Before it can reach me, Petunis moves. The staff meets what stands between us with purpose, the force folding inward on his attack, breaking it before it can land. The darkness collapses into itself, snapping away as though it had never existed.
The man is gone and there is only absence where he had been. The carriage does not stop. It continues forward as though nothing has happened. I don’t move immediately, my breath caught somewhere between reaction and understanding, my body slower to follow than the moment required. “What was he?” I ask.
“Someone who wants you dead,” Petunis replies.
I roll my eyes. “No. I mean what kind of magic was that?”
Petunis looks to where he had been, then back to me. “It felt Alarnan at first,” she says. “But something beneath it was… off.”
"You can tell that?"
"You will learn," she replies simply.
I think of it then. Beneath the moment itself, something else had been there. Cold. Faintly wrong. His hand. I had not seen it clearly, only in passing. But the color had been wrong, the edges dulled in a way that lingered with me afterward.
Gray.
The carriage continues forward as though nothing has happened. The palace rises ahead of us, its outline familiar now in a way that feels heavier than it had when we left it.
I hesitate, then curiosity gets the best of me and I ask, “The staff you carry, what does it do exactly?"
“A Queen’s staff,” she says. “It is more than mere power, it is meant to control it, to shape it into obedience.”
I glance at it again, at the way it rests in her hand as though it belongs there.
“It can only be wielded by the one it is meant for,” she continues, “or by those its original bearer intended to use it.”
I lean back slowly, the tension leaving my body in uneven increments now that there is nothing left to respond to, and in its place something heavier begins to press in.
The nausea returns, stronger now, pulling through my stomach and throat at once, forcing me to swallow against it as I close my eyes briefly.
Three. The number forms without effort. Three attempts on my life in a single day. Breakfast, then the throne room, now this.
Teorin had lied about many things, but he had not lied about Alarna. A faint ache catches in my chest as I think of him, brief and unwelcome, gone almost as soon as it forms. I push it aside.
Another thought replaces it, deeper, more painful. Colsar. The ache there does not pass as quickly. It lingers.
He will come for me.The certainty forms without hesitation, not as hope, but as something I choose to hold. I refuse to believe the others who are so certain he has abandoned me. What we had was real. And if he is to come to me, he will need to pass through the wards.
My eyes open slowly. There has to be a way to weaken them so that I can allow passage. I know Colsar. He will fight through the undead to get to me. But he will be tired, weakened, and without royal blood there is no way to pass through Alarna's wards.
The carriage comes to a stop. The palace doors open. I step out into the cold air, exhaustion seeping into my body fully now, but beneath it something else has taken hold.
I will go to the library. And I will find a way.
Petunis steps down without waiting and I follow, the night air cutting through what warmth remained. My body feels heavier with each corridor, the nausea still present, my limbs dull with fatigue.
By the time we reach my chambers, Petunis stops and turns. "You will be in the throne room early," she says. "When you are required."
I incline my head.
"You will attend instruction afterward," she continues. "You will learn to wield your power with intention. You will study the history of this country until you understand it well enough to lead it without destroying what has held it together."
Her attention remains on me, assessing, precise. “Nyara tells me you are good with a sword,” she says. “That is not enough. You will be the best. Skill is not something you carry lightly and hope it holds when it matters. It must be absolute.”
She steps closer, just enough that her presence feels more intentional, more direct. “You are a queen,” she says, and there is no ceremony in it, no softness, only fact. “Queen Heir is a term used for a queen who has not yet fully taken her position, who still has a regent to assist while she concerns herself with other matters. Do not confuse the language with the reality.”
I hold her attention.
