A Crown of Lilies

by Melissa Ragland

  NO, the beast roared in my chest, somersaulting and clawing at my insides. She looked at me uncomprehending, then at the proffered hilt. One delicate hand took it from me, examining it before meeting my gaze once more. Tightening the leash, I nodded to her in reassurance. I could live with my darkness if it would free her from hers. Alesia needed its queen far more than it needed me.

  Golden eyes fell on Solomon and she lifted the dagger to prick his throat, blood beading on the steel as she pressed hard. I watched the fury roll over her in waves. He had taken everything from her, just as he had from me, binding us in a brutal intimacy that transcended breath and silence.

  Lifting his chin away from the edge, he sneered at her. “Go on. Al’Rahim will welcome me with open arms.”

  For a moment, I thought she might, her terrible fury mingling with madness and grief in a haunting echo of her father, but she trembled, faltering. My gentle queen, with steel in her still, could not take a life. She was the blood of Adulil. Vengeance or no, she was good and kind and pure in a way I could never be again. Her hand fell and her eyes met mine, a mix of shame and anguish as she hated herself for her own weakness. Both gave way to an acute decisiveness as she offered my father’s knife back to me.

  Their faces swam in my memory, flashes of joy and love and tenderness. Finish it, a chorus of beloved voices echoed in my mind. The beast was still, silent, waiting.

  My hand closed on the hilt as I yanked him to his feet, turning him to face me. Grasping the collar of his robes, I held his gaze as I thrust the blade home without hesitation. Dark eyes widened in surprise. He doubled over, head lolling forward onto my shoulder. Still grasping the handle, I twisted and yanked it free. Solomon slumped, falling hard to the marble floor at my feet.

  Selice stared down at him with grim satisfaction as his blood pooled around my boots. A hollow chasm gaped beneath my skin where the darkness had long writhed. The beast abandoned me to my wounds and my weariness, my bitter drive for vengeance finally sated. In its place, a slow wave of quiet, consuming relief cascaded through every fiber of my being. No one spoke for a long time, as the Queen and I soaked in the dark tide of our retribution. Dawn filtered through the glass windows high above our heads.

  “Come with me.” Her hoarse voice cut the air. I looked up to find her watching me, a deep resolve reflected in every inch of her countenance. Stiff and exhausted, I limped after her out of the throne room and down the hallway, vaguely aware of Quintin’s steps following at a discreet distance. She led me out into the royal gardens and through the beds of summer flowers to a quiet alcove. A proud oak stood tall, a narrow wooden marker driven into the earth before it. I knew without asking, without reading the placard. I could feel them there, in that place.

  Dropping to my knees, I wept, staking the bloody knife in the soil where they lay.

  “It’s done,” I whispered, sitting back on my heels and looking up at the tree that stewarded them. “It’s finished.”

  Chapter 29

  Keep it clean and stay off it as much as possible.” Lord Ignatus washed the blood from his hands in a nearby basin. “Fresh bandages morning and night the first week, then once a day after that.” He dried his hands on a towel and fixed me with his stern gaze, ticking his demands off one by one on his fingers. “No riding. No practice. No bathing. No foolishness of any kind until the stitches come out. Understood?”

  I couldn’t help but find his dour countenance charming. It reminded me a bit of Greta. “As you say,” I agreed.

  He turned to Will, shirtless and freshly stitched and bandaged, sitting in a chair nearby. “Same goes for you.”

  “Sir,” he mumbled his acquiescence.

  Satisfied, he left us with a promise to return and check our progress in a few days. Outside the window, the afternoon sun hovered high in the sky. Shortly after the Royal Physician’s departure, a quiet knock sounded at the door. Quintin opened it wide with a crisp bow as our queen entered. Will jumped to his feet to make his obeisance and I struggled to swing my legs off the bed to do the same.

  “No, please,” she protested quickly, and I sank back with a grateful nod. Every muscle in my body ached with exhaustion, the wound on my leg far deeper than I had originally thought. Selice addressed to my two companions, hands folded neatly before her. “Would you give us the room, gentlemen?”

