“Your mother wasn’t all bad,” Briony says. “She kept the peace for many years.”
“Don’t you think the people should choose their emperor? Or empress?”
“Definitely,” Briony says enthusiastically, as Henrietta makes a loud gagging noise.
Briony scowls at her and continues talking. “But there would need to be someone in charge in the interim….” She trails off and looks to Fox. “Otherwise there could be factions again, more fighting like there was between the shadow weavers and thelight wielders all those years ago. The divisions that led to the extermination of the light wielders completely.”
“I agree with Briony. There’ll need to be an interim arrangement. And you are the heir. I think most people expect it,” Fox says.
“And what if I get a taste for it?” I say, remembering all the power and privilege that was accorded my mother. “What if I get a taste for it and when the time comes I don’t want to let it go?”
“That won’t happen,” Briony says.
“It might,” I confess.
“We won’t let it,” she says with a smile, believing in me 100%, trusting in me with all her heart.
And I know with her by my side, I will be a better person.
“And we won’t let you be a bad ruler,” Dray adds. “We’ll keep you on the straight and narrow.”
“You?” I chuckle, because I can already imagine all the ways Dray will abuse the privilege of ruling the realm.
“You’re going to be in charge too, Dray?” Hells Bells asks, almost clapping her hands in excitement.
“Yeah, sort of,” he says.
“Then can you make it a law,” she asks, “that Nurse Marion can’t put me to bed before 8 p.m., that she has to let me have chocolate every day, and that I’m allowed to play with the weapons from the weapon room?”
“How do you know about the weapon room?” I ask her.
“Henrietta and Linny took me there,” she says. “Let me play with them.”
I scowl at Henrietta, who simply shrugs a second time.
“I like those rules,” Dray says. “But I’ll have to persuade the others first.” He winks at her. “Do you want to dance, Hells Bells?”
She nods enthusiastically, and then he’s whisking her away, spinning her across the Great Hall.
“She seems okay, doesn’t she?” I say to Briony. “Not too upset.”
“It may hit her later,” Briony says. “But you’ll be there for her, Beaufort. We all will.”
She wraps her arm around my waist, and I wrap mine around her shoulders.
“It should be you on the throne,” I tell her.
“Maybe,” Fox says, coming to stand the other side of Briony as we watch Dray and Arabella dancing in a haphazard manner across the Great Hall, other students leaping out of their way, “one day she will be.”
Later, I carry a sleeping Arabella up the stairs and into my bedroom. She doesn’t even stir as I slide off her shoes and tuck her into the bed, kissing her goodnight and tiptoeing away to join the others in the kitchen.
Henrietta and Linny have led those students still partying up to the shadow weaver common room with promises of breaking into the liquor cabinet, and Fly has already sneaked off with his boyfriend. It’s just the five of us now, and I’ve never been more pleased about it.
I’ve been waiting for this moment ever since the battle ended. Hell, I’ve been waiting for this moment for as long as I can remember. The moment when the five of us would be together without the threat of some danger looming above our heads.
Dray has poured everyone a nightcap and is passing tumblers around as we stand in the kitchen. I come to join them, taking the liquor in my hand and swirling it, but not touching it.
There is electricity in the air, like that moment right before a storm, when you can feel it building – the pressure tangible– and you’re waiting for that crack of lightning, that boom of thunder that will break it all.
