by Grace Draven
“These ‘core’ images—they’re the events most likely to occur.”
“Usually. Though key elements can change. For example, I saw the moment Ursula killed Hugh, for months before it happened. Everything the same each time—the snow, the crimson blood staining the white—but until that exact second, it was always Rayfe who died, not Hugh.”
Shadows haunted her face, much as I imagined the guilt did.
“You didn’t plan it. You couldn’t have. It happened so fast—you couldn’t have consciously chosen for Ami’s husband to die instead of yours.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no?” She tapped a finger on her goblet. “I made sure Rayfe didn’t die, which means I altered the course of events because of what I’d seen. Another good man died as a direct result, no matter whose fault.” Her stormy gaze met mine. “I’m very careful with what I do about what I see.”
“This is your gift—your mother’s gift. It’s yours to use as she used it.”
She huffed a humorless laugh. “I am not Salena. I can’t follow the complex interweaving of possible events the way she must have. I seem to see days, maybe months. At most a year. She looked decades into the future, possibly farther.”
“She trained in it all her life. You’ve barely come into your own. Every time I see you, I can feel the magic is stronger.”
“You think so?” She eyed me, a hint showing of the skittish girl she’d been, slipping through the halls, keeping to herself. “You once compared that feeling to an insect crawling on you.”
“A beautiful and exotic one,” I corrected her, with amused chagrin at my audacity in having told her that, in my struggle to give her the best analogy. “Salena was the same way. Tell me this: is a month enough time to be ready?”
She looked through me, at something only she could see, then nodded judiciously. “It should be. Events are already in motion. Have been since Uorsin fell and the barrier moved. It’s all tied together. But the core image always includes Ursula wearing a crown. If that changes, I’ll send a message.”
I ground my teeth against the frustration. “Can you tell me anything more about this image? I already know it has to do with what Harlan said, about Dasnaria not concerning herself with us. I won’t speak of it—just so I can know and do the research.”
Andi considered me, then leaned close, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. “Secrecy then. Salena trusted you, so will I. There are four men, exotically armored. Tall, broad, and fair-haired. Ursula crowned, on her throne.”
I caught my breath and she nodded.
“I don’t know them, but they are Dasnarians, not Vervaldr. In the great hall at Ordnung.”
* * *
They left in the morning, going in opposite directions with their vastly different entourages.
Andi refused to say more than she had and no one could move her once she dug in her heels. Something all three sisters shared and I’d long since learned not to fight their stubbornness head on. At least I knew to pursue my studies of Dasnaria, in what little spare time fell to me.
I had a month to make sure Ursula had secured the throne before this challenge arrived.
After that, we might be looking to her to save us from it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I object to this coronation.”
Prince Stefan, of course, petitioned to speak the moment the date for the coronation was announced in informal court. As his words echoed through the great hall, I bitterly regretted having stayed awake all night, as the debate promised to be both difficult and endless.
However, we’d decided the missives had to be sent for priests or priestesses to perform the coronation as a top priority, given how much time it might take for the messages to reach my far-flung choices and for them to then travel to Ordnung.
Or for alternates to be selected, if my plan did not work.
In my hopes of recruiting acolytes from the old orders, ones that resonated with the magic that formed our new reality, I’d made my task exponentially more difficult. Particularly to put in writing. Not an easy question to get at, when for so many years all had scrupulously followed Uorsin’s decree that magic was a myth. I couldn’t exactly write out, “now that Her Highness Ursula has performed a blood sacrifice, creating a new contract with the land via magical resonance that we don’t fully understand but need confirmed in similar style with an official coronation, would you send one of your oldest, most venerated practitioners on a long, possibly dangerous journey to perform a rite we haven’t decided on yet?”
Ursula, with a certain carefree relish, had told me to do as I saw fit, since it was all my plan anyway. So I’d composed, rewritten, and revised the wording all night. I hadn’t paid attention to the time, partly out of habit. I’d long had the freedom and inclination to pursue projects into the wee hours, satisfying my own compulsion to see them through. Nights were quiet and let me concentrate without interruption.
