Neve couldn’t think on that for long. It ached too much.
The strange, terrible synchronicity of it all still left her reeling. The High Priestess, then the Queen, sick then gone, making way for her plans even when she thought they’d gone awry. Neve was the eye in a storm of death; it swirled around her like a train on a gown.
Guilt climbed her throat as the silver crown descended to her brow, Tealia’s fingers flitting away so as not to touch her skin. Even though the deaths were natural, they still felt like rocks around her neck, waiting for a sea. She made herself cold against them because it was all she could do, the only way to shoulder the weight.
She’d cried for Isla only once. That first night, alone in her room, clutching the darkened wood-shard pendant Kiri had given her until it cut into her already-sliced palm.
There’d been a strange moment of stillness then. An awareness, cold across her shoulders, like someone peering in at her through a fogged window. A breath of sound, but it seemed to be only in her head, like a word that wouldn’t quite form.
She’d rubbed her blood off the branch shard, wrapped her hand in a bandage. Once the pendant was clean, the odd feelings passed. Still, she hadn’t touched the thing since, and she regarded the drawer she’d shoved it in as one might look at a snake’s cage.
Now, clad in heavy silver jewelry instead of wooden, she felt the heat of hundreds of candles making her cheeks flush. Half of them white, to symbolize the purity of her purpose, and half of them red, to signify the sacrifices she would have to make to rule.
None of them knew the half of it.
Neve rose and turned to face the court. Raffe stood on the front row, arms crossed and mouth tight. He tried to smile when he caught her eye, and Neve’s cold heart lurched.
She’d stayed away from Raffe recently, both because of time and because of the bone-deep, logic-defying terror that somehow death had attached itself to her, clearing space where she needed it. It made no sense, and she knew it wasn’t true. Neve hadn’t killed anyone, by her order or her hand.
But she couldn’t risk it. Not with Raffe.
They’d have time. When this was over, she and Raffe would have all the time in the world. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about somehow endangering him, somehow marking him for death by her need.
“Neverah Keyoreth Valedren.” Tealia’s voice was high and breathy, a wash of sound in the vast hall. “Sixth Queen of her House.”
Polite applause from the assembly. The room was barely full; only the few Valleydan nobles and a handful from Floriane and northern Meducia had traveled to be part of her hasty coronation. The other countries on the continent had done their duty by attending Red’s send-off; they wouldn’t be eager to venture into Valleyda’s unpleasant chill again until prayer-taxes came due.
Arick stepped up to the dais, a thin silver circlet gracing his brow. A bandage still wrapped his palm, but it was clean, no trace of black or scarlet. With a reassuring smile, he offered his arm and walked her down the aisle. His muscles flexed beneath her palm, and his other hand came up to settle over top of hers.
Raffe watched them as they passed, and Neve kept her eyes trained straight ahead.
Things between her and Arick had shifted since his return. A strange, quick closeness born of keeping the same secrets about the Shrine, about what they did there. There was something different about him now, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Arick, while a good friend, had always possessed a tendency toward self-absorption. It wasn’t malicious, and didn’t even seem purposeful— but Arick was looking out for himself, first and foremost, and things that didn’t immediately concern him seemed to sail over his head.
Not so lately. He’d been attentive to her ever since Isla died. The morning after, he showed up at her door, bearing coffee and a platter full of pastries.
“I’m so sorry, Neverah.” Odd occurrence number one: He’d never referred to her by her full name before. Usually Neve would balk at it, but coming from him, it sounded different than it did from courtiers. Used for its gravitas, to tell her he meant what he said.
Her lips had pressed together, a bloodless line. She nodded. Then, taking a breath, she’d said the thing that had bothered her the whole night through, the sharp part of a not-quite-grief. “It might make things easier.”
The early-morning light in the window had washed out many of the details of his face, making him a sun-soaked blur with no shadow, but Neve still noticed his brow climb.
She’d swallowed. Squared her shoulders. “We do what we have to do.”