by Emily Albert
The world will be yours, child.
As people murmured among themselves, Reeve gave her the kind of half-hearted smile that made his mouth a straight line.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Shall we get started?” Lenna and Marco nodded. “Very well. You will both be bound to the kingdom today, but you will also be bound to virtue.” He placed a stone and a bright red flower in each of their hands. He said quietly to Lenna, “These represent your parents. It is the sweet air of your mother and the strength of your father. You’ve never seen a coronation, I suppose. It has never been like this in the past, but this new tradition begins with you. Parliament has decided that it is important for every ruler to have both traits.”
“So you talked to my father about me, hm?” Lenna hissed.
“No, no. This is the balance the kingdom needs. Everyone agrees. Perhaps those before you have not been up to the task, but your youth may be able to change our ways. This is why it is enforced now. Haeden needs you.”
She found Ollivan in the crowd. He didn’t look smug; if anything, he looked saddened by the vision of Lenna in front of her crown.
Reeve turned to the observers. “These young rulers will take the oath of the stone and the garden. Be strong, be gentle.” He turned back to the couple, looking mainly at Lenna. “Can you do this?”
With a burning, resentful feeling all over, she nodded, as did Marco.
“Yes, yes, wonderful. Though, we all believe they will, no?”
Even those who did not look convinced nodded.
Burning, burning.
You will make them love you.
“Now you may kneel, each of you holding the earth with both hands. Yes, yes. And repeat after me: This is my kingdom; I vow to protect it, treasure it, better it. It is also the people’s kingdom. I vow to listen to them, understand them, and help them.”
They repeated it. Reeve made a contented noise.
“I will channel the earth, and take from it the wisdom, strength, and kindness needed to perform my duties. I will let the stones steady me, give me strength. I will let the trees and flowers teach me, soften me. I will let my kingdom and my people guide me.”
They repeated it.
“Be strong, be gentle,” Reeve said.
“Be strong, be gentle,” the observers echoed.
Reeve gently lifted Marco’s crown from its pillow and placed it on his head. Against his black hair the gold looked even more striking. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and smiled at Lenna.
Reeve then lifted up Lenna’s glimmering gold crown and slipped it into her hair. She, too, felt the need to close her eyes. It made her head feel lighter, which she thought was even better than if it weighed on her. No fear, no pressure, just freedom. It brought her back to the days she had stepped onto the capital’s stage and heard her guardian. Dizzying—that’s how it felt, but in a good way. Her mind was electrified. Her body was cool and calm. It was how she was meant to feel.
She heard cheering without any real noise, felt embraced without a touch.
When she remembered to open her eyes, Reeve and Marco were watching her closely. The crowd looked frozen in suspense, like they couldn’t predict if she would jump up in glee or tear the room apart. She smiled at them so they could relax, and they did.
This was who she was born to be, and soon everyone would realize that. They would love her as she wore her crown and rose above everything.
She looked up at Reeve, who was watching her with less caution than before. “Be strong, be gentle,” he said softly.
“Be strong, be gentle,” said many voices.
That promise was not on Lenna’s mind, but her euphoria was.
All yours, all yours. You are the true leader we have always needed.
She stood, along with Marco, and he pulled her in close. Though she didn’t mean to, she said under her breath, “It’s all mine.”
Forty
Lenna wasn’t sure why, but she felt the urge to tell Coira about her new title. She didn’t know how long it would take for the news to reach her remote town, and she wanted to tell her personally. When she thought of Coira, she thought of the way she had called her “Majesty” long before she was actually Queen. And maybe somewhere deep down, something like a friendship had formed from odds and ends like their trip to the asylum. She didn’t have the power to cause any harm to Lenna; talking to her was safe.
“You thought I wouldn’t know that?” was the first thing Coira said when Lenna told her she was now Queen. “Everyone knows. That’s the kind of news we all know almost as soon as it happens.” She crinkled her nose. “How uncivilized do you think I am, not knowin’ about a royal wedding and a coronation…” She scoffed and clicked her tongue.
Lenna’s guard stood taller and stepped forward, but she gestured for him to stand down.
Lenna ran her fingers over her shiny gold crown. “I just wanted to make sure you knew.”
“That can’t be the only reason you came.”
Lenna shrugged. “No, I…”
Coira raised an eyebrow. “It is the only reason? You really care if I know or not?”
“Not… particularly… I just thought…”
“Well, I’m excited for you, but don’t get your hopes up too high for any parades in your honor. Everyone’s gettin’ impatient. They think you’ve forgotten about them. They seem to like King Marco a lot, though.” She smiled a huge, teasing smile
One man shot Lenna an evil look, and Coira saw it as well. “Think you’re gonna change her, Cor? She’s done nothin’ for us. What makes you think she’s gonna have anythin’ good to say to you? Where’s our king at?”
You will teach them to love you. You will fix them. You will change the world.
Her guardian’s words did nothing to soothe Lenna’s irritation. She lunged, ready to take him down. She had flashes of killing Grace, and even though she was nowhere near as angry as she had been then, she had reason to snap. She thought of all the ways she wanted to hurt him, then Coira caught her arm.
