Chapter 6 #2
Mother. She wasn’t certain how she knew, it wasn’t as though the mosaic of glass portrayed the ages of either of them.
But something about the curve of the woman’s back, the sorrow on her face reminded her of Mamma, when Kyrja had caught her crying, years ago.
Something about her and her siblings, but she didn’t know why, even now.
Perhaps when Fodur had ordered Kyrja to move into separate quarters.
Or when Krystiana had been sent off for a year to survey their eastern defenses in response to a threat from Ellas.
Or when Einar had reformed the prison systems.
Kyrja hadn’t understood her mother’s distress about that at the time.
She did now. Even as her heart insisted that Einar—encouraging, fair-minded Einar—could not possibly have intended for the place to be one of such complete misery.
Yet when she’d stepped foot in there for the first time today, everything about it had been a shock to her system.
The state of the ice, yes. The poor prisoners half-frozen within.
But just as surprising had been the building itself.
She’d known it was fed by a network of springs, for maintaining the cells’ bars.
But sensing them had been extraordinarily difficult, and sensing anything outside them was all but impossible.
She’d thought at first it was just the thickness of the stone, but that couldn’t be it.
Stone alone didn’t dampen the Blessing. She’d poked and prodded with her senses until she’d finally realized there must be veins of crystal worked into the very foundations, the walls, everywhere.
The implications were staggering. Because the only reason to create such a thing was to use it against the Blessed. Which meant that, at some point in Fjordlandi’s history, those Blessed hadn’t been above the law. She stared at the stained glass, still trying to wrap her mind around that.
“Beautiful work, isn’t it? That window is over eight hundred years old, original to the building.”
Startled, Kyrja released her hold on the clouds and let the sunlight wink away, spinning to see who had caught her playing with the light.
An old dominie padded from a room attached to the back—front?—of this chamber, a smile on his face that froze when she looked up. Then eased again. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I would bow, but I’m afraid these old bones would never recover from it.”
She should have left the ice tiara at home—would have, had she thought to.
But Fodur had drilled into her all her life that she was never not a princess.
If she left her room, it was as a royal, and so she must look the part.
The accessory had become second nature, and it was so light she forgot it was there most of the time anyway.
His apology she waved away. “Unnecessary anyway. I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Never, Highness. All are welcome here, though few can afford to come for anything more than a moment of sightseeing.”
She’d surely frowned more in the last four days than in the previous four years combined. “Afford?”
He continued his slow padding toward her—and didn’t look surprised by the question. “Of course. The pew tax—it’s little enough for the Fjorders, who never want to attend, but too steep for the thanes, who would if they could.”
“Pew tax.” She’d never even heard of such a thing. “If it’s prohibitive, why don’t you lower it?”
Now he blinked at her. “It isn’t the kyrka that sets the tax, Highness. There is only one man in the land who can levy taxes.”
Fodur? Why would he…
Never mind. His hatred of the ancient faith was no secret. She sighed. “May I sit?” She’d been on her feet all day, aside from those few minutes on the prison floor.
“Please, make yourself comfortable. Can I assist you, or did you simply need some quiet with our Giver? If the latter, I can leave you in peace.” The dominie stopped halfway between the front bench—pew?—and the gilded steps he’d just come down.
Kyrja sat. “I…don’t know.” The questions she’d come here to ask suddenly seemed ridiculous. She was a Blessed, a royal—the Heir now. How could she be wrestling with something Fodur dismissed so easily? “I suppose I just wanted to make certain everything is in order for tomorrow.”
The dominie inclined his bald head. “Down to the last detail. Your mother had the arrangements drawn up many years ago, and we had only to review the documents to know her wishes. My wife and I have been working on them since the moment we received the horrible news. Though allow me to extend my deepest condolences. Our hearts broke when we heard that not only was she the victim of the explosion, but your siblings as well.”
He might as well have punched her. No one at the palace had offered condolences—condolences meant emotion. Feeling. Weakness. They gave none, assuming she wanted none.
She hadn’t realized how much she craved it, required it, until just now. “Thank you.”
The old man hesitated a moment more, edged a step closer.
“If I may be so bold, Your Highness. The Words say that the Giver is always near to a broken heart and a contrite spirit. You need only to reach out your hand” —He held out his, palm up, fingers bent— “and he will grasp it. You need never be alone. His deepest desire is to be with you.”
As if it were that simple. Just reach out.
A metaphor, she knew. But as the old dominie turned back toward the room he’d come from, clearly meaning to give her that peace whether she asked for it or not, she couldn’t resist mirroring the movement of his hand. Duplicating it, because one hand didn’t seem enough for a bridge to Himmel.
The Giver. She’d heard Mamma pray many times, but Kyrja had never dared. Somehow Fodur would know. And he’d punish her for it.
Just now, she didn’t care. What could he do? He was stuck with her. He needed her, whether he liked it or not. And besides, even the Ice King couldn’t read minds.
Giver, I pray my mother is with you now, in spirit. I trust that she is. She said you know me, that you love me. That you desire the best for me—for all of us. If her words were true, if yours are…then please show me. If you are truly the Love that she claimed, then I need you.
She sifted through her memories, searching for every stray word Mamma had spoken of her Giver. A sentence here, a few fragments there. She pieced them together like a window mosaic, thirty years of fractured faith.
