The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,92
stand close to him and play the part of a dutiful wife.
The local lord is there, in a rustic cape made from hare skins, to bow and usher us to the well. His name is Fordan, and his plump wife, Taryn, is red in the face, clearly overwhelmed with her task of accompanying me. She curtsies for so long I wonder if she needs help getting up. But she’s a kind person, I realize, and eager to make me feel welcome.
“We are so honored to have Your Majesties here,” she whispers as we pick our way along a narrow path made of straw tamping down the worst of the mud. “We have all heard the news of the glorious defeat of the Aphrasians in Mont. We are in awe of Your Majesty’s skill with a bow and arrow. You yourself dealt the fatal blow!”
“It was my idea,” Hansen calls back over his shoulder. “I handed the queen her bow and lit the arrow in the fire.”
“My husband and I are always in perfect harmony,” I tell Lady Taryn, and she beams at me so warmly I feel like crying. Perhaps it’s really true: The people of Montrice will accept me and grow to love me.
“We are lucky to have you here,” she says. “Not just in Chana, ma’am, but in Montrice. You are most welcome—most welcome. I always hoped that the Dellafiores would return, but I dared not say it. We have lived so long with darkness and threats. Now perhaps we will have the chance of a peaceful future, all united again as we were in the old days, all those years ago.”
Tears are prickling my eyes. My mother would be delighted to hear this. My father—the man I never knew—died trying to secure such a united future.
“May Deia bless you,” I say, squeezing Lady Taryn’s hand, and she blushes. My mother would be aghast at me touching a member of the local gentry: Her idea of physical contact with nonfamily members is to permit them to kiss her hand, a gloved hand. But I don’t care. The last time Hansen and I rode out of Mont, people were against us. Against me, most of all. Now someone—one person, true, but it’s better than no one—is being kind.
Around the well a motley crowd of children are arrayed—girls in their thorny wreaths and boys wearing dried pigs’ ears, a Montrician custom that I’ll never quite understand. Hansen thumps the boys on their shoulders and pinches one girl’s cheek so hard she cries out. One of the boys gives Hansen his own pig ears to wear and Hansen gamely puts them on with a smile. A girl hands me a heather crown that I place upon my brow.
The children’s song is short and discordant, but it’s quite charming, really. The words are some confusing ode to the forthcoming spring, and quite a few people in the crowd mouth along. They may have sung it themselves when they were children and Hansen’s parents were the ones visiting the village. I clap and smile when they’re finished, but the duke—who already seems impatient to be back before his fireplace in Mont—hustles them away.
Hansen is handed a rustic ice pick, which he brandishes in such a wild way, the watching locals shuffle a few steps back, clutching at one another’s hands. He beckons me over and I fix a smile on my face. It’s time for my speech. I had to practice it this morning with Varya, over my rushed breakfast.
“In the depths of the winter,” I say, my voice sounding more calm than I feel, if a little strangled and high-pitched, “we look to Deia’s sky. We look to Deia’s earth. We look to the water she gives us, the source of all life. Beneath its seal of ice, fresh water bubbles from the depths. The year turns, and here, on its darkest day, we know that spring will return to Montrice.”
Now it’s the turn of the locals to smile and clap, delighted that the new queen has managed to get the words of the ancient speech right.
Hansen smashes the well’s skin of ice, and it shatters, shards flying into the air. A few of the dignitaries around us flinch, as though they might expect knives rather than ice. When nothing terrible happens, everyone around us begins to cheer, and the noise ripples through the crowd.
“Long live the king! Long live the queen!”
Hansen is beaming and nodding at everyone, still clinging to the