I was also feeling the pressure to get this coronation right. What did I know of magic and recruiting the good will of goddesses—or of monkish hermits and wild-haired shamans? And yet there I was, working the alchemy of words to make it happen.
And thus I had not fully considered the implications of my new position, which meant that there would be no slipping away from court, informal or not, for a much-needed nap. My messengers had departed—Zynda herself carrying the one to Annfwn—but I’d failed to consider that with those missives stating the planned date, we’d have to also publicly announce the timing of the coronation, and that would be like throwing bloody meat into the kennel of starving hounds that was the restless court of Ordnung.
I mentally sighed at Stefan’s immediate resistance, but better to begin the fight now, in order to end it in time. Just as well to get Duranor handled first, as Stefan’s obstinacy and considerable armies—which remained encamped outside Ordnung’s walls, not incidentally—posed the biggest threats.
Ursula, looking regal indeed in her new court gear, sitting on the throne she’d always used as heir, regarded him with cool disdain. I might know of her private doubts, but she showed none of them to the world. Admirable control. If nothing else, having a father like Uorsin had taught her that.
“You have no grounds—or power—to object. My ascension to the High Throne is not a subject for debate. Unless Duranor wishes to take up arms against the combined might of her sister kingdoms, including the Tala of Annfwn, once our vicious enemy, now our ally?”
He wanted to, that much showed clear in the tense rebellion of his stance, the angry clench of his jaw. We also all knew his forces, while they could cause us serious hurt, would be unlikely to prevail in anything but a victory that would only decimate our fragile recovery even further. And no one wanted to meet the Tala in battle. The war to prevent Andi and Rayfe’s wedding loomed large in our memories still, refreshed by the horrors people had seen during the liberation of Ordnung. The demons, wizards, and shapeshifters might be our new allies, but it would take many years for the average citizen to feel comfortable with that.
They did trust their future High Queen, though. If nothing else, by freeing everyone in Ordnung from the grim fate they’d seen so many suffer, Ursula had gained heroic status and won deeply felt loyalty. Uorsin had berated and abandoned them. Ursula had saved them. People finally felt hope for the future. No one wanted more conflict.
The good will wouldn’t last forever—people have short memories and never read the history books as they should—but it certainly helped at the moment.
“Duranor has no need to take up arms.” Stefan pretended to cool logic, though he couldn’t quite match Ursula’s ice. They were of an age, but she’d endured far hotter fires than he. “I question your right to rule on legal grounds. Or do you plan to follow in your father’s footsteps and simply impose another version of his tyranny upon us?”
“I impose nothing. You—or rather your king, Prince Stefan—signed treaties agreeing to be subject to the laws of the Twelve Kingdoms. Laws that sup
port my coronation as High Queen.”
“Duranor signed under duress,” he ground out through clenched jaws.
“Regardless of the past—something neither of us can alter—it is a bond that you cannot dissolve legally.”
“I put that back in your lap, Your Highness. Legality is exactly what I speak to.” He was working his way around to springing whatever trap he had planned. I pretended to be involved with the scroll before me, while surreptitiously keeping an eye on both him and the assembly. Much depended on who sided with him. Ambassador Laurenne of Aerron carried great sway in the court. While she had a fondness for Ursula, she’d also been colluding with Stefan. Not out of love for Duranor, but for the promise of water in the form of an aqueduct between their lands. Andi couldn’t bring rain soon enough. It would be difficult to blame Laurenne for choosing a known probability over a vague, magical possibility.
Stefan posed, letting the murmurs of background conversation settle into silence, waiting for the attention of all before he dropped his axe blade of doubt. “Uorsin passed to Glorianna’s arms without naming an heir.” He piously drew the Circle of Glorianna in the air, his face wearing a sorrowful mask I knew to be insincere. No one mourned Uorsin, and Duranor least of all. “Therefore Duranor’s treaty, all of our treaties, which were with the High King and his nonexistent heir, died with him.”
