The Queen of Galland had ruled for four years, since her coronation at fifteen. She was well accustomed to her duties and the expectations that came with her throne. But it does not make them any easier, she thought, adjusting herself in her seat.
Though it had been only an hour in the council chamber, she was already sore, her back kept ramrod straight by an ornately carved chair and the tight lacing of her green velvet gown. The low ceiling of the round tower room did not help matters either, pushing down the oppressive heat of afternoon. At least today her head was bare; she did not have to suffer the weight of heavy gold or silver. Her ash-brown hair lay unbound, falling in waves over pale white shoulders. Behind her stood two knights of the Lionguard, in their ceremonial golden armor and bright green capes. How they stood the heat, she did not know.
Erida always held Crown Council in one of the high towers of the keep, the fortress heart of the New Palace, even in high summer. It was a round room, stern and gray like a grizzled old guard. The windows of the chamber were thrown wide to catch the breeze off the water. The palace was an island in the delta of the Great Lion, surrounded on all sides by river channels and canals. Gates kept the water around the palace clear, but the rest of the delta was jammed with galleys, trade cogs, merchant ships, barges, and ships of the fleet, all coming and going throughout the sprawling capital.
Her councillors listened in rapt attention, seated around their table with Erida at its head. Lord Ardath stood, leaning heavily as he read another letter aloud with a laborious wheeze. He paused every few moments to hack into a handkerchief. The old man lived perched on the cliff edge of death, and had done so for a decade. Erida didn’t bother to fear for his health anymore.
“And so, I am humbled—” He gasped and coughed again. Erida winced, feeling her own throat twinge. “To offer Your Majesty my hand in marriage, to join our lives and futures together. I pray you accept my proposal. May they sing of us from the Gates to the Garden. Yours unto death, Oscovko Trecovik, Lord of the Borders, Blood Prince of Trec . . . and so on with all the other titles that muddy troll likes to trumpet,” Ardath finished, dropping the letter onto the council table.
An apt description, Erida thought. She had met Prince Oscovko only once, and that was enough. Covered in shit after passing out in a military camp latrine ditch. If he was handsome, she could not tell under the layers of fetid grime and wine stink.
Lord Thornwall picked up the letter quickly. He was a small man, thin and shorter than Erida herself, with graying hair and a red beard as furious as the armies he commanded. Even in the council chamber, he insisted on wearing armor, as if a skirmish might break out at the table. He squinted at the untidy scrawl of the letter, then at the seal and signature.
From her seat, Erida could easily see the mark of the crowned white wolf, the sigil of the Treckish royal family. She could also see the varied misspellings and cross-outs marring the page, as well as several inky fingerprints.
“Written in the Prince’s own hand,” Erida surmised, twisting her lips.
“Indeed it is,” Thornwall said gruffly.
He slid the letter to Lady Harrsing, a veteran of many years in the royal court. She sneered at it, deepening the lines on her face. Bella Harrsing was just as old as Ardath, though far better preserved.
At least she can breathe without losing a lung.
“Don’t even bother putting his name on the list,” she said, refusing to touch the paper.
Across the table, the fortress of a man named Lord Derrick scoffed. “You champion that infant still learning his letters in Sapphire Bay but won’t consider a king’s son on our own doorstep?”
Lady Harrsing eyed him, and his flushed, round cheeks, with distaste. “I’d wager Andaliz an-Amsir knows his letters better than this pestering oaf, or you, my lord. And he is a prince too, of a nation far more useful.”
Their bickering was endless and familiar. Though it felt like putting a spike through her own skull, Erida let Harrsing and Derrick carry on like rival siblings. The longer they argue, the longer I can draw out this distasteful process of selling myself like a prize cow, she thought. And the more time I have to think.
It had been weeks since Andry Trelland had returned to Ascal alone, speaking of Spindle doom and a conqueror from nowhere. Taristan of Old Cor. The blood and blade of Spindles, with a rabid army hidden in the mountains, horrific beasts under his will.
She sat in silence, her face still and unreadable. Like a scale, she weighed the squire’s words, as she had every morning and every evening since. Did Trelland speak the truth? Is there a devil on the horizon, meant to swallow us whole?