Chapter five: 1528
The high chamber of the Inner Court still smelled of ash.
They'd burned more incense than necessary—six sticks instead of three, under the pretense of purification. But it was not for the king. It was for what came after him.
For what had already come.
Lady Eirn was the first to speak, fingers drumming the lacquered table like a slow procession of knives.
"So. She kneels in the square, and the people follow."
A pause.
"One nun," he said. "And a city listens."
"The Church has always drawn the superstitious," said Counsellor Merain, voice sharp as her ring. "They flock to grief like crows to gutters. It will pass."
"It won't," came a voice from the corner—soft, and slow. Councilor Bethan. Old. Ill, perhaps, but rarely wrong. "She didn't preach. She didn't promise. She named them. That is what they fear. That is why they knelt."
A silence settled. Thick. Watching itself.
"Has the princess seen it?" Merain asked, already knowing the answer.
"She's read the letter."
"And?"
"Still in mourning. She has not spoken."
Lady Eirn leaned forward, her voice a cold needle.
"Then someone else must."
Councilor Bethan shifted in her seat.
"You want to silence the
"She is not of Acacia," Merain said. "She was sent from Sera. Appointed—not born."
"And yet she stands where none of us did."
That silenced him.
The fire crackled. Not one of them met the others' eyes.
"The people are beginning to believe," Bethan whispered. "Not in Ashera. In her. In the sound of certainty."
"Then we remove her from the square," Merain said flatly. "Transfer her. Close the church under renovation claims. No open rites. No night processions. Let her rot behind holy walls."
"And if she resists?"
"She won't," said Darion. "The Church obeys chain of command. The high clergy in Sera will leash her if we ask the right way."
A low sound from Bethan: not a laugh, not quite.
"You think Sera holds her leash?"
She looked to the west window. Past it, the great avenue, still flickering with leftover candles from the evening procession. So many had stayed lit, even against the frost.
"You're not afraid of the Church," she said. "You're afraid the people have started listening to someone who doesn't ask your permission."
A silence bloomed.
"If the princess does not claim the crown soon," Bethan finished, "someone else will claim what it stands for."
No one answered.
They did not need to.
—-
Winnifred
I did not sleep.
Sleep is for children. And I have not been one in a long time. Not since I first learned how heavy the crown felt in someone else's hands. Not since my brother began to teach me how to speak like a royal without being one.
I was not raised for this. I was raised to soften things. I was a balm between wars, a daughter kept in silks and ceremonial shadows. Armett was the flame. I was the warmth that followed.
But they took him.
And the gods, in all their wisdom, left me behind.
I walk the edges of the mourning room, quiet as a ghost. The hem of my gown whispers against the floor, and my shadow follows me like a second spine. Every corner of this palace still echoes with him. His laughter. His temper. His ridiculous, half-braided hair when he had no patience to finish combing it.
They cast my father for rites. Swiftly. Swifter than tradition allowed. No reason was offered. No one tells me anything unless I ask.
The Council called it mourning protocol. The Church murmured of holy timing. The servants kept their heads low—and their mouths closed.
But I know what it is.
It's fear. The city is shifting, and I've stayed silent too long.
Kiara's letter sits unopened on my writing desk. I do not need to read it again. I already know what it says.
If the crown fears its own weight, others will carry it.
She doesn't threaten me. She doesn't have to. I can feel her presence outside these walls—cutting through silence like a bell in fog. She moves like someone who knows the world will end, and wants to choose which parts deserve to survive.
I envy her.
She burns. I smolder.
A knock on the chamber door pulls me out of my thoughts.
"Your Highness," Eloise murmurs, voice careful. "The Council has requested word again. Will you attend tomorrow's court?"
"They always request."
"Shall I prepare the mourning veil?"
I look at it—still hung on its iron hook, black and breathless. I haven't touched it since the burial.
"No," I say. "The veil is for the dead."
"And you?"
"I'm not dead," I whisper. "But I'm not… ready, either."
Ready. What does that mean now? My father is cold in the earth. My brother is ash. The weight of the crown sits in its iron chest, watching me. I've never even tried it on.
I press my palms to my ribs. The pressure helps. I can't explain it. The crown does not sit on the head. It presses on the spine. The lungs. It shortens breath before it grants voice.
"They believe Kiara," I say suddenly.
"She gave them certainty," Eloise answers.
"And what do I give them?"
"The truth."
