Jakobav was watching her closely, as if he could see every direction her mind was spiraling, a look of concern written on his face.
“This isn’t from you,” Jakobav said quietly. “Or from me. Magic was already unraveling. Whatever’s happening…it’s accelerating.”
“Then it’s the Veil,” Ella murmured, her voice almost lost to the dread—and the faint, guilty relief of knowing the danger might not be her doing.
Jakobav had remained a silent figure by the bedpost, but now he moved to the window, his shoulders squared and soldier-straight. “Your kingdom is bracing,” he said. “Threadshifting might yet shatter the realm unless it’s met with equal force.”
“Then we brace for it. We find a solution,” Demetrius answered far too lightly. His wink at Ella carried its own kind of defiance. “Starting with you, Your Highness. Coronation fittings demand their victim. Also, I brought pastries.”
“You didn’t bring pastries,” Marisol countered.
“I brought enthusiasm,” Demetrius said solemnly, “and that is almost as filling.”
As if conjured by Demetrius’s nonsense, a trio of seamstresses swept in, wrists bristling with glittering pins. Behind them came goldsmiths. Another team followed with a long coat of deep black for Jakobav, Orchid silk lined in storm-gray, the collar embroidered with the smallest pattern of vine and flame that was still tasteful.
They measured Ella first. Marisol hummed soft approvals while Nira kept one eye on the restless candles. Demetrius, predictably, had claimed a chair and provided commentary.
“Turn,” one seamstress said.
“She was born for turning,” Demetrius intoned with reverence. “Look at that queen posture. Frightening. Ten out of ten.”
“Get out,” Nira told him, fond exasperation threaded through her voice.
“Leaving by choice before I’m thrown,” he replied, rising with exaggerated dignity. He clasped Jakobav’s forearm in parting, quick and sure. “Try to smile during the ceremony. Or don’t. Either way, I’d like to live long enough to see the after-party.”
“I’ll consider it,” Jakobav said, which for him sounded dangerously close to friendly.
Demetrius grinned at Ella. “Don’t fret your coronation. You’re a natural. And if you break anything, I’ll grow you a new one out of fire.” He swept a bow so theatrical it almost passed for elegant and slipped out just as the seamstresses demanded privacy.
By the time they were finished, Ella’s coronation whites lay across a stand like a promise: silk that caught the light and gentled it, a sash stitched with gold thread, the crown fittings ready beside it like petals of metal waiting for dawn.
Jakobav endured his fitting with the patience of a man tolerating ritual, though the result suited him indecently well. Orchid silk clinging to his shoulders, narrowing through the waist, and falling in a lethal line to his boots. The storm-gray lining flashed when he moved. Ink climbed his forearms where the cuffs rode back, barbed knots and ash-dark sigils ghosting tendon and vein before disappearing again beneath fabric. The top toggle lay undone, showing a narrow V of throat and the barest glimpse of more ink at his collarbone. Muscle lived under all that polish, and nothing about him looked soft. His mouth was a straight, unforgiving line that suggested he could topple a capital before breakfast and be bored by dessert.
Nira exhaled, not even pretending to be unimpressed. “Unfair,” she muttered.
Ella didn’t trust her voice at first. “You look…” She searched for a word that would not betray how affected she was. “Prepared.”
His gaze locked on hers. “For whatever comes.”
The shutters gave a faint rattle, as though agreeing.
Somewhere deep in the castle, a bell tolled twice, the sound reverberating. Marisol glanced at the door. “Second bell.”
Ella adjusted her braid until her hands felt steady. “Then we start with the council.”
Jakobav offered his arm, but she stepped past him, letting him fall half a pace behind, exactly where the court would notice.
They left the hush of silk and pins, traveled quickly through the castle, and entered the council chamber, into the heat of an argument.
Orchid’s oldest hall had been built like a temple pretending to be a war room. A river of mosaic tile ran the length of the floor: blue glass for water, gold for sandbars, green for jungle, all bisecting a long table.
The council chamber was crowded when Ella stepped inside. Orchid lords and ladies crowded the table, rings flashing as ink-stained ledgers snapped open. Wax and too many opinions thickened the air.
Representatives from every corner of Orchid had been summoned: river merchants in travel-stained coats, coastal envoys still smelling of salt, and highland stewards wrapped in their formal sashes. Generals stood along the right wall in lacquered armor, helms tucked under their arms.
At the long table, several noblemen and senior members of the court had already taken their seats, their ledgers open, quills poised over parchment. A few scholars hovered behind them, ready with records and reports.
At the head of it all sat King Eryndor. Her father smiled when Ella took her place at his right hand, a smile and a wink that instilled more confidence than any speech. Jakobav positioned himself behind her chair, a shadow that made other shadows wary.
