I couldn’t allow him to detonate the mines.
There was no other way.
But now that I’m older, I know there’s no way to explain away what you’ve done. All you can do is stand by your actions and hope others see the good for themselves.
“What may I call you?” Queen Bodil asks, and I’m taken aback. The queen registers the look on my face andclarifies. “I cannot call you the sea witch. Surely you have a name?”
“Evelyn.”
Bodil accepts who I once was with a thin breath. “It’s true what you said.” It’s a statement, not a question. She sighs, eyes drifting to the distance below us. “He knew it too.”
Alia lets go of my hand and moves to embrace the queen. “It’s all true, Mother. Every last word.” She looks down at their entwined hands. “I did leave to go above because I was in love with a human. I never thought I’d fail, but I was going to. And Runa went up to save me. She never wanted to stay—she always wanted to be here with you, but she did the best she could.”
The queen looks to me. “You can’t bring Runa back to us?”
I’m about to answer when I snag on Anna’s face as she hovers outside this circle, knowing she could belong but doesn’t—and I realize something. “There is a way. But I’m unsure it will work, and it isn’t worth the risk to find out.” I meet Anna’s eyes, and then the queen’s. “If Runa were to drown, we might be able to change her back.”
Queen Bodil shakes her head. “No, I won’t consider drowning my daughter to get her back.” She touches Alia’s cheek. “I’ve already lost so much.”
“Mother, don’t blame Evelyn,” Alia says. “I knew whatI was doing, and I’m at peace.”
“Then so am I,” the queen says. Her eyes rise to mine. “But our monarchy is a different matter.”
Here it comes. I hold my head high, hands growing sweaty in the girls’ grip. A childhood spent under the disapproving eye of Nik’s mother, Queen Charlotte, prepared me for this moment in a way, but it’s been nearly a lifetime since I had to submit myself to this.
“We have no king. We have no male heir. And though we have a more-than-capable princess”—here, she gestures to the oldest of Queen Mette’s girls, Lida—“by law, the crown is not hers.”
Below, the people begin to murmur. I stay stock still. The queen continues.
“It’s yours.”
“Mine?” I say, or maybe I don’t, I’m not quite sure my voice is working. “But—”
“Take it, please.” Lida offers the crown that tumbled off the sea king’s head. “You’ve defeated our king, which is enough to place his crown upon your head according to our laws, but you also saved countless lives from the mines, the war, and our discovery. You have more than proved to us that you are our queen.”
Queen. They want me to be queen.
I expect the people to complain—violently, loudly. Instead they’re silent, waiting. Lida holds her father’scrown out farther, waiting for me to take it.
My eyes fall to her offering.
The crown is mangled and imperfect, which makes it ideal for what I am and how the kingdom has changed. Spelling this tattered, twisted crown into something impossibly perfect would wipe clean all that’s just happened. We can’t ignore what’s made us. Its flaws will serve as memories.
I address the people below, willing my voice not to shake. “If you will have me, I will serve you.”
For a moment, the people are quiet. They know they’re witnessing something no one in their kingdom has ever seen. This is really happening, the truth, out in the open.
And then they begin to applaud.
Lida shifts the crown in her hands from an offering to something to be presented and motions for me to bow. I do, and she places the mangled circlet on my head. It’s heavy with the weight of a people escaping from the brink.
I raise myself up and present myself to them.
The former royal family bows first. The people below next. All of them accepting.
I watch, tears that won’t fall pushing against my eyes. This isn’t the life I had hoped for. I’ll never get to go home to my father’s cabin. To Nik’s ghost. To hiding who I am for a life that’s less than mine to live.
Instead, it’s more than I ever dared to dream.