“Let go of me!” Lenna yelled as she twisted away. The other man was ready to fight, too, obviously not caring about the consequences of harming a royal. Her guard put his massive body in between them.
She got only a step closer before Coira tugged at her arm again, harder. Lenna could not get away, and Coira pulled her in very close. “Do you want to make it worse for yourself? You wanna show your better side, right? Do you want all your people to hate you even more than they do now? Do you want your husband to always be the one on top? Come on.”
Lenna freed herself from Coira’s grasp and backed away slowly. The man spit at her, laughed terribly to his friends, and walked away with them. Lenna held on to her crown possessively.
“Let’s go somewhere else. Somewhere no one is gonna see you, just to be safe. Okay?”
“Fine,” Lenna muttered and followed Coira, not caring where they were going. She tried to calm her blind rage. Coira was right, as much as she hated to admit it. She couldn’t show that side of herself to anyone anymore. She breathed deeply and forced herself to calm down.
The sign on the front of the decrepit building read, “The Alcove.” Even from the outside, it reeked of alcohol and sounded like a loud, drunken disaster.
“I’m not going in there… You think no one is going to recognize me in what must be the most populated building in town?”
Coira made a gesture for her to calm down. “They’re too far gone to recognize you. And if they do, no one’s gonna believe them when they talk about it. If you heard, ‘I just saw the Queen!’ while smellin’ the drunkenness on their breath and seein’ their lazy eyes, would you give them the time of day?”
Lenna couldn’t help but laugh at the outlandishness of this place. When Coira saw Lenna relax, she motioned for her to follow her inside.
The smell was even more pungent inside, and she not only heard the commotion, but was forced to see it. The floor was sticky. Several people stood on
tables, dancing to the raucous music she could barely hear over the animalistic noises of the people. Most had their faces stuck to a drink, and others were too impaired to focus on drinking anymore. Included in this group was a woman sprawled on the ground with her abandoned glass next to her.
“I’ve had some good times with the women in this place…” Coira smirked at Lenna. “That’s Ellie on the ground… She knows how to have a good time, obviously.”
Lenna did not smile back. “I don’t even want to know the kind of times you’ve had in here.”
Coira shrugged. “You could use some fun yourself.”
“I’m not staying here,” Lenna said, backing toward the door.
“It’s sort of amusing, isn’t it?” She pointed at a woman dancing messily. “I’d like to get to know that one over there, if you don’t mind.”
“Coira! Take me anywhere else.”
Coira sighed and put her hands up. “Fine, fine. You won’t stoop so low, I get it.”
She led Lenna behind the building where they sat in the grass near the back wall. She said, “This is probably safe enough. No one will come near this place if they have no intention of drinking so much they don’t remember their night.”
Lenna waved the guard away, then sniffed the still-rank air and scrunched her nose.
“Listen, your Majesty, I know you’re used to your castle with your fancy lounges and fountains and sweet-smelling gardens, but unless you want to take me there, all our options are something like this or deep in the woods.”
“Fine, we’ll stay here.”
Lenna let herself relax. She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Why are you here? With me, I mean? Why would you lower yourself?”
Lenna opened her eyes. Coira wouldn’t understand why she was safe with her. She wouldn’t understand that her guardian was quiet when she was with her, even quieter than it was with Marco. Their history was not associated with yelling, scolding, or fear. She could never tell her that because what she said was true—she wasn’t supposed to lower herself. She wasn’t supposed to be her friend. She said after a pause, “You’re useful. That’s why.”
“But you didn’t need anythin’ this time.”
“You never know when you’re going to be useful. You could have had wisdom today that I never anticipated.”
“You’re lyin’,” Coira said plainly.
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re in a good mood. You’re relaxed. You talk to me like I’m sure you don’t talk to anyone in the castle. You like me.” She wore a satisfied grin.
“I talk differently with you because no one in the castle is this annoying. They don’t need to be treated like children.”
“Lies.”
Lenna sighed.
Coira laughed softly. “The Queen likes me.”
“No.”
“You’re in a good mood. It must be me. I’m unlike anyone else, I get it.”
“I have my husband. I would much rather be with him.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
Coira blinked at her, and Lenna looked straight ahead.
“Sure, he makes you happy, but you’re not with him right now. Right now, you’re not happy ‘cause you have a man, and you’re not happy ‘cause you’re the Queen. You’re just happy, and I like it. Like, you were angry only a second ago, and now you’re not. You bounced right back. I’m glad, really.”
It was true. She loved her husband, and she loved being Queen. But being with Coira was so easy that it lacked the pressure that created her anger and fear. She thought briefly about what her father had said about running away to a simpler life. She would never do it, would never leave her newfound power, her husband, or her guardian. She would never leave the role she was born to play, but she wondered if this was a taste of what simple felt like. She felt her crown to remind herself of the thrill.
Lenna sat uncomfortably for a while, thinking of something to say that would be neither a lie nor a weakness. It was impossible to find anything, so she said, “Let me ask you a question.”
“Of course, your Majesty.”