She said that to be your beloved, we must admit we have done wrong.
That alone, we can never make it right, that the cost is too high.
But that you already made atonement. Her gaze tracked to the window with the bent mother and broken son.
The sacrifice, that was what Mamma had called it.
A perfect son, given up for imperfect humanity. One who died yet still lived.
Impossible. Illogical. Forbidden.
Fodur’s voice, echoing always in her mind like thunder.
But he wasn’t here. Had clearly never felt so empty inside, so alone and frightened and desperate for something greater than himself to believe in.
What made Fodur so certain he was right, anyway? This kyrka had been built eight hundred years ago, presumably by a former Fjordic king. Why would he do so, if he didn’t believe? What made that king wrong and this king right, if kings were inerrant, as Fodur claimed?
You are weak, he accused in her mind. Too weak for this role. Too weak to rule.
It was true. She knew it. She was too weak…on her own.
But what if the dominie was right, and she didn’t have to be alone? What if there really was a Giver in his Himmel, waiting to take her by the hand? To fill her empty places, strengthen her weakness, welcome her as a daughter, even as she mourned her mother.
If you are there, Giver, I am here. I am yours. You will have to teach me, but I will learn. Please, just don’t leave me here alone.
Music drifted into her awareness, so softly she scarcely noticed it at first. The old dominie or his wife must have turned on a crystal with the haunting melody recorded, hooked up to play throughout the entire building. It came from all directions, a gentle serenade.
Snow falling. Wind chimes. The soft touch of frost on a pane of glass.
Or on the columns of crystal where the dominie had paused upon recognizing her, at the base of the four steps.
They arched upward, meeting in a point at the highest part of the ornate ceiling.
But where before she was certain the crystal had been clear as the goblets she used every day, now they hosted a dance inside.
Snow, ice, frost. All swirled within them, drawing upon the surfaces as Kyrja did upon fabric or walls, but with far more detail, more skill. Erasing as soon as a picture was complete, then shifting into a new one, crystal by crystal, while the snow danced behind it.
“Breathtaking.” She looked around to see what Blessed had come in to create such art—but whoever it was must be in a back room, perhaps wanting to avoid notice.
He or she certainly wasn’t out here with Kyrja.
Curious, she reached her ice-sense toward it.
She had only to touch the work of another Blessed to know them.
But that was odd—she could sense nothing within the columns.
Not only the absence of a magical signature, but the water itself was beyond her reach.
Crystal could cut off one’s magic, yes, like in the prison.
But to do so this completely, the arch must be fully sealed. Isolated. But if so, then who…how…?
The dominie rushed out, quickly enough to suggest his earlier toddle had been put on, and skidded to a halt under the columns. He tilted his head back so far she feared he’d topple over, splaying a hand over his gray-clad chest.
She began to suspect that the music was not of his making, and that he’d never before seen such a display in the columns. “Dominie?”
He lowered his head slowly, wide-eyed gaze settling on her with something raw and dangerous and unmasked. Something hopeful. He dropped to one knee without any hesitation now, head bowing. “Majesty.”
Kyrja shot to her feet, hands out. “Are you daft? Only my father can be called—”
“Only the anointed of the Giver can be called that—an anointing displayed by these channels, which have been silent for five hundred years.”
A shiver blew up her spine. “You must be mistaken.”
“I am not.” He didn’t stand, but he lifted his face. Met her gaze.
She stumbled back a step at the intensity in his, hot as a flame. Her legs hit the bench, but rather than sit, she reached out to steady herself on the pew’s side.
“Your father stood in this kyrka for his coronation, but the channels were silent, as they were for his father before him, and for the previous king as well. Between the Proving and the Challenges, our nation has a means for deciding who will rule, but for centuries, we have been ignoring the one vote that matters most—and the Giver has allowed the apostasy. He knows that faith not freely chosen is no faith at all.” He lifted his arms, held out and up, toward the still-singing columns.
“But at last, the Giver has spoken. He has shown us the queen he has chosen. You, Your Majesty, have been anointed to lead Fjordlandi into a new era.”
She edged around the pew, still gripping the side so tightly her knuckles went white. As did the wood, as her frost crept over it. “Quiet.” She craned around, fully expecting Fodur or his Vektors to stomp in and arrest the old man. Arrest her. “You mustn’t say such things. They are treason.”
His nostrils flared, eyes burning all the brighter. “To not say them would be blasphemy. I would rather stand condemned before a pretender-king than before the Giver.”
A backward step, another. “If you say such things in my father’s hearing tomorrow, you’ll bring trouble down on both our heads. If you truly believe this, then bide your time. I am the Heir now—that must be what this sign is for. A blessing upon my new position. An encouragement.”
The dominie rose to his feet without a wobble, without a wince, without a creak of his supposedly-old bones.
“The Song does not come for the Heir. The Song comes for the Crown.” He leveled a finger at her chest. “You, Valkyrja Isidordottir, are our queen, in truth if not yet in deed. And when you seize that crown, you will have the backing of the kyrka and the dominies.”
Sixty old men? Powerless, without a Blessing? What could their backing really give, if ever she were insane enough to make a Challenge and a grab for the throne?
Insanity. Madness.
Terror.