Truth. That I'm not enough. That I still mourn. That I am afraid. That I want to run and I can't. That I walk through the halls like a portrait come to life—painted, preserved, and utterly hollow.
But if I don't speak, someone else will.
If I don't stand, they'll forget I still have legs.
"Tell them I'll attend court," I say. "At first bell."
Eloise bows.
I hear her footsteps fade.
Alone again, I return to the chest. The crown sleeps inside, veiled in cloth. I do not touch it.
I simply watch.
And somewhere far below my window, the city holds its breath.
------
First Bell, Still Dark
I heard them before I entered.
Murmurs scraped against marble. Gowns rustled like dry leaves. Somewhere, a chair leg scratched stone—sharp, deliberate, insolent.
The royal court had grown bolder in the dark.
They did not think I would come. And if I did, they thought I would falter.
Let them.
Eloise fastened the clasp at my throat without a word. She had chosen a storm-gray gown—simple, sharp lines. No jewels. No veil. No gilded mourning colors. Just a woman's form, standing where no one thought she would.
The doors opened.
Cold air met me first, then eyes.
I stepped into the chamber with my chin high. My hands did not tremble. My voice would not either.
The council table lay ahead. Ten men and women—old, powdered, draped in titles that outlived their usefulness. Behind them stood scribes, aides, ambitious little insects with sharp pens. Around the gallery: nobles, merchants, a few generals. All with their own gods. Their own debts.
They had all come to see the girl who would not wear the crown.
"Princess Winnifred," Chancellor Merain said, standing.
His voice was the kind that liked to fill empty rooms. "We thank you for gracing the court. Your presence brings clarity in uncertain times."
"Does it?" I said. My voice rang against the marble like a blade unsheathed. "Then let me speak clearly."
A ripple moved through the court. Whispers. One cough. No interruption.
"My father lies buried. My brother lies in a grave no one speaks of. I have not yet taken the crown. And still—some of you speak of vacancy. Of failure. Of letting faith fill the throne instead of blood."
Merain's smile twitched, just slightly.
"We seek stability, Your Highness."
"No," I said. "You seek power. And you believe I am too young. Too untested. Too silent to hold it."
A pause.
I let it stretch. Let them feel how still I could be. How calm.
"But I have been watching. While you argued over who might guide me, I buried my family. While you attended sermons and spectacles, I sat with every letter my brother left behind. While you waited for me to kneel, I stood."
A nobleman near the rear—House of Aradel, a thorny little dynasty—shifted in his seat.
"We do not question your sorrow, only your—"
"My silence?" I turned toward him. "You think grief is a weakness. That a crown cannot be carried by hands that tremble. But it's the trembling that keeps it honest."
I stepped forward, one pace. Then another.
"You want a queen who will speak when spoken to. Who will sign what you place before her. You want a figurehead."
Now I stood beside the council dais. Close enough to see the ink stains on Bathan's cuffs.
"But you will not have one. I may not have been raised for this. But I am all that remains. And I do not bow."
Gasps rippled. I heard my own heartbeat beneath them.
"If you will not crown me, then say so. Say it plainly, to my face. Deny your sovereign. Deny my blood. Deny the will of the last king, who named me his heir with breath half-spent."
No one spoke.
Even Merain said nothing.
"Then let it be known," I said. "The silence is broken."
I turned and walked back down the hall—not fast, not proud. Just steady.
Like someone with the weight of a kingdom already on her back.
Moments After Winnifred's Exit
The sound of the great hall doors closing echoed like the slap of judgment.
Merain did not move.
Neither did the others—at first.
The nobles kept their masks on, as trained. Those closest to the council table exchanged cautious glances. A few scribes ducked their heads, quills frozen. No one dared to speak first.
Until councilor Bethan, the wine-eyed old fox from the eastern vineyards, leaned back in his chair with a sigh sharp as steel.
"Well," he said, folding his gloved hands, "that was not a girl who plans to share."
"She spoke as a monarch," muttered Lady Eirn of the merchant coast, fingers drumming her fan's handle. "But not as a tactician."
"She spoke as her father would have," said by councilor Merain, blunt and iron-sure. "And you all praised him for it. When it suited you."
Merain finally drew in a breath.
"She was not supposed to speak at all," he said quietly.
"But she did," replied Lady Eirn. "And now the court listens."
Silence again.
The old councelor was dangerous. Not because he was loud, but because he only backed winners.
And this morning, he had backed the girl.
Lord Bethan gave Merain a sideways look.
"You gambled on Kiara, didn't you?"
