He and Anassa are alwaysthere, always present. It’s like I’m a fragile child who needs watching over, and it’s starting to make me itchy.
Somewhere in the back of my mind is a woman who wants to snap at them that she’s fine, that she’s strong. Toss a rude joke their way, and escape their cautious babysitting.
But I’m too hollow to reach her.
Now, I open the door to his bulky frame, draped in mourning black. Not that he often wears any other color. The color suits him, this harbinger of death.
He looks too handsome for a funeral, his face clean-shaven. I breathe him and want to rage against the annoying comfort the smell brings me. I don’t deserve comfort.
We leave Saela behind and go outside to meet our direwolves. Anassa is as edgy as I am today. I pat her fur, and she huffs at me.
“We have lost a good wolf and a good rider,” she says in my mind.“But your distress is going to leak out into the entire bond if you are not careful. Izabel’s memory will live within you forever. Now it is time for you to lead.”
“Okay,” I say quietly, digging into that hollow place, searching for the brash, strong woman I once was.
With effort, I slip back into the mask of the person who doesn’t let difficult things break her.
How many hits can I take before that illusion is shattered for good?
Straightening my shoulders, I mount Anassa, then nod at Stark. We move as one on our direwolves to the site of the funeral, a clearing at the edge of the Bonded City.
By the time we arrive, I’m able to shake hands with Izabel and Venna’s parents without trembling.
“You honor us with your presence, Queen Meryn,” their mother murmurs.
I reach for her hands again, awkwardly pressing them in a show of support. “Your daughter was very dear to me,” I manage, the words a paltry ghost of what our relationship meant.
Venna stands next to them, face pale and eyes bloodshot. She looks at me only briefly, then nods and looks away.
I understand. In her place, I’m not sure I could speak without breaking down.
Stark and I reach the platform to the left of the family, where space has been reserved for the new queen. I look around. The landscape is barren but still beautiful; the rocky ground austere, small scrubby pines fading into forest and then mountains, peaks as far as the eye can see.
The fog is breaking up, and the midmorning light slants through the pine branches, illuminating Izabel’s funeral pyre.
I’ve seen too many Bonded die, but this is the first Bonded funeral I’ve attended; such indulgences weren’t allowed to us as Rawbonds, not under the Valtiere kings at least. Now, though, people have turned out in droves to honor Izabel.
Her extended family. Young friends from the Bonded City who haven’t attempted the Trials yet.
Tomison and Nevah, of course.
Egith, now the Alpha of Strategos, here to pay homage to our lost packmate.
And others, too; Izabel’s maidservant from the castle, and two children of a noble family who stayed behind to honor Izabel before returning to their fiefdom, evidently having befriended her at some royal function years ago. Others I don’t recognize, but who are nonetheless familiar because we wear the same expression of grief.
I try not to notice how they all avoid looking at me. Stark is a reassuring presence at my back. Ready to defend me, as always. Whether or not I’m worthy of such protection.
The pyre is built high, in accordance with Bonded tradition. Izabel has been dressed in ceremonial armor. Her direwolf, Asteio, who perished when Izabel took her last breath, is laid out beside her.
Together in death, after all too short a time together in life.
I blink rapidly, willing tears away.It is time for you to lead.
After a brief piece of music played by a woman I don’t recognize, Izabel and Venna’s father says a few words of welcome and then steps back so that Venna can deliver the eulogy.
She moves stiffly, as if having to remind her legs how to walk, her body how to move, without her sister present. Her hands tremble as she pulls a parchment out of her jacket, then swallows.
Their mother stifles a sob, and I bite my inner lip until it nearly draws blood. Press my eyes closed, then focus them on Venna, who’s started speaking.