Goddesses take him. What could he know to make such a claim?
Ambassador Laurenne stood, her ancient face serene. I held my breath, praying to all three goddesses for her to be on our side. If possible, the assembly stilled even more. If she had been respected before, for her dedicated and single-minded fight to save her realm, the fact that she’d managed to survive Illyria’s rampages made her a hero in her own right.
“You’re laboring under a misapprehension, Prince Stefan,” she said, and I let the breath out carefully, wary of hoping too soon. “I myself witnessed the ceremony during which High King Uorsin named his eldest daughter Ursula as his heir when she was but twelve years of age. I’m sure it was duly recorded.” She glanced to me at my table, so I held up the scroll I’d kept close to hand. At least I’d planned ahead that much.
“Indeed, Ambassador. I have it here, if any care to examine it. There are also copies in the libraries of the seats of all the Twelve.” Or should be. I made a note to send a copy to Annfwn, too, wishing I’d thought of it soon enough to send with Zynda. Not that anyone there would ever look at it. Still.
“Oh yes, Your Highness, we’ve seen that.” Stefan dismissed the scroll, looking far too pleased, the way he spoke Ursula’s title making even that sound dubious. “I’m talking about how High King Uorsin disinherited you. The day you returned without Prince Astar, the babe he had declared right here in open court would be his new heir, should the babe be a boy. A declaration we all witnessed.” He bowed in Laurenne’s direction with a mocking smile, then aimed it at Harlan. “Even your current paramour would have to admit to that; as he stood at the High King’s elbow.”
Ursula didn’t show any more emotion than she had thus far, but I knew her well enough to see his words had affected her. Worse, Harlan’s usual neutral mask cracked slightly. He always stood where he could keep one eye on her and one on anyone who might approach, but his focus had gone entirely to Ursula. Not because of the implied insult, I thought. He knew something that I didn’t.
“My father discussed naming Prince Astar as his heir, yes.” Ursula sounded coolly disinterested, parrying the attack without apparent effort. “We all heard him say so numerous times, beginning when Lady Zevondeth first predicted that the child Queen Amelia would bear would be a boy.”
Stefan drew himself up to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“As correct as Lady Zevondeth’s prophecy turned out to be, so too was Queen Andromeda’s: that a girl would be born.”
“I never heard any such prediction that—”
“No, because you have never been privy to the discussions of the royal family.” That stung him and I had to suppress a smile. “The Three blessed my sister with both a son and a daughter. Once the twins have been presented to the people of Avonlidgh, as is the proper order of things”—she inclined her head toward the Avonlidgh ambassador, newly arrived at court following the failure of his former king’s rebellion, who bowed graciously in return—“they will return to Ordnung to be formally acknowledged as my niece and nephew. His Majesty, the late High King Uorsin, however, passed into Glorianna’s arms”—here she truly impressed me by mimicking the sentiment without a flicker of sarcasm—“without formally declaring either babe as his heir, nor did he disinherit me. I remain Uorsin’s heir.”
“Because you murdered him!” An anonymous voice shouted from the back.
“Shut up,” another hissed, far too loudly, “or she’ll do for you, too!”
Stefan let the paranoid murmurs roll around, smiling pointedly at Ursula, until they subsided into quiet attention again. I braced for his next salvo.
“You claim the High King did not disinherit you, Your Highness.” Stefan spread his hands in apparent bewilderment. “So how did it happen that the Heir’s Circlet returned to his possession and from his, into Illyria’s?”
I fervently wished I possessed Ursula’s knack for showing no reaction.
Uorsin had taken it from her, I realized with shock as forceful as a hard fall. It had been that same day we’d returned, when she’d met with him privately after the feast. She’d suffered a blow to her cheek, with a bruised and bleeding cut on her temple where her circlet usually sat. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time, since she’d so rarely worn the circlet, to notice its absence. But she’d worn it that night. I myself had set the Heir’s Circlet on her brow, coaxing her to wear it along with Salena’s jewels. I’d never noted that the circlet hadn’t been in the chest with the other jewels when I raided it to satisfy Illyria’s demands a few days later.