  Between her formal demeanor and the gentle tone of her voice, she radiated a quiet strength that awed me. After everything she had seen, everything she had lost, how could she still stand so tall? I asked her, once they’d left us and she’d settled onto the bed beside me.

  She smiled tiredly. “It is what is required.”

  I tilted my head at her. “You must sleep.”

  “In time. There is still much to do.” The sorrow behind her eyes made my heart ache as a cruel silence stretched between us. There are no right words to offer in the face of such soul-consuming grief.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  “I used to visit him, you know,” she said quietly. “To hold him and tell him he was loved.” She chewed her cheek, eyes glistening as they avoided mine. “I would have taught him to be brave and kind and honest.” Her lip trembled as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I would have shown him the tree where his parents lay, and told him how much they had loved him.” Grief consumed her, throat tight and hands gripping the sheets. “He would have been a good boy. A good king.”

  I reached for her, pulling her down onto my chest.

  “How could they take him from me?” she cried angrily. The queen was gone. Only the frightened girl remained. “He was my brother. They took him, Elivya. They stole him from me.” No words could salve the depth of her despair. She clung to me and sobbed as I held her. That small boy was the last family she had left. Her life, which had always been a chasm of loneliness, was now even more so. I offered her the only comfort I could, stroking her golden curls as her grief ran its course.

  When at last she quieted, I thought she might pull away from me, but she didn’t.

  “How do you live with them?” her hoarse voice asked, a whisper against my skin. “Their ghosts, the guilt, I feel as though they will drown me.”

  I considered it and recalled the dark pit into which I’d thrown myself after that first terrible night. So many others had followed it.

  “I couldn’t, at first,” I told her honestly. “Tommy is the only reason I didn’t drown myself in the river after my parents died.” Golden eyes looked up at me in surprise. I met them with a self-deprecating smile. “It’s true. After that, it was Quintin who pulled me back out of the darkness. And then there was Amita and Izikiel and Will and countless others. Even you.” I exhaled and fell silent, annoyed at my own meandering voice. My words felt self-absorbed and trivial in the face of her loss.

  “And now?” she pressed, a hint of hope in her voice.

  I smiled sadly, her beautiful face mere inches from my own. I thought of James, and his last words to me. “And now it’s finished and there is still a gaping hole where those I lost once lived, but I am still here. I am still alive, and I get to spend the rest of my days filling that emptiness with the ones who remain.”

  With effort, she pulled away from me and sat up, exhausted with grief and lack of sleep. I reached out and took her hand in mine.

  “You are not alone in the dark, Selice,” I reassured gently. Golden eyes turned to me, filled with deep yearning. “You have many who love you, who will pull you from that place if you let them.”

  It was enough. Smiling somberly, she nodded, wiping her eyes and sniffling away the remnants of her sorrow. Squeezing my hand one last time, she stood and smoothed her gown. I watched the grieving girl fade as the queen returned.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, glancing at me over her shoulder.

  “Get some sleep,” I insisted. Flashing me a wry grin, she left. Quintin slipped back into the room and closed the door. “Will?” I inquired.

  “Resting. Two doors down.” He
crossed to sit where Selice had been mere moments ago. “Will she be alright?” he asked quietly, tilting his head toward the door.

  I could still smell her, still feel her tears on my skin. “She’s strong, far stronger than I was. Her people need her to be alright, so she will be. That’s who she is.”

  “And she has you,” he added.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good thing, all things considered.” His brow creased and I braced myself for the hardest conversation of my life. I’d had well over a year to think about what would happen, should I survive long enough to see our queen restored. My mother’s training ensured that my mind was never still.

  “Now that the war is over,” I began carefully, “people will begin to take stock of all that has happened. The Court will maneuver. Fingers will point. I need to make sure none of them point at her.” Pale blue eyes narrowed as he realized what I was saying.

