“You heard our future queen. Ellandria has secured a better alliance than we could’ve hoped for. Council adjourned.” He said it quietly. “Prepare.”
The chairs scraped back, and the lords rose. Lord Verron’s gaze lingered on Ella a shade too long before he bowed to the king and swept from the room.
As the chamber emptied, Jakobav didn’t release her hand.
“Bold,” he murmured, his eyes still fixed forward.
“You started it,” she murmured back.
43
BETWEEN ORCHID AND THE ROSE
The throne room of Orchid had been remade into a myth. Vines and blossoms hung in garlands from the rafters, dense as constellations, while torches in carved orchid sconces burned along the walls, their petals cradling flame. At the far end, the coronation dais rose in black marble veined with gold. Upon it waited a pedestal and the crown, hammered thin as leaf, gleaming for a brow not yet claimed.
The court swelled close, a sea of silk and rumor, while beyond the balconies, the jungle exhaled its breath into the hall. The air carried salt and florals, and beneath it, something harsher, like the first strike of a storm.
Ella’s coronation whites clung too tightly, each pin and seam calculated to make her gleam like a symbol, though she’d never felt less like one. The silk bore the burden of promises she wasn’t certain she could keep. A queen’s gown ought to have been a sort of armor; instead it was a confession, pale as bone against a body etched with secrets.
Her heartbeat quickened beneath the sigil she now understood was bound to more than fire alone. Jakobav stood behind her, his presence as charged as it was necessary. Herkingdom had no knowledge of her Threadwalking, nor of the Echobinder who haunted her memory. And her mother’s death closed in like a prophecy fulfilled too soon. Too many truths lay buried beneath this coronation, threads pulled taut in too many directions at once.
She faced a room of expectant lords and ladies who believed they saw a princess flaunting a warlord at her shoulder. Did they believe she was the queen Orchid needed? Her mother had been loved by all; Ella feared she would never measure up—not on the first day of her reign, perhaps not ever. But maybe, with time. Except time was not on her side… The Veil was slipping by the minute. And she was afraid the crowd could somehow sense her deepest fear: that she wouldn’t be enough.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove I’m good enough—strong, fast, smart, brave enough. That I don’t need anyone. That I can do it all on my own.
She told herself to keep moving, to play the part. But she didn’t have to do it alone. She could lean on her father’s wary pride, Marisol’s steady kindness, Nira’s warmth, Demetrius’s confident humor, and Jakobav himself close by her side.
Enough to survive her coronation, perhaps, but not nearly enough to brace for a world on the verge of splitting open.
Then the great doors boomed.
The sound rolled through the garland-hung rafters and shook petals loose from their stems. Courtiers startled, and voices cut short. Heads turned in unison toward the entrance, toward the war that arrived along with the scent of obsidian stone.
Gods, she missed that smell.
Four figures crossed Orchid’s marble floor as if it belonged to them. Dust clung to their boots, travel and battle written into the set of their shoulders. They didn’t enter; they invaded.
A muscle jumped in Jakobav’s jaw, the only betrayal of how hard his control slipped at the sight of them. He didn’t move toward them, but something eased in his stance, a tension she’d seen him carry for days.
The crowd recoiled, and a whisper surged through the chamber, catching and spreading like fire through dry grass.
“Dravaryns.”
“First Guard.”
Thane approached first, shoulders broad as fortress gates, tattoos coiled down his muscled arms like serpents that might strike if provoked. His grin was unrepentant, as though arriving late to her coronation were a private joke and Ella herself the punchline. His gaze landed directly on her, and he lifted his brows in a silent question. Without hesitation, Ella nodded, her fingers slipping to the slit of her gown as she tugged the silk aside and pale fabric parted to reveal the emerald-jeweled hilt of Thane’s blade strapped high on her thigh, gleaming keener still against the whiteness of her coronation dress.
Thane’s smile broke wide open, feral delight flashing across his face.
Jakobav noticed, his jaw set, his expression turning storm-dark.
Thane blew him a kiss. “Happy to see you too, Prince,” he drawled, laughter undercutting every syllable.
Maeren followed, iron contained in flesh, every step measured as though she carried an army in her shadow. She moved like a commander who’d already walked through brimstone and would do it again if the kingdom dared her to falter.
Soren drifted next, sliding to the dais edge before tilting his head sideways and going utterly still. A sentinel carved from dusk, he unsettled the torches until their flames guttered, as though the fire itself feared him.
Savina came last. Long blonde waves gleamed like burnished light as she shed her hood, beauty so terrible and exacting that Orchid nobles stared in open awe. Ella startled herself by blurting, “Sav!” with warmth, excitement in her voice before she could school it. Savina returned her smile, genuine and devastating in its rarity.