"I gambled on order," Merain answered, sharper than intended. "One cannot rule a bleeding kingdom with sentiment."
"Nor with fire," said Lady Lin-mae. "Kiara's little performance yesterday may have frightened the weak, but the rest of us saw it for what it was."
"A parlor trick," Therain agreed. "Dramatic. Dangerous. And oh, so very timely."
"You think she staged it?"
"I think," he said, "that faith is a powerful leash. And Kiara is not the one wearing it."
Another pause. One of the younger councilors coughed.
"Then what now?"
Merain straightened, finally reclaiming the room with the sheer force of practiced arrogance.
"Now?" he said. "We test the girl's resolve."
"You mean challenge her?"
"No. We praise her."
The room blinked.
"We kneel, we bless, we nod. And while she parades her grief in front of the people, we place hands on the levers she cannot yet see."
Lady Lin-mae narrowed her eyes.
"You underestimate her."
"No," said Merain. "I know her. She is still mourning. She still doubts. She may have the voice now—but the crown is a slow poison. It rots the lonely. And she is profoundly alone."
Therain chuckled, bitterly.
"We all are, Chancellor. That's the price of surviving kings."
—-
Winnifred
I walked until the frost bit through velvet.
Past the corridors, past the chapel doors and guards who dared not follow. The west garden lay open like a wound beneath the dawn—silent, raw, skeletal. The roses had already begun to die. The air smelled of damp stone and brittle leaves.
And she was there.
The statue.
I walked until the frost bit through velvet.
Past the corridors, past the chapel doors and guards who dared not follow. The east garden lay open like a wound beneath the dawn—silent, raw, skeletal. The roses had already begun to die. The air smelled of damp stone and brittle leaves.
And she was there.
The statue.
A woman cast in pale marble, her arms lifted toward a sky that had long since stopped listening. She had no face. No eyes. No mouth. Just the echo of a sorrow someone once thought too sacred to sculpt.
I stood beneath her and said nothing.
It was easier that way.
I heard him before I saw him. Boots on gravel, slow and certain.
Of course he followed.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, not turning.
"I never left."
His voice—quiet, always. Like he was afraid of startling something in me I didn't know how to name.
"You saw what they did."
"I saw what you did."
I clenched my fists inside my sleeves. My nails bit skin.
"They want someone who bends. Who weeps on command and signs what they place in front of her. I gave them steel and silence."
"You gave them a queen."
"No," I said, turning at last. "I gave them fear."
His eyes held me like they always did—steady, unyielding, warm in a way I hated. Because it made me feel seen.
"You don't have to carry it alone."
"Yes, I do."
It came out sharper than I meant. My throat tightened, but I wouldn't let it show.
"Don't you understand? If I fall, there's nothing left. No line. No heir. No one to stop them from carving up this kingdom like meat on a plate."
He said nothing. Just watched me like he always had, like he always would.
"I don't want your comfort," I spat. "I don't want your sympathy. I don't want the way you look at me—like I'm still someone who can be saved."
I turned back to the statue, breathing hard.
She didn't flinch. Of course not. She had no face to weep with.
"Maybe that's why they made her faceless," I whispered. "Because sorrow is easier to worship when you can't see it."
He came to stand beside me.
Not touching. Just present.
I didn't thank him.
I didn't need to.
We stood there for a long time—me, him, and the stone woman who never looked away.
I should have left. Should have turned on my heel, found the nearest hall and pretended nothing cracked open in me when I stood beneath her—this faceless woman, arms to the heavens like a warning.
But my feet would not move.
The wind shifted slightly, enough to lift the edge of my cloak. I pulled it tighter—not from cold, but instinct. A shield I could still control.
"You're still here," I said.
"I am."
"Even after I pushed you away."
"You didn't."
I turned to him, tired of riddles.
"Then what would you call it?"
He met my eyes. There was no accusation in his gaze—just weight, calm and unbearably patient.
"You're drowning. And every time I throw you a rope, you spit seawater and pretend you're flying."
I looked away.
He'd never spoken like that before. Not to me.
"You think you know me," I muttered.
"I don't. But I stay because I want to."
I didn't answer. I didn't know how. There were parts of me I'd sealed off so long ago, I forgot where the locks were. Even now, as the grief curdled into rage, as the crown hung over my head like a blade not yet dropped, I could not let him in.
Not fully.
"They're going to turn on me," I said softly. "The council. The nobles. All of them. They'll do it with polished words and paper smiles, but they'll turn."
