I wasn’t allowed to touch the cloak. My father had told me over and over last night, and this morning as well. I couldn’t touch the cloak. I couldn’t lift the cloak. But I definitely, definitely should not stand on the cloak.
But I had no idea how I was actually supposed to do that. Even at five foot ten, I was too small for this thing. It must have weighed more than I did, and the train that spread out in all directions. I took a small step forward and teetered on my jeweled heels.
Another step, and another, and I had reached the edge of the dais. Five stairs between me and the courtiers, and then a straight walk to the door. Easy. I stretched my right foot out, feeling for the steady reassurance of the step below. Once I found it, I shifted my weight and brought my left foot to meet it. Four steps to go. Three steps.
My heel caught on the hem. The cloak yanked down, jerking me backward. I wobbled, fighting for balance, but the crown was too heavy, throwing me off, and I stumbled, falling to the left. I spiraled my arms, fighting to stay upright. My knee slammed onto the step.
The crown tumbled. It landed on the step with a clang that shook my teeth. Priceless jewels scraped against the floor.
I couldn’t react. I watched as it rolled, bouncing down one step, then the next, each time landing with a sound like a gong. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The entire room stared at the crown.
It stopped just below the bottom stair. Undamaged, I thought, but still on the floor, not on my head, and I didn’t know what to do. My face felt like it was on fire, and my cloak was still tangled around my shoe. Should I retrieve the crown myself? It might be bad luck for me to touch it, like it was bad luck for me to touch the cloak. Would it be unqueenly to hurry after my own jewels? Even more unqueenly than falling and tossing them to the floor to begin with?
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was a queen. Officially now. I could deal with this. It was the first test, and I would handle it. I had to handle it.
I reached down and untucked the cloak from the jeweled heel of my shoe. I spread it carefully out behind me, away from anywhere I might step. And then I stood.
At least nobody was laughing. Everyone was staring, but no one made a sound.
The priest hurried forward and picked up the crown. “Rulership does not sit comfortably on any worthy head,” he said, in the same ringing, serious voice he had spoken in before, as though this were all part of the ceremony. “Our sovereigns may be guided by the Forgotten, may they one day return, but their power should be a weight, a burden, and not something they grasp with both hands. But Queen Freya, we beg of you to take on this duty.” And he placed the crown on my head again.
I could have hugged him.
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 w
orst. 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
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, I STOOD OUTSIDE NAOMI’S door, trying to work up the courage to knock. One of the guards had shown me the way to this fourth-floor corridor that housed some of the surviving nobility. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in the hundreds of years since the court had lived here. It stank of mildew, and the few lamps were sparse, making it feel more like a dungeon than a home.
I needed to see Naomi, to speak to her, but now that I was here, I had no idea what I could possibly say. Her potential grief terrified me. I hated myself for the thought, but the fear screamed inside me, that I did not know what to say, that I would say the wrong thing. That I’d make things worse somehow. I wanted to be able to stride in there and see her and make all of her sadness vanish. I wanted to give her a plan, at least, a way things could be improved. But if her brother was dead, if he was dead, I couldn’t change that, and that helplessness froze me in place. What good was a friend who couldn’t help?
But I couldn’t let myself avoid her. What sort of friend would I be, if I abandoned her because I didn’t know what to say? I wouldn’t let her think she was alone.
I rapped three times on the door.
A long minute passed before it opened, and Naomi peeked through the gap.
She looked like a fraction of herself. She’d released the complicated hairstyle from the coronation banquet, leaving half-braided ropes hanging over her shoulders. Dark circles like bruises ringed her eyes.
She stared at me for a moment, and then threw herself forward, her arms flying around me. “Freya!” We collided, and she burrowed into me, her head pressing into the space under my chin. She murmured something into my shoulder, and I couldn’t understand the words, so I squeezed back, pulling her closer still.
She was crying, I realized. “I’m sorry,” I said, the words rushing out of me. “I’m sorry I abandoned you outside the Fort, I’m sorry I haven’t seen you before this. I wanted to, I kept asking, but everything was so chaotic, and my father—”
She shook her head. “I know you couldn’t see me. I just—I missed you. It’s been . . . I missed you.” She squeezed me again, and then shifted back. “Do you want to come in?”
“Yes,” I said. “I mean, if that’s all right. I wanted to—we should talk.” I glanced over my shoulder at my guard, who hovered a few feet away. “Do you mind waiting out here?”
“If that’s what Your Majesty wishes.”
I nodded, and Naomi pulled the door closed behind us.
Her room was barely salvaged from decay. Storage crates were still piled against the right wall, and Naomi’s clothes hung over boxes. Her bed was hidden under a pile of blankets, and the few lamps were still dusty, the light distorted by grime.
“Naomi, this is awful. Why did they put you here?”
“They haven’t had a chance to clean all the rooms yet. And I haven’t—I didn’t ask anyone. At least I have somewhere to stay.”
