I rolled my eyes but took the cup she handed me.
The wine was darker than it should’ve been. Heavy, sweet, the kind of thing that clung to the roof of your mouth like sap and left your thoughts fuzzy around the edges. Right now, that suited me just fine.
Daen took his cup with a nod. Astrid poured her own in a single, careless motion, sloshing half of it onto the table.
“I suppose this is where we toast?” she asked, lifting her cup. “To Queen and country? To the blood on our boots and the ghosts in our wine?”
“No,” I said, feigning solemnity. “To us.”
Astrid smiled then – not her usual grin, but something softer, a flicker of what we’d been once. Before the titles. Before the constantwars. Before the weight of our parents and their legacies had sunk so deep into our bones we forgot what it felt like to be light.
“To us,” Daen echoed. “And to Benni, wherever that poor bastard is raising his cup tonight.”
We raised our cups and drank. The wine burned a little on the way down, sweet and cloying, but it stayed with me – its warmth spreading out from my chest, settling into my limbs.
I caught the way Daen cradled his cup – not like a soldier, but like someone trying to remember a time before he became one. It would fade again by morning, swallowed by discipline and duty. But here, in this moment, there was nothing but the three of us and the comfort of old wine and older memories.
We didn’t speak much after that, except for Astrid. She filled the silence with stories, half-truths, and old jokes we’d heard a hundred times before. Daen sat quietly, eyes half-lidded, the firelight catching the line of his jaw. I let my back rest against the cold stone wall and closed my eyes, the weight of the day settling deep in my bones, thick and unshifting.
It was a ritual, of sorts. We had done this before – in camps, in tents, in ruined cities still smoking from our arrival. Shared wine, shared silence, shared something neither victory nor survival could quite explain.
The noise of the keep faded to a low hum; Astrid’s voice blurred into it. Daen’s breathing was steady and familiar. The wine was warm in my chest.
And slowly, quietly, I let sleep take me.
Chapter Eleven: Frejara
Iwoke to the sound of bells – low, ponderous things that tolled like thunder, rolling through the stone halls in long, heavy waves. Not temple chimes or the peal of city hours – these rang deeper. My limbs were slow to move, leaden with wine and the stiffness of cold stone. For a moment I lay there, head against the curve of the wall, trying to remember what day it was. The bells kept tolling, each strike louder than the last, each one drawing the hour into focus.
The Feast had begun.
The brazier had long since died, the air gone cold. Astrid remained sprawled in the chair, one boot on the desk, the other somewhere near the door, a half-empty bottle cradled to her chest like a lover. Daen hadn’t moved at all. Or perhaps he had—there was no telling with him. His posture was unchanged, but his eyes were open now, watching the door with that same unreadable calm he wore in battle, as if he’d known the moment would come long before it arrived.
I pushed myself upright, my joints stiff and aching, the room tilting for a breath before it steadied, as a knock sounded at the door – ifit could be called that. The Acolytes didn’t knock so much as press themselves against the space you occupied until you were forced to acknowledge them. They slithered into the room abruptly, arms laden with iron and fabric and the reek of old smoke, their silent, eerie presence enough to speak for them and for what they had come to do, and I did nothing to resist as they closed in. What would have been the point?
They fitted me into the ceremonial armour with the same reverent efficiency they used when tending my mother’s altars. Blackened steel, cold to the touch, polished to a cruel gleam and edged with thin golden filigree that caught the morning’s weak light. The breastplate bore the crest of Irongate – a dragon bound in gold and wreathed in flame. The Acolytes strained as they hauled it into place, their thin arms trembling under the weight while I stood still and let them work. When the straps finally bit down against my shoulders, the iron felt heavier than I remembered. Or perhaps it was only me, worn down by years of parades and pageantry and tired of being dressed for war in someone else’s theatre – a spectacle I had never chosen, that had always been chosen for me. A mantle handed down not as honour, but as inheritance.
Astrid groaned from her chair as I adjusted the final clasp. “You look like a revenant,” she muttered, squinting against the morning light now filtering through the high window. “Crawled up from the grave to settle old accounts.”
“I’ve had worse mornings,” I said, my voice rough with sleep and wine.
She smirked faintly. “Give it time.”
Daen passed me my sword – not the gilded thing kept for parades, but the blade that had followed me through mud and blood and fire. The leather hilt was darkened by years of sweat and rain, its grip worn to the shape of my hand. I took it from him and fastened it at my side,the weight settling against my hip. Let them see their Unbroken Blade – but let it be the real one. This blade had never broken, and neither had I.
“I’ll see you after,” I said then, tapping the hilt once before I pushed the door open. Neither of them answered. Daen only gave a small, mocking salute before leaning back against the wall, arms folded, as I stepped out.
The corridors of the keep were already alive. Courtiers in silks and fur-trimmed cloaks whispered behind gloved hands. Hierophants of the Flame moved in procession, incense smoke trailing behind them, the scent of burned herbs and rose oil clinging to everything. I passed them without a word, the soft rustle of their robes fading at my back as I stepped into the antechamber. The air here was cooler; the high dome shadowed above. For a moment, there was nothing but the hollow stretch of stone and the faint echo of my own breath. Then a glimmer shifted against the dimness—slight enough that I might have missed it if it hadn’t moved.
A fleck of gold leaf, thin as dust, turned lazily as it fell. I watched it spiral, slow and unhurried, until it came to rest against the floor. Another clung still higher in the air, suspended for a breath before gravity drew it down. My gaze drifted upwards, to the domed ceiling, where the fleck had fallen from.
The gilt of the seven golden crowns had dulled long ago, but the morning light still teased faint fire from their edges, enough to mark them out against the shadowed vault. Stalling my steps, I let my eyes trace them one by one before the roar from beyond the keep reached my ears and drew me onwards, through the throne room and toward the steps that led to the High Balcony.
As I stepped outside through the awning, the full weight of the Feast pressed down on me. The pyre square spread below, vast and unrelenting, its dark stone inlaid in a great circle that seemed to drinkthe light of the rising sun. At its centre, where every path converged, rose the altar of Dragonstone – smooth and black, veined like cooled lava, as if the last breath of a dying dragon had seared it into the earth. Upon that ancient stone stood the pyre itself, ironbound and unyielding, crowned in chains that gleamed like polished silver.
Crowds had already filled every tier. Nobles lined the terraces, their masks golden and impassive, their faces unreadable beneath artistry and powder. Below them, the merchants and soldiers stood packed shoulder to shoulder, more restless, eyes darting toward the altar like hounds straining against the leash. And lower still, pressed close to the pyre, were the commoners – not summoned, but drawn, bound by tradition and the terrible promise of the fire.
They had come to watch a man burn. Not just any man; an enemy of the Sorcerer Queen, made an example of for all who would not bend the knee to her. They came dressed in mourning silks and painted veils, their hands clasped in ritual prayer as if that might cleanse the hunger in their eyes.