"Then let them," Raphael said. "Let them show their teeth. It'll be the last thing they ever do."
I almost laughed. Almost.
"You think I can win this with fire and pride?"
"No. But I think they've never seen someone willing to bleed for her people without asking to be loved for it."
That pierced deeper than I wanted it to.
Because I didn't want to be loved.
I wanted to be obeyed. To be respected. To survive.
The statue loomed over us, silent and blind.
"Do you know her name?" I asked.
Raphael glanced up. "The stone woman?"
"I used to think she was some forgotten goddess. But one of the old priests once told me she was just a mourning mother. Her child was sent to war by a king who promised her glory. The child never returned. The mother never moved again."
"So the king had her carved like this?"
"No. The people did."
He was quiet for a while.
"They remembered her grief."
"No," I said. "They remembered what they did to cause it."
The wind howled through the garden like a warning.
I looked at him. This man who had followed me through fire, who never asked for anything. Who stayed. Still.
"If I lose myself in this... crown... will you still follow?"
"If you lose yourself," he said, "I'll find you."
It was too much.
Too close.
Too kind.
I turned away again before he could see whatever cracked in my expression. The statue didn't move. Neither did he.
We stood like that—three figures, frozen in time. One of stone, one of loyalty, and one of slowly breaking glass.
—---
They were already seated when I returned.
Silks and brocade. Gold ink and old bones. The great table of court glinted under the morning frost that still clung to the marble windows. Frost inside stone—it felt fitting.
They rose when I entered, but the gesture meant nothing. Respect offered like a grim ritual, not earned. Not yet.
I did not sit.
"Bring the map," I said.
Councilor Merain blinked. "Princess—"
"Now."
A pause, then motion. The attendants unfurled the parchment across the table. Borders drawn in pale ink. Red markers where they'd last reported Jhaljie movement. Whole swathes of the northeast lay blank—no letters, no merchants, no grain. Silence was more dangerous than war.
"The food supplies in the inner cities are thinning," said Lady Mara. "With the borders closed and the river ports watched, we're feeding soldiers from the winter storehouses."
"Then cut the court's ration," I replied. "Let the halls go without a feast."
"Your Highness," said another, "you would turn nobility against you for gruel?"
"Then let them know the taste of loyalty."
I leaned over the map, fingers pressing the east valley pass.
"They think we're fractured. That we'll stall until famine does their work for them. That the death of the king has left us blind. But they forget—we are not blind. We are waiting. And now we move."
I looked up, voice steel.
"We send supply envoys south and east—under guard. The grain levies on the outer fiefs will resume, but a fifth of that will be paid in coin. Use it to pay the Seraian brokers to open a passage through the mountain corridor. They won't love it. They will love our silver more."
A flicker of surprise passed through the council.
"We cannot fund both food and war," said Chancellor Bethan. "The debts to the noble houses—"
"Will be renegotiated." I held his gaze. "Let them choose. Coin or favor. No house gets both."
Silence.
No one expected me to speak like this.
I didn't care.
"And the prisoner?" asked Lady Eirn.
"Tashi."
His name tasted of ash. Even now, it scorched the back of my throat.
"The people believe he sits in comfort. That we stall. Let them see we do not."
I let silence unfurl—slow, deliberate. Let them squirm in it.
"He will be executed. At sundown. Publicly. Let it be known: treachery will be met with consequence."
A rustle of unease passed through the chamber. Lady Lin-mae leaned forward, pen poised above parchment, fingers drumming.
"With respect, Your Majesty… must it be so swift? He was once a lord of the realm. The nobles—"
"—can keep their discomfort," I said. "He raised a blade against the crown. That title is ash."
Councelor Bethan cleared his throat, his tone measured. "A public execution may incite further unrest. The Jhaljie clan still holds arms at the border. Perhaps a trial—"
"No." I met his eyes. "There will be no theater of justice. The people have already buried their sons. We owe them clarity, not ritual."
Lady Eirn tried again, quieter. "And the child who…?"
"Will not be punished," I said, voice clipped. "Let the gods judge his heart. We will not."
The council stilled.
So be it.
They would not bear the blade. I would.
A breath, then another.
"Prepare the procession. Let the people see the crown is not waiting to be placed. It is already worn."
I finally sat.
My spine ached. My temples throbbed. My body screamed for rest. But none of it showed. I wouldn't let it.
I spoke once more, softer—but no less certain.
"War has already begun. We only now speak its name aloud."