“You can’t stay here. Move up to the top floor, with me.”
Naomi shook her head. “I can’t. Those rooms are for you.”
“And I can do whatever I like with them, can’t I? I want you to stay. Please.”
I should have come sooner. Why had I left it so long? I should have fought harder. “Jacob,” I said, my voice raspy. “Did he—”
I already knew the answer, even if I couldn’t admit it, but when Naomi shook her head, I still felt like someone had punched me in the chest, knocking all the air from my lungs. “He didn’t make it.”
I hadn’t known Naomi’s brother well, but I had known him. He’d always winked at me, every time he saw me, and from him, it always felt like affection, never a joke at my expense. He called me Frey, too, “Hey, little Frey,” with that wink, whenever I went to find Naomi and he was nearby. For him to be gone . . .
“I’m sorry.” Such useless, meaningless words. I wanted to wash her grief out of her, to swallow it up so she wouldn’t have to feel it. I wanted to drag her brother back from death, so she’d feel whole again. I wanted to do something.
“Thank you.” Naomi glanced over at the arrow-slit window. “I still can’t believe it. How can they all be gone? It feels like this is just—I don’t know.” Her voice shook, and she swallowed, squeezing her eyes closed. “I’m just glad to see you.” She opened her eyes again, her voice turning determined. “How are you? How are you coping?”
“With what? Being queen?”
She nodded.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes,” she said fiercely. “It does. Sit down, and tell me.”
I perched on the edge of the bed, and Naomi sank down beside me. “I’m all right. I mean, I’m not all right, not really. I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’ll learn.”
“You’ll do it. I know you will.” Naomi pulled her bare feet onto the bed and rested her chin on her knees. “And you don’t have to be all right, you know. If you’re not.”
The familiar words made me smile, just slightly. “I’m still alive. I still have you. That’s more than most people can say now.” Naomi wrapped an arm around me again, pulling me closer. A knot in my chest loosened as her head fell onto my shoulder, honesty swelling inside me. “I’m scared,” I said quietly.
“Because you have to be queen?”
“No. Well, yes, but—I only survived by accident, Naomi. I wasn’t meant to be here.” The words felt too dangerous to speak aloud, as though speaking them made them true. “What if the murderer decides to finish the job?”
“Then I’ll kill them first,” Naomi said fiercely. “Nobody hurts my Freya.”
“You are terrifying when you’re angry.”
Naomi nodded decisively.
“I can’t trust anybody,” I said. “Not until I know. I’m supposed to have a council meeting tomorrow, and I just keep thinking—what if one of them was responsible? How can I possibly protect myself from that? But I don’t know how to be queen, and if I don’t trust them—”
“You have me,” Naomi said. “I’ll help you.”
I nodded. I knew that. Just her presence gave me strength, reminded me of all the things I could be. I sat up straighter. “I have to find out who the murderer was,” I said. “I have to solve this myself. It’s the only way I can keep myself safe.”
“Do you think you can?”
“I have to.” I’d figure out who was threatening me, I’d learn how to be queen. It was a vague, almost laughable plan, but it was a plan nonetheless, and that was what I needed. A goal to frame things with, a way to approach all of this confusion.
> “I’m sorry,” Naomi said quietly. “I know you wanted to leave.”
I’d never do my research on the continent now, I realized. I’d be tied to this court for as long as I remained alive. The knowledge was a crushing weight, lurking in the back of my mind, demanding to be mourned. But I couldn’t admit it, not when Naomi had actually lost a brother, not when everyone had lost so much. “I’ll figure things out here,” I said. “I could never have left you, anyway.”
Naomi’s shoulders shook. I turned to look at her to see tears rolling down her cheeks, her lips pressed tightly together.
“I’m sorry!” I said quickly. Why did I always say the wrong thing?
“No, no,” she said, through her tears. “It’s just—it’s stupid, Freya.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“I thought—I thought we wouldn’t be friends anymore. Now that you’re queen. And I thought—well, I’ve lost my brother and my best friend, all at once. I didn’t—I’m just so glad you’re here, Freya.”
I hugged her again. She pressed her face into my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere. Come on, Naomi. Come and stay with me in my rooms. I don’t want to leave you here.”
“I don’t know if it’s allowed.”
“I make the rules now, don’t I? And that’ll be my first decree.”
“It’s not much of a decree.”
“Well, everyone has to start somewhere.” She laughed softly, and I smiled. “Please, Naomi. I can’t do this without you.”
“I guess that’s good, then,” she said. “Because I can’t do this without you.”
SIX
“PERHAPS WE SHOULD BEGIN. IF IT PLEASE YOUR Majesty.”
Rasmus Holt was a rather stern-looking man in his sixties, with a white beard that grew into a point, and a sharp nose to match. He had been in King Jorgen’s council for the past twenty years, or so my father told me, and was now the leader of my own council.
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