“Has anyone”—I couldn’t bring myself to say his name—“been staying there?”
She tilted her head, studying me. “No. No one has used those chambers since the One-Night War. We can unlock the doors if you want the entire suite to yourself. I know this isn’t what we had in Skyvale Palace.”
It wasn’t. And in spite of attempts to update, the royal chambers in Sandcliff Castle were simple by comparison: a parlor, a washroom, and a bedroom. The castle was old, built during a different time.
“Leave it locked. I don’t want anyone in there. It already feels wrong enough taking my mother’s chambers. But I might go in there sometime. To look.”
Melanie smiled warmly. “I hope you do.”
I spent the next day moving through Paige’s lists, but by dinnertime I’d made barely a dent.
“Everything will still be there tomorrow,” Melanie said as we headed up the spiral staircase to Radiants’ Walk, the castle’s main overlook. “If you try to do all of it at once, you’ll just end up neglecting everything.”
“And I’ll make myself sick and be useless. I know. You told me.” I cast her a quick smile as we passed through the arched door and emerged onto the wide, flat expanse of the overlook. “This looks just as I remember.”
My parents had brought me here often. At night, my father and I looked at the stars, pointing out the bright one in the north that never strayed from its position, following with the others that wheeled through the sky. I’d learned all the constellations, though I couldn’t recall half of them now. I’d kept the memories buried for so long.
Cold wind tugged at my clothes as I lifted my face to the sky, breathing in the sharp salt air and bite of winter. Birds called overhead, seagulls and ospreys and eagles, and waves crashed against the cliffs far below. When I was young, standing up here made me feel like I was walking on the sky.
“This way.” Melanie motioned to the southern edge of the overlook where people—including Prince Colin and James—had gathered to watch the transport bearing former Indigo Kingdom prisoners move out. While I’d offered to let them stay another night, they were eager to leave.
Wagons and horses clattered, the sounds faint from up here.
“They don’t know how lucky they are,” muttered one of Prince Colin’s guards.
“Oh, I think they know.” Melanie’s tone was dark. “They saw enough.”
Not all the former prisoners of war were leaving. Some decided to stay and serve Prince Colin, protect him from this country of wild, rebellious people. But at least a hundred rode down Castle Street now.
James stood at my side. “Your first acts as queen are to stop the fighting and free prisoners. That’s a good start.”
Prince Colin glanced over, his eyes narrowed. “Remember that you’re not truly the queen until you’ve been crowned.”
“With you here to remind me constantly, Prince Colin, there’s no chance I will ever forget.”
He hmphed and moved away. Melanie, James, and a few others who’d been within earshot smirked.
“Tell me about your city,” James said, probably to distract me.
But I went along with it. “It’s smaller than Skyvale. It’s limited to the solid foundation of cliffs that radiants built almost a thousand years ago.”
“There’s no room for growth?” he asked.
“That way.” I pointed east, where the land sloped downhill into flat earth prone to floods. Several of the poorest neighborhoods stood on marshes, invisible in this darkness. “Nowhere you’d want to live.”
We stared into the gloaming, silent for a moment.
“Factories and warehouses make a line between the poor and the slightly less poor. Most people work there. Or used to, at least.” I motioned westward. “The neighborhoods grow gentler as you go uphill, until Castle Street. Everything there is very fine, but very expensive.”
“Not too expensive for the queen, surely.”
I snorted. James knew better than that. “Everything west of Castle Street is rich merchants and nobility. High nobles’ mansions stand on the cliff.” They were once-majestic buildings with glass windows and turrets and intricate ornamentation along the eaves. Now, they looked dark and dirty, neglected without their families. “Obviously, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the city. Things have changed.”
“I’ll make sure you have time for a tour.”
“Thanks.” The wagons reached the city gates as light faded. Crowds were filling the streets, pushing in the wagons’ wake. Some hefted torches into the air. Others had clubs or pipes—blunt weapons. “Look there.” I pointed at the street.
Melanie leaned over the guardrail. “They’re wearing red. The Militia. It’s happening again, just like Patrick said.”
“They’re all beasts,” said one of Prince Colin’s guards.
Screams from below drowned anything else the guards might have said. Suddenly I couldn’t see individuals, just masses of movement and shadows and pockets of red. People shoved and raised weapons.