“That’s just it. Why have you always called me that? ‘Your Majesty’ is reserved for kings and queens, and yet you used that title even when I was a princess. Why?”
“Oh, right. Well… it makes you smile. It’s nice to make a queen smile.”
It wasn’t what she had expected. The only guess she had ever had was that Coira had been mocking her, but that was nowhere near the truth. Coira looked up at the amber sky as Lenna sighed.
Coira said with a cheeky smile, “Why don’t I tell your fortune, Majesty?”
Lenna let out an exasperated noise. “You’ve got me trapped here, so you might as well.”
Coira’s smile grew. She closed her eyes and moved her hands around in Lenna’s direction. Fireflies danced nearby. “I can see… very clearly, yes… that you have the potential to be the best queen that Haeden has ever had.”
“The potential!—”
“Shh, shh, just wait. You have the potential, yes, but there are things you must do.” She opened her eyes to say, “I heard about the new tradition for coronations, with the stone and the flower.” She closed her eyes again and cleared her throat. “Potential. Potential because of your parents, one a stone, one a flower. You are both, or you could be. I’ve seen both, yes, very clearly. You have the potential.”
“It would have been more mysterious if you hadn’t told me you knew—”
Coira silenced her with a hand. “You cannot rely on fate for this. See, you have the potential—yes—but the rest is up to you.”
“So you’re just saying it’s up to me to be a good queen? Are you kidding? Isn’t that obvious?”
Coira wriggled on the hard ground. “Ah, yes, now I see. There are things you must do. First! You must catch a butterfly. Any butterfly will do. Take its blood, then mount it above your bed. Yes, this will bring you luck. Second! You must eat honey, imported all the way from Adwen. This will make you sweet! A sweet queen is a good queen. And finally, you must sleep only when the moon is full. Yes, that will charge your spirit. All of this you must do, and then you will become the best queen who has ever lived.”
Lenna rolled her eyes. “Oh, I see. You’re admitting that you have no powers now. It’s about time. That was a hard one to crack.”
“I’m serious!”
“Right, okay.”
Lenna couldn’t help but lie down, even on the lumpy ground with the smell of the tavern stuck in her nose. Her eyes felt heavy, and she tried to keep them open, but couldn’t.
Halfway into sleep, she heard Coira say, “We need you, my queen. We need you.”
Lenna stirred and her eyes opened, squinting. She saw Coira sitting with her arms wrapped around her dirty legs, staring softly at Lenna. “People are angry for a reason. We haven’t been gettin’ what we need since Queen Fay died and we started relyin’ on the regent. Even before that, Queen Fay could barely help. It’s up to you now. We need money. We need food, clean water, new homes. All these things you can give us, and that will make us love you. That’s what you want, right? Even when you’re angry, or fallin’ apart, you have to know that you need us, just a little bit. You need us, and we need you.”
Lenna knew it, even before Coira said it. This was important. Giving money to the people instead of using it for her wedding was a good step, but she wouldn’t be a respectable queen until she did more.
“I know, Coira,” she whispered as her eyes shut again. “I know that.”
○○○
When Coira shook Lenna awake, there was music, if it could be called that. It wasn’t from the tavern, but from outside.
“What is that?” Lenna asked in a raspy voice.
Coira was wide awake and her face held a childish excitement. “Let’s go see them play! Actually, not in the crowd, ‘cause, you know… But we can hide somewhere and watch.”
Lenna’s mind was foggy and her body hurt
from sleeping on the ground. “What?”
“Follow me.”
Coira led her up a ladder to the top of a building, and she could see three scruffy, dirty men in the town square.
“What are we about to watch?”
“Shh, just look. They’re funny.”
“What kind of funny?”
“Shh!”
One man clapped and called for people to gather, and they flocked around. Another man went into the broken-down shed behind them. After a second, she heard bells with a familiar, unique sound and several thumps of wood against wood.
He brought three instruments out: two things that looked vaguely like drums and a stick with bells on it. She recognized the bells—they came from horse harnesses. One drum was four pieces of old, gnarly wood with cloth stretched on top of them. The other was a small barrel with a serving tray placed on top.
All three men cleared their throats dramatically, then bowed with excessive hand gestures.
“Welcome!” One man with a long brown beard boomed. “We are delighted to have you all back to watch our three-man, three-instrument, three-voice extravaganza! The first song we will play for you today is about our new instrument—the chimes!”
The man in the middle with a bald head held the stick with bells above his head and shook it.
One voice was reminiscent of noises a cow would make, and the other sounded like gravelly yodeling. The three-voice part seemed to be a lie so far. The third man wore a scarf around his neck and mouth and did not seem to move much or speak; still, he patted the barrel drum. The drums barely made any sound, so the song was mostly bells.
Lenna couldn’t make out most of the words of the first song, but she understood the gist. It was the best instrument in the world, fit for kings. The bells were forged of pure gold and rang out like a fine woman’s voice. They came all the way from the castle, gifted to the band by the King and Queen themselves. The stick was no ordinary stick, either. It was cut from the tree of immortality that grew in the castle’s courtyard. The instrument was then blessed by the gods, who came down to earth to see the spectacular beauty.