“At least we’re together. All of us here at home,” Yemi said, tracing her fingers along the stone likeness of her father on his tomb. “I can’t imagine having to feed them to the sea. Cerro had a bold moment earlier today.”
Nova nodded, impressed. “Didn’t know he was capable of bold moments.”
“He wants to ‘partner.’ Advise me on bringing the public to heel under the Old Gods.”
“Under the Kept, you mean.”
“Naturally. The old faith still has a hold in this country. I’m the descendant of the gods, but he’s the prophet. Ignoring his power would be foolish. He can’t be allowed to remain. Doubt he knows that yet.”
“Well. One thing at a time.”
Yemi sighed. “I don’t know that we have much of it.” Somewhere in her dealings with the enemies she knew, she still had to learn to be the Light that guided the country and the Shield that protected it. To manufacture some kind of grace. But how did you forgive the murderer of your parents, or the world around you for being complicit?
Forgiveness was the recourse of people without the power to exact vengeance. And now, she was queen.
8
• YEMI •
Yemi put Nova’s ass in the dirt exactly twice before Nova stopped letting her win. The young queen called the breakfast break after the third time being rapped on her bruised knuckles kept her from being able to grip her staff without considerable cursing.
She spent her unsupervised daylight hours in the administrative offices among the haze of cigar smoke, the cacophony of phone trills and typewriters, listening to the radio for tributes to her mother and the speculative discourse surrounding the new age. What did her people know of her? Little more than her temper, it turned out. She was cast as an enigma in her mother’s shadow, one capable of joy and levity but not enough to eclipse the fear people had of her as a descendent of the Mer.
The late-night hours saw an increase of interviews with dissenters, people who casually called her the Child/Fish Queen and predicted new wars as she bungled her duties through immaturity and incompetence. Others would interject, having heard from senators that she was an astute ruler trained in the ways of her blessed mother to care and to fight for the people, and so there was nothing to fear. But those people weren’t as loud.
It had been necessary to her mother that people be allowed to speak freely in a time when they’d put their lives on the line for years to preserve their country. She’d kept a network of spies to prevent much escalation beyond speech, of course, but this venting was necessary if most people were to sleep at night, she’d said.
The more Yemi listened, the more fevered the ire pitched in her ears. How was it that the Mer were subhuman beasts to be shunned when it had beenmenwho stoked these wars, killed each other, and killed her parents?
She was chewing her lip and watching the trees sway in the tinted wine-bottle windows of the office when a number of feet shuffled in the door behind her. She glanced up to see Orie and Cutter flanked by three of the elder Kept. Orie spoke first with a tight, nervous smile. She’d been on edge since the Bear Queen’s death and had yet to recover. Yemi made a mental note to apologize for shouting at her in her mother’s chambers.
“My Light, the Kept need your animus,” she said.
“It’s been days, and they cannot even name your year without—” Cutter started.
“My animus is the Mer,” she said firmly. There was a sudden silence in the room as Orie and the present priests opened and closed their mouths in either agreement or protest. The Mer had never made it into the pantheon of the natural order here. It was like having the audacity, the hubris, to choose a human.
“What? My mother never let me forget who I am. Ixia’s people apparently never will. I am the daughter of the Bear Queen. I am royalty on every side. I am descended from the godsthesepeople have forgotten.” She jabbed a finger at the radio. “Model my armor after the Mer. Let them take it whatever way they choose, and I will rule as their imaginations dictate.”
“My Light, the precedent—” a bald old priest began with a voice that shook with condescension.
“Your queen commands it, so why are you still here?” Yemi snapped. She tired of the ridiculous traditions, the pomp and pag-eantry that dictated she had no right to a human moment in the face of all the things that must be done. They’d wanted her animus, and now they had it.
They stifled their bluster and bent to kiss her ring before retreating from the office.
“You’ll have your armor in a matter of days,” said Orie, scribbling furiously on her ever-present stack of papers. “You’ll need a fitting, of course, and then afterward we can schedule a meeting with—”
“Orie.” Yemi raised a hand to stop her. Orie blinked. “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have come at you the way I did that morning.”
“Grief brain, My Light.” Orie shrugged but her eyes welled with tears.
“Still. My mother loved you. You’re as much family to me as she is. And I hope you stay on with us.”
Orie sniffled, but her tears seemed happy now as she bent to kiss the ring. “It would be my honor.”
She left, still scribbling, somehow deftly navigating the mess of chairs and desks on her way out.
Cutter hung back. “I’m overjoyed to see you’re recovering. But you realize there are some people to whom this might appear to be an act of hostility?”
