from a set location,” Hashim began, hesitant. “If the king’s army is camped beyond Firi, and the city is under attack, my birds may reach the mews in Firi, but the message may not be relayed to the captain for some time, if at all.”
My heart sank, and I dropped my eyes and released Hashim’s hand.
“What is the message, my queen?” he pressed gently.
I need to know from the captain himself if the king is dead.
Hashim’s face brightened. “Is there reason to hope he is not?” he asked.
There is reason to hope and reason to fear. But the captain needs to know what is happening in Jeru. The lords will seize the throne.
“I will go myself, Majesty. I will find the captain.”
My jaw dropped. But . . . it will take several days each way on horseback, and it will be dangerous. You are needed here.
His gaze was steady. Trusting. “It will not take me that long, my queen. And the mews will be in good hands. I have apprentices, and they are very able. I will go and be back in three days.”
I don’t understand.
“The king and I . . . we are the same,” he whispered. “I will . . . fly . . . to Firi.”
One by one the lords arrived, accompanied by small armies from every province, as if the king’s death meant war. They commandeered wings of the castle and set up council in the Great Hall. I was commanded to attend then summarily ignored as the lords from Bin Dar, Gaul, and Bilwick raged and quarreled with the lords from Quondoon, Enoch and Janda. Lady Firi watched it all with narrowed eyes and folded hands, and I wondered if she wasn’t taking her own advice, waiting until the time was right to make her move.
Tiras’s acknowledgment of Kjell had enraged them all, including the ambivalent southern lords, but the king’s advisors were quick to quote precedence and Jeruvian law. My father then proposed that the council appoint a regent and suggested, as father of the queen, that he be chosen. The king’s advisors looked to each other nervously, well-aware that Tiras did not want Lord Corvyn on the throne under any circumstances.
“Has the queen requested a regent, Lord Corvyn?” Lady Firi asked mildly, drawing the attention of all seven of the bickering lords.
“The queen’s wishes cannot be considered. She is unable to communicate and is therefore unfit to reign,” my father retorted.
“That has not been established, Corvyn,” Lord Janda boomed, and Lord Enoch, a cousin of my mother, concurred. Then the arguing began again, tempers rising, opinions swirling, and no one attempted to consult me at all.
I took out my book of accounts and turned to a blank page. Very carefully, I composed a statement for the council, for my father, and for those who had any question about my willingness or ability to rule. I dusted it with sand as the men rambled, let it dry as the men aired out all their grievances, and when I finally stood, the lords rose as well, but their conversation barely stuttered and their eyes never left each other.
I walked to Lady Firi’s side and extended the document I had painstakingly created.
Will you read this, please? I asked her. Her brows rose in surprise, but she immediately stood, taking it from my hands, then waited for me to return to my position at the table.
“The queen has prepared a statement and has asked me to read it to the council,” Lady Firi projected her voice above the fray.
I waited until I had their suspicious attention and inclined my head, asking Lady Firi to begin.
“I am Lark of Corvyn, now of Degn. I was crowned Queen of Jeru in the presence of this assembly. I am a daughter of Jeru and of noble birth. I am sound of mind and body, and I carry the heir to Jeru’s throne. I cannot speak, but I am able to read and write and communicate my wishes and instructions. My loyalty is to Jeru and to the late king. It was his wish that I reign. If a regent is to be appointed to assist me in matters of war and state, I would ask that Kjell of Degn, the king’s brother, be appointed consort until the royal heir is of age.”
My statement was met with silence and sidelong glances. Lady Firi had not raised her eyes from the parchment, and her stillness caused a pang of apprehension to curl in my belly. I needed one ally, one person with whom I could confer.
“I wonder . . . does the Lady Queen know the laws concerning the Gifted?” Lord Bin Dar queried. The sinister slide of his voice broke the silence. I was still standing, but I met his gaze, acknowledging him.
He continued easily. “I have eyes in Jeru City. Sources. Concerned citizens. There are rumors that our queen has been consorting with a Healer. Our late king refused to fully prosecute the Gifted. He has been lax in his duties and sadly, he has lost his life battling the Volgar, the very beasts his leniency created. Jeru is at war. We must destroy the Gifted, or they will destroy us.”
I remembered Boojohni’s words of days before. “He who persecutes the hardest has the most to hide.” I wondered what Lord Bin Dar was hiding and what Lord Gaul and Lord Bilwick truly gained by supporting him.
“My question is this, Queen Lark.” Bin Dar said my name with a lilting skip, as if it sounded silly to him. “What are your opinions on the Gifted? Your mother was a Teller. Will you allow them to live and breed and infect Jeru? Or will you have the courage to root them out?”
He knew I couldn’t answer aloud. They all did. I looked from one to the next, the corpulent and the thin, the sweating and the pale, the conspiring and the weary. Bilwick and the lords from the south looked on, but their minds were on their stomachs. We’d been sequestered all afternoon. Lord Gaul and Lady Firi observed, offering nothing. My father glared, praying I wouldn’t upend chairs, and Lord Bin Dar waited, spinning a quill in his skeletal hand.
As my gaze narrowed on the pale feather twitching between his finger and thumb, I saw it shift. For a millisecond, the white quill became a long-stemmed glass, as if his desire for wine had gotten the better of him. I blinked, and the glass was a feather once more, spinning, spinning, spinning.
My eyes shot upward, his narrowed, and I had my answer. I picked up my own quill and dipped it into my inkwell, forming the letters on a blank sheet of parchment in large, bold print, so he and the rest of the council could plainly read my response.
Shall I start with you, Milord?
At sundown on the seventh day of Penthos, I dressed in black from head to toe, and I climbed the hill to the cathedral, just like I’d done on my wedding day. The bells rang in intervals of seven, tolling mournfully over the city. I don’t know how the sound had changed so much since that day, becoming dreary instead of bright, ominous instead of optimistic, but it had. Maybe it wasn’t the bells. Maybe it was me—my ears, my heart, my hope. Maybe I was different—a Changer after all.
The people did not throw flowers this time. They stood silently and watched my procession, some weeping, some stoic, dressed in their own varying shades of grey, brown, and black.