swatted at me as we left my room. “Hush, you. You mustn’t make jokes about the other singleborn where someone might hear you.”
“It’s Father’s joke,” I protested.
“I know.” Mother stretched up onto the tips of her toes and kissed me on the cheek. “But those foxes hold your fate in their jaws.”
* * *
Outside the great room, I stared at the enormous, ancient doors. Doors I’d seen so often during our many visits to court, but never truly looked at. I wondered what had crossed the minds of each of the other singleborn chosen to wear the crown, who’d all waited outside this very door on the night of their sixteenth birthdays. It was a sobering thought, and all my jokes and nervous giggles fled my body.
Gunnar, my valet, knocked twice on the carved panel beside the great room door. I took a deep breath, and three bass notes from the horn just inside the great room reverberated through my bones. The musicians went quiet, and an anticipatory hush settled over the crowd inside. Gunnar looked to Mother for her signal. She wound her arm through mine and looked up into my eyes searchingly.
“Ready?” she asked.
I nodded and set my jaw, forcing a slight smile onto my lips. Gunnar heaved against the doors’ polished bone handles. Inside, a uniformed servant took up the Trousillion horn, curling and carved, and blew a long, clear note. Silence hung heavy in the room, and the weight of hundreds of eyes fell upon me all at once. The solar lights were dimmed, and they cast a golden glow over the nobles dressed in their best silks and furs. Their jewels shimmered as they waited for the ceremony to start.
Penelope, Claes and I had spent months shaping the guest list. In addition to the ambassadors from Denor, most elite Ilorian merchants and the highest-ranking members of the nobility, the guest list included a number of my more irritating relatives who had to be invited, despite their tendencies to hoard all of the attention in a room. The three other singleborn of my generation were like that, captivating and dazzling all at once. Even Rylain, despite her hatred of public appearances, was the kind of person who could enchant a crowd with a single word.
I felt drab standing next to them, like a baby puffin before its plumage fills in. I should have been brimming with excitement, but instead I was blinded, unable to move, like a fish frozen in a streambed. My eye landed on a woman draped in austere black wool, her dark brown hair threaded with silver, and a serene look on her unlined face: Rylain. My heart lifted slightly—I hadn’t thought that she would be willing to make the trip to court, even for such a significant event. I was relieved to see her—perhaps her presence would stop Patrise and Lisette from spreading their bizarre notion that she’d had something to do with the shooting in the park.
Patrise lounged on a chaise nearby, flanked by a beautiful, red-haired woman. I wondered if the accusations he’d leveled at Rylain were a thinly veiled attempt to hide his own involvement in the most recent attempt on my life. He’d tried to have me killed more than once, or so Mother claimed. It was a fair concern—if something happened to me, the Queen would likely choose either Patrise or Lisette to succeed her. Patrise’s companion whispered something to him, and he threw back his head and laughed. His hearty guffaw became the only sound in the room, and he turned to grin at me before leaning in to reply to the redhead.
For a moment, everything I’d learned to prepare for this moment disappeared. I started to turn, to flee, but Mother’s elbow dug into my ribs. My eyes darted around frantically, and I finally found Claes standing with his sister. He smiled at me, his face a beacon in the crowd. His grin lit me like a torch, and warmth blossomed in my belly. When I looked at him, it felt like he and I were the only people in the room, and suddenly, I cared about doing this right.
I wanted so badly for him to be proud of me. I wanted to show them all that I deserved to be King.
I blinked and looked away before I could start blushing. Beside him, Penelope looked at me with the impatient urgency that seemed to be the natural set of her face, and my hours of practice flooded back to me. I stepped forward, smiling the solemn smile that my cousins had cajoled me into replicating for hours on end until it was more natural to me than any other expression.
Our guests parted, creating an aisle that led to the dais where Queen Runa waited. Tonight, her cape was black sealskin trimmed with gray fox fur. She wore the Alskad Empire’s ceremonial crown, a hefty circlet of hammered gold studded with raw jewels and pearls. Her hands rested on the Sword of the Empire, a weapon nearly as tall as she, forged in folded steel so keenly sharpened, it could cut a whisper in half. It was a weapon made to shed blood, though the empire’s rulers had expanded their borders by exploration rather than force.
Queen Runa was flanked by the Suzerain. With their pure white robes, pale skin and blond hair, they looked like twin towers of salt. Aside from the Queen, these were the most powerful people in the empire. While the Queen controlled the nobility, and had the final say on all laws written in the noble council, the common people looked to the Suzerain and their ranks of the Shriven for religious justice and protection from the diminished. The Queen never made a decision without considering the opinion of the temple.
Seven of the Shriven, all clad in the purest white, stood like statues against the wall behind the dais, their eyes glittering amid the black paint that bisected their faces. Tattoos crept up their necks and across their knuckles, and one of them bared her teeth, sharpened to spikes, at me. It took everything in my power to keep from grimacing. I wished they’d take their hands off the long knives in their belts, even only for the duration of the ceremony, but I knew it didn’t matter. They were as deadly unarmed as they were if they bristled with weapons.
Wrenching my gaze away from the Shriven, I was grateful for the kind faces of the anchorites, with their brilliant yellow-and-orange silk robes and the ropes of pearls that draped their wrists and necks. They stood before the dais, the emblems of the empire in a chest at their feet. The anchorites showered me in approving nods and warm smiles as I approached them. We stopped before the first step, and I leaned down to kiss Mother on both cheeks. She took her place next to her twin sister, to the right of the anchorites, and I knelt before the Suzerain and the Queen. I inhaled deeply and focused my thoughts on the ceremony at hand.
Together, their solemn voices filled the room, as rich as kaffe and sweet as honey. “Why do you kneel before us, Ambrose, son of Myrella and Oswin, descendent of the Trousillion line?”
I paused, took a breath and let the responses I knew by rote flow. “For I am worthy of the Trousillion crown.”
“By what right are you worthy?”
The words caught in my throat, and I coughed before saying, “By right of birth. I am singleborn, chosen of the goddesses and the gods.”
“Why were the singleborn chosen to rule their lands?”
“When the moon split and the people corrupted the earth, the goddesses and gods chose to split their souls in twain, that the consciences of the people be doubled. They decreed that each person be born with a twin they would love above all others, to whom they would be responsible for all their deeds. The goddesses and gods chose a family from each land, one who had demonstrated great honor, compassion and intellect. The descendants of those families would bear a number of singleborn in each generation, and from those, the next ruler would be chosen.”
Silks rustled as the crowd shifted from one foot to the other. The Queen nodded to my mother, who joined her on the dais. They each took hold of one end of the long Sword of the Empire, hefting it above their heads to form an archway. The female Suzerain, Amler, stepped through the archway, carrying the empire’s golden wheel. The male
