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 Suzerain, Castor, followed her, a delicate gold net stretched between his hands. Finally, the Queen nodded to me, and I stepped beneath the sword, ducking to clear my head. I was grateful to kneel once again on the other side and hide my shaking legs.
The Queen handed the sword to my mother and came to stand before me, to perform her role in the ceremony. She faced the crowd. “Do you swear to uphold the honor of the singleborn of the Trousillion line?”
I looked into her deep brown eyes, feeling the enormous magnitude of the vow radiating from the depths of her soul. “I do.”
The weight of the net, surprisingly heavy for all its delicacy, settled over my shoulders like a ballast, and my heart sank. I admonished myself silently—I’d spent my whole life preparing for this, and it would be years yet before I took the throne. The weight of the responsibility need not feel so wildly overwhelming yet.
“Will you guide the people of the empire with your conscience, serving them with justice and grace, putting their needs before your own?”
“I will.” I accepted the wheel, and the Queen gave me the barest hint of a smile.
“Will you wear this cuff as a daily reminder of your duty to your crown and your country, and swear in the name of your chosen god that you will serve the people of the Alskad Empire for the rest of your days?”
I held out my left wrist. “I swear on my honor and in Gadrian the Firebound’s name that I will serve the people of the Alskad Empire for the rest of my days.”
The Queen snapped the hammered gold bracelet onto my wrist and locked it in place. The crown-shaped bracelet was fitted to my wrist, loose enough to move up and down my forearm, but too tight to slip over my hand. There was no way for me to take it off without the key unless I was willing to break my hand. As the weight of the bracelet settled on my arm, I wondered if any of the other singleborn had ever tried to remove the cuff.
The Queen held out her hand to me, her own bracelet gleaming in the low light. “Stand, Ambrose, son of Myrella and Oswin. Stand in the knowledge that you are my chosen successor to the throne of the Alskad Empire.”
I took the Queen’s hand and stood, heart pounding in my chest, raising the wheel over my head. The room erupted in cheers and whoops, and the musicians struck up a fast, reeling war song. Queen Runa squeezed my hand reassuringly as we descended the dais together.
* * *
There were several comfortably furnished chambers adjacent to the great room, where guests could rest or talk quietly during the epic gatherings that were the social centerpieces of the empire’s nobility. I followed the Queen and my mother into one of these rooms, and they waited in silence as two anchorites lifted the golden net off my shoulders and relieved me of the wheel.
When the anchorites had gone, closing the door behind them, the Queen settled into a wide chair, plucked the crown off her head and set it on a side table. The regal monarch disappeared, and in her place was my great aunt, all sharp wit and convivial smiles.
“Myrella, be a dear and pour me a glass of something strong, will you?”
Mother went to the sideboard and filled a glass with clear ouzel from a crystal decanter. She took a sip from the glass, to show it wasn’t poisoned, before handing it to Runa. The Queen accepted it and downed it in a gulp, holding the glass out to be refilled.
“Sit, sit, both of you,” she said.
Mother poured a cup of kaffe, doctored it with cream and sugar and took a sip before handing it to me. I sank gratefully onto a divan, and Mother took her place in the room’s other chair, an ouzel glass of her own in hand.
“Now, tell me. Whom will he marry?”
“His cousin Penelope, though we haven’t made the formal arrangements yet.”
I choked on my kaffe. This was news to me. My heart fluttered.