  Though distant, several other lesser bloodlines of the House of Adulil maintained quiet residence in the city. Any one of them could make a play for the throne, should Selice be deemed unfit or the circumstances surrounding her father’s death suggest complicity on her part. The guilt on that offense must fall incontrovertibly upon my shoulders.

  I forged onward determinedly, holding his gaze. “Everyone in Alesia knows me for a traitor. Most of them already know I killed her father.”

  “You didn’t-” he began, but I overrode his protests.

  “I was party to his assassination. That is more than enough.” I settled my hand in his. I would have to face the consequences of my actions sooner or later. Selice may have stood behind me back in Laezon, in full view of our allies, but it wasn’t an official pardon. For her to grant me one now, considering I was a known conspirator in her father’s death, would put her already precarious rule at risk. I watched the gears work behind his eyes, searching for a solution that I was very sure did not exist. He landed on one that I had considered and reconsidered many times over.

  “Formal audiences will be months from now. We could be long gone by then,” he suggested.

  He was Tuvrian, beneath it all. Honor and duty were the blood and breath in his body. Pride, for better or worse, was the lifeblood of mine.

  “There is no honor in running from it,” I scolded gently.

  He stiffened beneath my touch. “I won’t see you hanged.”

  “I don’t think she would, after everything. Imprisonment is more likely unless the Court calls for my head. She must do something, or risk setting a dangerous precedent.” Quintin didn’t reply, face averted unhappily. I squeezed his hand and appealed to the core of his nature. “You would not love me if I ran.”

  He turned to me, then, all stubbornness and loyalty. “I would.” He reached out to caress my cheek, a small smile curving the corner of his mouth. “Even when I despised you, I loved you.”

  I trapped his hand against my face with my own, turning to press my lips to his palm. Without words, he knew. I would face our queen’s judgment. His boots thudded on the floor as he tugged them off and tossed them aside. I shifted to make room for him and he settled down beside me, pulling me into his arms. We lay there a long while in silence, his thumb rubbing my shoulder absentmindedly as I listened to the sound of his breathing.

  “Lazerins do not run,” he murmured into my hair, echoing my own prideful words back at me. I smiled at the memory.

  “No,” I replied, eyes closed. “No, we do not.”

  It took two months to put Litheria back into some semblance of order. The sheer number of bodies proved to be an overwhelming challenge. Mass graves were dug in the fields outside the city, and any unclaimed by the end of the second day were buried there. A sprawling hospital was erected outside the walls, and every soldier, enemy or ally, was treated by a veritable army of physicians. Lord Ignatus has been very well-prepared when they left Caelin.

  To my great sorrow, I learned that Lord Augustus had taken his own life shortly after the death of his son. Quintin held me as I wept, curled on the bed in our shared room. Their bodies had been returned to Cambria for burial, laid to rest beneath the Great Oak of House Chamberlain.

  Selice visited every few days, and we talked candidly as friends more often than not. She made it clear early on that we were expected to stay in Litheria until she no longer had need of us. When I laid plain my intentions to help secure her on the throne, my queen was nearly as wroth as Quintin, and I withstood a significant dressing-down from my monarch before she stormed from the room. She knew my mind, though, and after ruminating on it for a few days, I could tell by the shift in her disposition that she understood the bitter necessity in it. Nevertheless, she avoided the topic with determination.

  For the most part, I tried to stay out of the way and let those better-qualified guide our queen in the restoration of the city. Reyus was a seasoned leader, both on the field and at Court, and proved himself an invaluable advisor. Lord Nicholas supplemented the decimated city guard with his own men, restoring order to the streets and clearing away debris. To his chagrin, General Brenna and her Freyjans took over the castle’s defense with the aid of Colin and his Queen’s Guard.

  Lord Ewan and his men took charge of what Persican soldiers had surrendered or been captured. In a long, miserable column, they marched off eastward to escort the remains of our enemy to the eastern border of Alesia. I was glad when they were gone.

  Solomon’s body was strung from the city walls, Selice’s one concession to the darkness inside her. She would not bury him in our soil, nor would she burn him and send him to his god. Let the crows have him, she said. Let him rot.

