the sudden attention. “She was a child when you forced me away, and I have missed her growing. Because of you. You may have treated her as yours, but she was mine to care for, mine to teach and train!”
Rovassos’s watery gaze met Hal’s, and Hal’s heart seemed to freeze—not with cold, but with warm dread.
“So she was,” the king said. He lifted his fist, and there on his forefinger clung the Blood and the Sea. The garnet burned deep brown-red, the pearls embracing it like tiny moons. It was the symbol of power, and all her life Hal had been conditioned to respect it, to love it. That ring had graced the hand of Morimaros the Great, and Isarnos, then Segovax, and now this merry king, this disgrace—so her mother would say, so Vindomata and Caratica, and so even Mata Blunt, who was Hal’s mother’s cousin, and for three years had lived in the Third Kingdom, too. Plotting this, Hal supposed, her world spinning.
“Give it over,” Vindomata demanded again. “You have taken more than was a king’s due, and neglected much that was. No one will regret this day.”
Rovassos tugged the ring free and held it up, staring at Celeda through its small circle. “In the end, this empty well will be all that you have, too.”
“Rovassos,” Vindomata said.
He closed his eyes and sighed.
Aumerle threw himself to his king’s side and then to his knees. “I beg you, let him live. If he does this, let him live.”
For a moment, Hal admired the man’s brave desperation, but then was filled with pity when Caratica Persy spoke, every word a struggle through her pain, sweat glistening on her lip and brow, “Will you die for him? In his stead, Aumerle? If you both live past today, always shall you plot against us.”
“No, put him in prison, and—and banish me. Anything.”
The king touched Aumerle’s mouth. “Hush.”
Aumerle fell quiet, sinking down to sit on his heels, shoulders slumped.
“Now,” said Vindomata.
Celeda held out her hand to Rovassos.
The king said, “By my word, I give you Aremoria. By this ring, and my hand. By the stars above and the earth below, by my heart and blood and—and by my tears. Aremoria is yours.”
He dropped the Blood and the Sea. It hit the stone floor with a sharp clang.
All present stared as Celeda knelt reverently and lifted the ring. She stood with it cupped in her palm, breathing through slightly parted lips.
Hal did not know what passed through her mother’s thoughts in that moment, but they caused a tremor in Celeda Bolinbroke’s hand. She clenched her fingers around the Blood and the Sea as Vindomata approached. The duke of Mercia surrounded Celeda’s hand with both her own, offering comfort. Then Vindomata pried the hand open and took the ring. Her eyes lifted to catch Celeda’s, and Celeda raised her chin.
Mercia put the ring onto Celeda’s forefinger, and then dropped to one knee. “Long may the queen of Aremoria reign.”
The lord Aumerle sank further to the floor, hands and knees against the cold stone, head lowered and shoulders shaking. Rovassos remained still, seated at the edge of the high table. But Mata Blunt knelt, and Hotspur, too, dragging Hal down with her.
Hal stared at her mother. Her queen.
Her mother.
If she’d not had both knees on the hard floor she’d have fallen.
And Rovassos said, “What else remains?”
Vindomata Mercia stood, flicked her eyes over Celeda’s, then to her sister, Caratica, and Mata Blunt—but not to her niece or Hal. “This only,” she said, and took two steps to Rovassos in the space of time needed to draw her sword.
A cry pierced the dull weight of the room’s silence just as the heavy blade cut down, stabbing through Rovassos’s neck. Blood spurted, then gushed, and Aumerle scrabbled at Vindomata, throwing himself at her arm.
The duke shrugged him off, leaning in to drive her sword harder into Rovassos, then pulling sideways so it sliced through most of his throat and the old king’s body tilted, the head falling to the side first, dragging the rest with it.
Mata grabbed Aumerle’s hair and jerked him away, throwing him hard to the floor.
Hal could not move, staring, stuck on Rovassos’s head and the unnatural angle from which it dangled, still attached by muscle and skin, as blood painted a mantle down his chest, flowing and smooth, and Hal felt it on her own skin, prickling over her collar and down her breast, over her shoulders and flaring down her back like wings.