Unreal that Uorsin had done that to her and no wonder she’d concealed it even from me. It had to have wounded her terribly—an injury that shadowed still behind her eyes. And Harlan had known all along. They whisper for her execution, call her right to rule into question at court, and she cannot bring herself to deny their claims, overtly or to herself.
How to salvage this? I had never been very good at telling lies, but if Ursula could not bring herself to do it, then I must. I owed it to both her and Salena. Goddesses take Uorsin for being such a rat bastard. For him I would wish the fate of being forever suspended in living death, ashes scattered to the winds.
“If I may, Your Highness?” I stood, gathering what little courage I possessed.
Ursula raised a brow at my unusual interruption, but I suspected she was grateful for it. No telling how she might have fielded this accusation, particularly as it seemed to be true. She was just honorable enough to abdicate after all, and we couldn’t have that.
“Prince Stefan. Please accept my apologies for any confusion you may have suffered on this subject. The night of the announcement that Illyria would wed His Majesty King Uorsin, she requested the crown jewels as her due. I believe any number of people who were present can confirm.” Especially as her “request” had been a horrifying demand, uttered over the beheaded body of the former chatelaine, who’d failed to provide an impromptu engagement feast to Illyria’s liking. Several ambassadors nodded, more than one paling at the memory. “At Her Highness Ursula’s command, I retrieved the jewels from her chambers and, in my haste and dismay, did not remove the circlet from the chest where it rested with the others. Please forgive me, Your Highness.” I curtsied deeply to Ursula. “It was thoughtlessly done. I should be reprimanded for so carelessly relinquishing your Heir’s Circlet to the enemy.”
She considered me for a long moment. Long enough that I thought she might call me on the lie.
“Many of us had scattered thoughts that terrible night, Lady Mailloux,” she finally said. “I think you can be forgiven. Especially as I retrieved the circlet myself
from the imposter. Or rather, from her smoldering remains.” She smiled in a grim satisfaction that turned out to be exactly the right note. People broke into cheers at the remembered triumph, the shouts ringing through the great hall. Ursula was heir, not only on paper, but by right of heroism. None could claim the same.
Stefan’s smugness bled away like smoke from a doused candle.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It wasn’t the last of the political skirmishes, but in the wake of that particular earthquake, the rest proved to be minor ones. Not that there weren’t dissenters and grumblers, but without Stefan’s vocal leadership, no one else had the courage to speak up. Stefan wasn’t happy, of course, and departed the next morning in a huff, announcing he refused to witness “that travesty of a coronation.” He also refused to renew the treaty or give a vow of loyalty, but that mattered little. Such things fell to his father, King Teodor, regardless. As an additional blessing, he took the entirety of Duranor’s armies with him—the final remnants of the looming civil war all had dreaded—declaring that Ordnung would have to defend itself without Duranor’s help.
To Stefan’s face, Ursula refrained from pointing out that such a statement was treasonous. Instead she had me transcribe a carefully worded missive to Teodor requesting his presence at the coronation, along with the tithe of troops he owed the High Throne, and incidentally mentioning that his son seemed to have mistakenly taken too many home and that she was sure he’d want to personally correct that oversight. The lethal gleam in her eye as she chose her words gave me a bit of a chill, knowing that’s how she must look with the point of her sword at someone’s throat. She refused all of my suggestions for mitigating the implicit accusation of treason.
“You’re making an enemy of Stefan,” I warned her, feeling I should.
“Not true,” she corrected me, reading over the letter with a sharp-edged smile. “He was already my enemy. I’m just letting him know that I know it. I have no wish to follow in my father’s tyrannical footsteps, but neither did Uorsin raise me to be too soft to hold the High Throne. You’re determined to put me on it. I’m determined to stay there.”