The Beauty of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles #3) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,95

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 stood between the towering pillars of Minnaub, an ancient warrior carved in stone on one side of me, and his rearing warhorse carved on the other, two of a dozen sculpted memorials that guarded the plaza, sentinels of a glorious history, and one of many of Dalbreck’s wonders I had wanted to show Lia.

If she had come.

My face grew hot with the blaze, but I didn’t step back. I remembered Lia telling me that Capseius was the god of grievances, the one I had brazenly shaken my fist at when I was back in Terravin, and I thought he was probably looking down at me now, laughing. The flames crackled and snapped, hissing their secret messages to the heavens. Black smoke rose and hovered over the plaza, and instead of offering up prayers for the dead, I dropped to my knees and offered them for the living, and I heard the gasps and whispers of those around me, wondering at a Dalbreck king falling to his knees.

The funeral hadn’t been behind me three days before cabinet officers, barons, or other