  Missives were sent to every noble house in every province, demanding their immediate presence in the white city. One does not ignore a summons from their queen. They came in droves, filling the palace and fine manors that remained standing. With so many eyes around, Selice’s visits ceased, which saddened me. I missed her company. For our part, Will, Quintin, and I had been given a small suite of rooms with a private bath. Once my stitches had been tediously removed, I reveled in the luxury of the spacious copper tub and soft linens.

  My Tuvrian joined me on a few occasions, amused by my obsession with rose oil and goats’ milk soap. After long months of bathing in a river, I wasn’t about to apologize for enjoying myself. I thought he might shave the short, red-gold beard he’d grown on our long road through the eastern provinces, but he opted to keep it, for which I found myself glad. I’d grown accustomed to seeing him thus, and he looked rather rugged and handsome with it neatly trimmed.

  We resumed our training as soon as possible, Will joining us more often than not, largely for lack of anything better to do. We healed and sparred and waited. Tommy visited once shortly after the battle to bring us our packs and make sure I’d not died of my wounds or neglect. He didn’t stay long but promised to return for the formal audiences to come.

  I dug through what few possessions remained to me, those I had left with our pack horse in Daria. The emerald cotton gown, I shook out and hung to flatten. The stained and well-patched breeches and tunics, I left heaped in the satchel. Selice had seen us well-outfitted for our stay. The remaining folds of white silk gauze, I considered at length before I tore it into three long strips. Two, I tucked back into my bag. The other, I took with me to the gardens and tied around my family’s oak. Sitting on the grass before it, hugging my knees, I talked to them.

  I went back every few days over the months of our stay. One morning, I found Quintin there, kneeling before the placard, head bowed with his swords staked in the ground in front of him. I could hear him talking, but was too far to make out the words. It was a private moment, meant not even for me, so I left him to wander the gardens and wait. He found me a while later as I meandered barefoot through a large patch of aster, the rattle of his baldric announcing his arrival. I didn’t ask, just flashed him a sad smile to let him know I understood. A third set of footsteps approached, and a servant in crisp attire bowed politely to us.

/>   “Lady Lazerin, Her Majesty wishes to invite you and your armsmen to her coronation feast this evening.”

  “It would be an honor,” I replied automatically.

  “Attire will be provided to you, of course.” I’d not even thought of it, having spent the last two years in breeches not giving a damn about my appearance. I was wholly out of practice for this arena. “Her Majesty looks forward to seeing you this evening,” he added before bowing and leaving us.

  I caught my Tuvrian’s bitter smirk before he hid it. I knew that face. I’d seen it on James when we’d first come to Litheria, and many times afterward. To see it on Quintin now terrified me. I wanted to ask, to press the matter before it had time to fester, but with the impending audience that would decide my fate, I did not trust that I possessed the strength to fight a second battle.

  The coronation was a stiffly formal affair, with High Priestess Valia once again administering the oaths. This time, it was a golden crown she placed atop Selice’s head and the thunderous applause lacked the unbridled ardor of the common people. I stood in my green satin gown, flanked by Will and Quintin, and clapped as enthusiastically as decorum would allow. We sank into our deepest bows and curtsies as she was proclaimed, Valia’s voice echoing in the marble hall.

  Innumerable oaths of allegiance stretched nearly two hours after the coronation. Dozens of faces, friendly and otherwise, approached the throne to dedicate themselves to our newly-crowned queen. I couldn’t help but tense to see the Van Dryn House in all its sultry beauty make their collective way to the dais. Adrian and his wife stood at the fore and I thought Selice might confront them then and there, but to my relief, she didn’t. Theirs was not the only family who would be required to answer to the Crown, but that would come later.

  I stood alone for my House, curtsying as gracefully as I could before my queen and the watchful eyes of the Court. With solemn fervor, I recited the oath as countless others had done before me. She waited patiently and accepted it when I was done, both of us knowing my loyalty had been sworn to her long ago.