Long May She Reign(14)

This couldn’t be everyone who had survived. It couldn’t be. The others must have simply stayed away, unwilling to see me crowned queen. That was all.

Don’t lie to yourself, I thought, anger rising out of nowhere. No one else was left.

The priest quietly cleared his throat. It was nearly over. All I had to do was leave, and lead the court out of the Minster. Just one more thing. I stood, and the priest lifted my cloak so it did not snag on the throne before spreading it out behind me.

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.