The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,95

else that he was keeping a close watch. His hand was still in this, ready. He was going to make me pay for my absence.

They all felt the need to test this untried king, but as Sven had advised, I listened, I weighed, I acted. But I would not be pushed. It was a dance of give and take, and when they pushed too far, I cut them short. I was reminded of my dance with Lia when she would not step back, her foot stamping down and staying put.

It was during that dance that I had known she wouldn’t be pushed any further. I was losing her. No, Rafe, not losing. Lost. She’s gone for good. It’s for the best, I reminded myself. I had a troubled kingdom that needed my undivided attention.

When the court of generals balked at my first order as king, I held my position and let them know this decision was not under advisement. Reinforcements were to be sent to all northern border outposts and the vulnerable cities in between, and troops at southern outposts were to be split between the eastern and western borders. Trouble was brewing, and until we knew the exact extent of it, this was a necessary precaution. The barons protested, saying it would leave little protection here in the capital.

“But first they would have to get past the borders,” I told them.

“Our borders are already well fortified based on your father’s and his advisers’ assessments,” General Draeger interjected. “You’d further disrupt the kingdom because of one unreliable girl’s claim?”

The chamber grew instantly silent. Unreliable flicked off the general’s tongue with a hundred insinuating nuances. Rumors and questions about the princess and my relationship with her had surely run through the assembly like wildfire. No doubt they knew of my bitter parting with her too. This was the first time anyone had dared bring her up. One girl? As if she was chaff. Weightless and disposable. It was another gauntlet thrown down. A test of my loyalty. Perhaps they even secretly laughed if they knew I had claimed her as my future queen before my troops. Looking at the faces staring into mine, I suddenly saw myself through Lia’s eyes, how I had questioned something she so desperately believed. I saw myself as one of them. Rafe, haven’t you ever felt something deep in your gut?

I wouldn’t bite at the general’s bait and bring Lia into this. “My decision is based on what I observed, General Draeger, and nothing else. My duty is to keep Dalbreck’s citizens safe and the realm secure. Until we have further information, I expect my orders to be carried out immediately.”

The general shrugged, and the assembly grudgingly nodded. I sensed they all wanted more from me, to denounce Lia before them all as another Morrighese conniver who couldn’t be trusted. They wanted me to be fully and completely one of their own again.

There was a rushed coronation, and my father’s funeral pyre was built at last. He’d been dead for weeks, his body preserved and wrapped, but until I was found, his death had to remain a secret and he couldn’t receive a proper release to the gods.

When I lifted the torch to light his pyre, I felt oddly inadequate, as if I should have understood the gods more. I should have listened more. Sven hadn’t been strong on tutoring me in the heavenly realms. Most of that had been left to Merrick during my infrequent visits to the chanterie. I remembered Lia asking me which god I prayed to. I had been at a loss to answer her. They had names? And according to Morrighese tradition, there were four of them. Merrick had taught me there were three who ruled from a single heavenly throne and rode on the backs of fiercesome beasts while they guarded the gates of heaven—that is, when they weren’t throwing stars to the earth. It is by the gods that Dalbreck is supreme. We are the favored Remnant.

I watched the flames engulf my father’s shroud, the fabric dissolving, the stacked tinder falling down around him to disguise the realities of death, the flames bursting higher as a revered soldier and king left one world and entered another, a whole kingdom looking on, watching me as much as the pyre. The weight of every gaze pressed with expectation. Even now I had to be an example of strength for all of them, assurance that life would go on as before. I