I bit my tongue. They would not even say Freya’s name.
Two of the soldiers around Freya’s coffin stepped back as the other four lowered Freya into the ground.
The notes of Annalisa’s song with her mother skated quietly over her lips as she stepped toward the grave. “Raindrop, raindrop…”
She gave her handkerchief a kiss before releasing it on top of the grave. “My rainbow will come some other day.”
I watched the handkerchief fall and whispered, “Goodbye, Freya.”
Brietta sniffed. “Goodbye, Freya.”
Annalisa stepped back to us and I grabbed her trembling hand.
The crowd parted for Fraleigh as she glided across the grass behind Anders’s coffin. Fraleigh took her place at the end of the grave with her eyes forward and her hands clasped in front of her.
Six soldiers held the coffin above the grave. The Duke’s golden crown gleamed in the rays of the morning sun.
General Hyton turned to the line of Barons. “What say you, Barons of Lycaster?”
Baron Elvar stepped toward the coffin. “The Barons of Lycaster wish a triumph over Death to Alastar the Bold.”
“Hail Alastar the Bold,” the other Barons chanted.
The Bold—that was the best they could come up with? I had a list of names that would have been more fitting for that conniving worm.
But none of the pageantry had to be honest, it was all just ritual. No one could really triumph over Death, anyway.
Well, none but a select few.
Fraleigh kept her eyes on the grave as Baron Elvar took the crown of Lycaster off the coffin. The rest of the Barons chanted “the Bold” over and over.
The rest of the mourners joined in, their voices rising like an incoming storm over the sea.
“The Bold!”
“The Bold!”
“The Bold!”
As they chanted louder and louder, Fraleigh stepped forward to the edge of the grave. The sleeves of her robes billowed out as she waved her arms and the crowd instantly silenced.
She held her hands in the air and closed her eyes before placing her palms on the wood of the coffin. She bent at the waist and gave the flat surface of the coffin a kiss.
My stomach turned, but the General stole my attention with his booming voice. “With the blessing of her majesty, the Great Sorceress of Nordingaard, we return Alastar the Bold to the earth—to be part of Lycaster forever.”
Blessing? What blessing? I did not feel any vibrations of the tears in the air or even the barest sparkle of magic.
I stared at Fraleigh, her face the picture of composure. Like the chastity examinations, her blessing was just another lie.
I could have even conjured up something wondrous to impress the crowd if I tried. Maybe nothing more than a little flame, but at least something people could see. Something to sell the lie.
Did that mean…Fraleigh had even less power than I did?
Fraleigh took a step back from the grave and dropped to her knees as the soldiers lowered Anders in his grave. The lower the coffin went, so did Fraleigh. She pressed her palms into the earth and lowered herself in a bow so deep her forehead was in the grass.
I felt like I was looking through the altered mirrors again, but instead of seeing a dressing room, I was watching a slave in the dirt while everyone else saw the Great Sorceress performing a grand ritual.
My skin crawled. How had I never seen it? How hadnoneof Lycaster seen it?
