This time, I made it out of the Minster without mishap. An open carriage waited by the steps, ready for the procession through the city, and I climbed inside in silence.
The journey back to the Fort was a somber affair. My father had tried to make it grand, he really had, with fanfare ahead of me, and guards pounding drums, and me perched in an open-topped carriage that seemed to overflow with gold. But people did not want to celebrate. Everyone in the city seemed to have come out to watch, but they did not cheer as the carriage passed. Most just stared at me, or murmured to their neighbors, wondering why this plain teenager girl was dripping with jewels in the royal carriage, instead of the gregarious king they all knew. Asking why I, of all people, could claim to rule them.
My father had forbidden me to smile, or to wave. I needed a show of power now, he said, and openness was weakness. It wasn’t hard to look serious, with so many people glaring at me. But I knew they weren’t impressed. The queen was supposed to be more, somehow—more than a person, more than human, demanding the attention of everyone around her. I just looked like I’d stumbled into the carriage by accident.
Which I guess was true.
I looked forward, focusing on the horses pulling my carriage along. The music drowned out any sound from the crowd.
If I wanted to survive, I needed to think small. Focus on my council, and the nobles at court. They would deal with the wider world. That was how it had always been, the responsibility cascading down, the ruler only ever needing to look at the next tier. So I would have to impress the court, and everything else would fall into place from there.
Because if I thought not just about the surviving nobles, but about everyone in the kingdom, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, each with their own wants, their own opinions, each ready to be disappointed by me, each wishing their ruler was anyone other than me . . . stars flared in my vision, and I shoved the thought away.
Even the famously irreverent court couldn’t possibly stomach festivities when hundreds of people lay dead, but a halfhearted feast had been laid out in the old throne room at the Fort. There were no pies filled with doves, no elaborate desserts, no decorations on the walls. Someone had set out long tables, as though they needed seats for hundreds of courtiers. The spaces seemed to mock us all. There were more empty chairs than there were living guests, and the survivors were scattered in small groups around the hall.
I sat at the high table, positioned above them all. Normally, the monarch’s family and favored guests would join the table, but so few people remained that my father insisted I sit alone. Twenty people could have been seated here, but instead the space stretched out on either side of me, a queen with no allies at all.
Naomi was seated halfway down another table, similarly alone. Her black hair was piled into another elaborate style, but it was drooping to one side. She didn’t seem to have noticed. I needed to talk to her. I needed to find out how she was, what had happened to her, but I didn’t dare move. I had a few more hours to endure.
There was food, at least, pheasant and raspberries and wild boar, but how could anyone eat it with the memory of the last feast so fresh? Servants brought out dish after dish for my approval, but I selected them at random, and barely ate a bite.
The room was almost silent. I could hear every groan of a chair, every splash of wine in a cup, every brave scrape of a knife against a plate. Everyone was trapped here until the end of this charade.
Nothing was going to happen, I told myself, as I forced myself to chew a piece of boar. But beneath my stage fright, beneath the awareness of everyone’s eyes on me, genuine fear lingered. I was a target. We had no idea what had happened at the last banquet, so it could easily happen again. Someone could try and complete the job, catch the heir they had missed.
And I was making it easy for them. Sitting here, eating this food, acting like I thought I was invincible, when I knew I wasn’t. They could hurt me as easily as they’d hurt everyone else, and I was just sitting here. Making it easy for them.
I stood. My chair scraped against the floor. Everyone stared at me. But I couldn’t bear it, not for another moment. I had forgotten how to breathe.
This wasn’t a real coronation. King Jorgen would never have been isolated like this. He would have had music, dancing, wine, a table so crammed with people that everyone’s elbows bashed together.
But I couldn’t be like that. Everyone had died, and I was supposed to rule, but I didn’t know how, and no one would be convinced by this, no one.
The room blurred at the edges. I needed to breathe.
I swept out of the room, forcing myself not to run. My guards marched behind me. I needed air. I just—I needed some air.
The corridor beyond was quieter, at least, the cold air refreshing. I fell back against the wall. I closed my eyes, shutting everything out, and focused on my breath. Breathe in, breathe out. I could do this. I could.
“What do you want?”
I opened my eyes. William Fitzroy stood farther down the corridor. His eyes were slightly red.
“I didn’t know you were here.” What else could I say? My voice was too breathy, but at least I managed to speak.
“Quitting already?” He laughed, and the sound rattled through me. Fitzroy usually sounded so light, mocking at his worst. Now he sounded cruel. “They never should have had you crowned. You don’t belong here.”
I looked at him, his messy hair, his bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t have the strength to build any lies. “You’re right. I don’t.” Any fool could see that. “But I’m here anyway.”
He blinked, and his eyes widened. Had he just realized what he’d said? He opened his mouth to speak again, and then stopped. What, I wanted to say. Tell me. All the silence, all the pretense of the day had eaten into me. Everything was fake, grief and weakness buried deep, but not him, not then. I wanted his words, his honesty, whatever cruelty ripped out of him. But he just shook his head and stepped back. “Excuse me.”
He walked away. My hands shook.
“Your Majesty?” My guard stepped closer. “Are you all right?”
No. No, I wasn’t all right. I wanted to scream at them to go away, that I needed to be alone, to breathe, to think, but that wasn’t fair. This wasn’t the guards’ fault.
Fitzroy was right. I didn’t belong here. But if I showed weakness, if I ran and hid, my head would be on the chopping block before I could blink. If someone took the throne from me, even if I stepped aside . . . I was queen now, for as long as I breathed. And I did not want to die.
“Yes,” I said to the guards. My voice shook, but I said it, at least. “I should go back inside.”
I stumbled back into the hall.
FIVE