Page 49 of A Court of Truth and Thorns
“His Royal Majesty William Firehorn, King of Dansil!” announces the herald.
The crowd cheers. Rune squeezes my hand.
Snow dancing around his long lashes, Wil raises his head high. “People of Dansil!” he calls. Picking up the strands of his voice with my magic, I project the sound over the courtyard. “It’s our first winter in two decades, and I’ll endeavor to stop speaking before we all turn to ice. Today we welcome an Everett ambassador as a resident of the Delta Royal Palace. Dansil welcomes you, Prince Rune, especially your expertise on warm clothes and warmer fires.”
A small chuckle brushes the crowd. I start smiling too until—
“We also celebrate Lady Kalianna, my cousin and a mage, who has brought an end to the Drought in our lands.”
“What?” The word is out of my mouth before I realize I’m speaking. And projecting. The courtyard’s chuckling morphs into full-bellied laughter. My teeth grind. “Wil, you are so dead,” I promise, remembering this time to keep the words from echoing in the winds. Then, little caring whether Wil just introduced me or not, I back slowly from the balcony.
And find Rune’s solidness blocking my way. “Going somewhere?” he whispers into my ear. I dig my nails into the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. “Curtsy to them,” he murmurs. “Theywantto celebrate you.”
Seeing that there is no help for it, I dip to the floor, my face heating as the attention of many faces brushes and pokes and tickles my skin. I take a breath and drink it all in, the energy and excitement resonating against my chest. And then I do something I never expected—I rise and smile. No, I grin. Iwave.I share my joy and accept theirs in return.
The crowd breaks into applause that rings in my ears long after everyone has dispersed and I’m curled up in an armchair in Wil’s sitting room. The others file in one by one, finding their own favorite seats. Wil and Leaf, Rune and Raza, Luca and Calvin. I take out a dagger and twirl it in my hand.
“You can’t still be mad,” says Wil, throwing a pillow to the floor and sprawling atop it like a disheveled hound. “I know you enjoyed it. Eventually. Rune told me.”
I scowl at him. “You two could have told me you were planning to thrust me in front of the whole bloody city like a prize peacock.”
“If we had, I’d have had to carry you bodily onto that balcony.” Rune pours wine into goblets, the sweet, fruity smell filling the air. “Not that I would’ve minded, but it might have sent the wrong message about this new peace and cooperation and all that. And we need my father’s spies to deliver the proper wording. He’ll be delighted to learn of this new alliance, I’m certain.”
Wil and I snort together.
“Speaking of spies, I’ve written to Lord Gapral,” I tell Wil. “He won’t travel to Delta—it’s a matter of professional principle to keep his face from being seen more than it must—but he’s happy to continue supporting the throne. I can stop by the estate in six months or so for a better sense of strategy.”
“Excellent. Always a pleasure when someone volunteers to be the palace’s resident spymaster,” says Wil.
I snap bolt upright in my seat. “That’s not what I said, Wil.”
He grins. “Sure it is. And you are hereby appointed.”
“I’ll kill you,” I growl.
“Before the king is murdered, might we address one other matter with Everett?” Raza’s voice interrupts tentatively fromthe corner of the room. She passes a letter to Wil. “Might you see that my father gets this?”
“What is it?” asks Wil.
Raza adjusts her hood. “The details of my death. He’ll accept it. Everett has an heir again. Or will once the news of today’s announcement reaches the Everett palace.”
Rune takes the letter from Wil and chucks it into the fire. “No more.”
“I can be something here, Rune,” says Raza with no hint of submission. “The formerChildren,the freed whisperers, the girls and their babies and shattered families, everyone whose life just got stripped of the only meaning they thought it had—who is going to take charge of them? Who will make certain they don’t just relive their history? Are you? Isshe?”
“At least I’ve graduated from ‘whore’ to ‘she,’” I mumble. Raza and I will never be friends, but the passing days do seem to nudge us from I’d-like-to-kill-you-in-horrid-ways to mere potent hatred.
“What Raza needs is a title,” says Wil, gesturing with a half-eaten apple that he pulled from stars-know-where. He and Luca are kindred souls when it comes to their stomachs.
“Shehasa title,” says Rune.
“Princess isn’t a title. Not the kind that matters.” Wil’s gaze looks at something beyond the walls, his fingers touching a familiar spot on his breast pocket. “Not the kind that helps you find a place.”
Leaf reaches out and gently brushes Wil’s hand. The young king gives her a tight smile. Tight andbrotherly. I smile. Luca, pristine in his uniform and now captain of the guard, catches my eye and nods at the unspoken thought. Yes, we are all melding together. A family of our own making.
“How about Minister of Integration?” says Calvin, checking the steeping tea. Satisfied, he fills the cups and offersthe first two to Wil and Leaf, who instantly disappear into the soothing brew. “Raza is correct that the Order’s collapse left a great many young people with shattered worlds. Let us not lose more of them than we must.”
Wil nods without looking up. “I’m unsure what we’ve in the budget, but—”
