Page 77 of Prize for the King
I shiver.
The city is so utterly different from Farneer’s capital, which climbs the hill with the castle at the top, the buildings pale and rarely taller than three floors, streets cobbled and narrow apart from the main tract.
Here, the buildings are slim and tall, built from dark gray and black rock. All houses have windows, the glazing glittering in the late morning sunlight. The city doesn’t look like it has sprawled organically, with more streets and buildings added in when the need arose.
From where we stand at the edge of the valley, I can clearly point out the main arteries crossing at right angle with smaller streets running parallel. Trees grow here and there, and smoke curls over slim, black chimneys. The city looks symmetrical, neat. Like it was planned from the start to make the most logical shape, easy tonavigate, easy to thrive in.
“How do you like it?” Khay asks, his palms loose on the reins, his body solid at my back.
“It’s different,” I say honestly. “It looks scary.”
He snuffs out a small laugh. “It is to anyone who tries to hurt us. You’re safe, little diamond. You are the queen of this, and tonight, all of Roharra will know it.”
I don’t feel like a queen. If anything, I’m an impostor. As we ride through the city, many Agnidari who are out working or running errands stop to bow and salute their king, some breaking into cheers welcoming him home. When they see me, their smiles freeze, eyes growing wary or menacing. Khay whistles a cheerful tune, seemingly unaware of the hostile looks thrown our way.
The further in we ride, the more my skin chills. There is not a human in sight. I am the only representative of my race here, and once we reach the keep, I’ll be further away from home than ever.
Except, I shouldn’t call Farneerthatanymore.
“Almost home, my lady,” Khay whispers, pulling me into him. “Relax. We’ll take care of you.”
When the gates of the keep close behind us with a deep, metallic clang, we are faced with a few dozen Agnidari soldiers and servants manning the keep. They stand in even rows in the courtyard, all welcoming Magnar with deep bows. He dismounts and goes over to speak with a few men dressed in black clothes embroidered with red thread. All of them wear their hair braided back, and none spare me a glance.
Khay hops off and helps me dismount. I do my best to stand tall, the way I was taught, and not fidget. My usual anxieties—do I look regal, did I behave properly, have I shamed my title and kingdom?—are ramped up to unbearable levels because I have no idea how to act. Do I speak to the servants? Do I ignore them? For all I know, my humanmanners will offend the Agnidari.
“I’ll show you to your room,” Khay says cheerfully, unaware of my paralyzing anxiety.
He takes my hand and pulls me into the keep, its corridors tall and narrow, high windows tipped with sharp arches letting in the early afternoon sunlight. The floors are black, walls dark gray and barren save for candle and torch sconces. Soon, I lose my way, corridor after corridor blurring into one, the staircases narrow and unadorned. Khay walks with a bounce, meanwhile, I do my best not to drag my feet.
“Magnar will oversee the ceremony preparations,” he explains. “But I’ll be with you, and I bet Raduna and Arvi will find excuses to look in. Do you know what you’re going to do tonight?”
He shoots me a sultry look, but I only manage to shake my head, my throat too tight to speak.The ceremony.I don’t even know what an Agnidari wedding looks like. I don’t know what will be expected of me.Oh, gods.
“And this is the queen’s bedroom,” Khay says, opening a tall door with a flourish. “Magnar is just down the corridor, and our rooms are on either side of you and him.”
I stop on the threshold, my heart stuttering from surprise. The more of the keep I saw, the more I expected my bedroom to resemble a dungeon cell rather than a royal chamber. The room looks nothing like the luxuries back home, true, but it’s not a cell, either.
It’s larger than my apartments back in Farneer. I step inside with a sigh of awe, looking left and right. The stone walls are covered with tapestries in muted colors, green, blue, and a honeyed sort of yellow. The stone floor can’t be seen from under dark brown carpets that are so thick, my feet sink into the wool.
My room has five tall, beautiful windows, three of them colored with stained glass. Early afternoon sunlight slants in, painting thecarpet red and green.
On the far right stands the bed. I finally understand what the knights meant about the queen’s bed, because it’s enormous, taking up almost one length of the room. It looks like ten people could sleep in there comfortably, lying side by side.
“Why are you so quiet?” Khay asks after clearing his throat. “Do you hate it?”
I shake my head, turning to take in a large fireplace with an ornate frame decorated with intricate whorls of black and brown, and soft, comfortable ottomans sprawling around a low table. There is a large desk by a window, a bookcase, and an enormous wardrobe built into the wall. A narrow door in the corner is ajar, showing me a glimpse of a bathroom with a warm, wooden floor and walls covered with green and blue tiles.
I turn to Khay, who studies me with a worried frown.
“We can make changes,” he says, curling his fingers in a nervous gesture. “We… We spent a lot of time here between conquests. The windows were Magnar’s idea. I painted the details on the fireplace. Raduna took care of the tapestries, and Arvi got the bed remade. The previous one was smaller, and we… We had this idea that once we had our queen, we might… Just stay with her every night. It depends on what you’ll want, of course. We were just daydreaming. There is… Well, there’s room for a crib. And anything else you might want.”
I turn away, looking at the room again. He’s right—it looks like a lot of thought went into this. It’s soft, warm, cozy. A place to rest, to finally let go. A place to be content.
This finally makes me understand what having a queen means to Magnar and his knights. They’ve been at war for ten years, they’ve conquered kingdom after kingdom to give their people a chance at good, abundant lives, and they were disappointed time and again, finding only dead princesses.
This room was a promise. One day, they would have a queen and the war would end.
That day is today.
