Chapter 15
Nik stood among his family in the recesses of the Grand Arena—a place he’d never thought he would be.
He’d watched recordings of the Proving competitions and Challenges held here before, but only in school.
Such showings had been treats on special days, and he’d enjoyed them as much as any other child.
They’d each picked their champion and rooted for them, wagering pieces of candy or time on the slide on the playground on who would win.
Raf had gotten so angry with Nik for choosing the winner every time.
And Nik had just rolled his eyes and laughed.
Because had anyone bothered to check the history books, they too could have known in advance who would win—with the exception of the two new Challenges there tended to be each year.
Each seat on the High Council had been won through the Proving.
And of course, there’d been the event two hundred fifty years before when Axel had Challenged the previous king and begun a new dynasty.
From this shadowed hallway they had a view of the enormous ice rink that would soon be filled with couples dancing on their skates.
Food and drink vendors would circulate both on the ice and in the stands.
The scents of roasted meats and potatoes already filled the air, making Nik’s mouth water and his stomach rumble.
“The stands are nearly full,” his mother said from the opening, where she peered out without leaving the concealing darkness. “Though how the thanes will even see anything all the way up in the high seats, I don’t know.”
“They won’t.” Daemon stood a few paces behind Elianne, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face that made it clear he was only here because the rest of them had insisted on coming.
“No one cares if they can see. Aside from the three dozen given roses to throw when they bend the knee, they’re only here because the arena holds more people than there are Fjorders in Reykstoll. Probably charged them an entrance fee.”
Those three dozen ceremonial thanes were stationed at regular intervals around the rink, and the ones Nik could see looked a combination of excited and lonely, sitting in the third row amongst the Fjorders who pointedly ignored them.
He edged a bit closer to the opening. The first row was, of course, reserved for the Blessed. After the Challenge was shown, it would be their job to start the rest of the ceremony. They’d have to gather all their power and push it at Kyrja, and she’d defend and deflect, proving her might.
He knew she was nervous about it, given the training sessions she’d apparently had with her brother for thirty years, mimicking this very thing…and at which she’d always failed.
But she wouldn’t tonight. He knew she wouldn’t.
He’d felt the surge as the crown touched her head and the Song sang through the entire Grand Kyrka—he suspected everyone in Fjordlandi had felt it.
There had been a shift in the very air, and in the ground beneath them.
Most likely in the springs that underscored the continent, but Nik hadn’t been able to feel that.
But those streams crisscrossed what he could feel, the magma in its courses.
She would defend herself easily, turning their ice and snow into confetti.
They would bend the knee. Then the Fjorders would lob the snowballs they’d been issued upon entering, and she’d knock those from the air too, then they would bend the knee.
Then the thanes would throw their thirty-six white roses onto the rink, Kyrja would skate around to pick them up, and all the rest of the arena would bend the knee as she made her circuit.
When she returned to the ice throne, the ball would begin.
He scanned the rows of grim-faced Blessed.
Ordinarily, the opening dance would be between the new monarch and the highest-ranking Blessed of the opposite gender, so far as they’d been able to tell from their reading.
Usually that meant someone on the High Council, but in this case…
his eyes latched onto the face they’d found in their research yesterday—Ivar Emilsson.
The man who’d plowed into Nik when he’d been standing on the Ice Bridge that first day, he’d recognized him at a glance.
Brother of one of the deposed Counselors, ranked fourteenth in strength among the Blessed after the prince and princess’s deaths.
Handy of them to insist on always having the Blessed ranked. Minor Challenges could be held to adjust the ranking any time a Blessed requested it, which happened several times a year. Those weren’t nearly as serious as the official Challenges, of course. But they served their purpose.
Nik eyed up the man who would no doubt soon be vying for a seat on Kyrja’s High Council. Ivar’s face was, of course, entirely impassive. Perfectly chiseled.
What ambitions raged beneath the calm? Would he be content for one of those seats? Or would he think to Challenge Kyrja?
So far as they could find, no one had ever overpowered a newly coronated monarch in this show. And they surely wouldn’t really try to after seeing how easily she’d subdued the thirteen strongest Blessed, all at once.
Pride swelled in his chest. Silly, perhaps. What right did he have to feel so proud of her? It wasn’t as though he’d had anything to do with her Blessing.
Even so. She was his friend, a friend who had sought his counsel when he sat freezing in a prison cell. A friend who had listened, and who had risked everything she had to help him reclaim his life. A friend who had first Awakened new life in him.
Sometimes, when he looked at her, he could still feel the burn of her blood in his veins.
It acted like a magnet, pulling him to her side, making him reach for her hand when he knew well he shouldn’t.
What claim did he have on her, his new queen?
What right to do such things? None. He knew that.
Knew it, but still his fingers kept reaching and finding hers whenever they were in the same room, and he couldn’t chide himself much for it when she gripped his hand and clung.
He wished he was beside her now, there to offer his palm, if she needed it.
The lights in the arena dimmed, then spotlights fell on the far side, opposite their hidden tunnel, where skaters would usually wait with push-brooms during events to clear snow off the ice made by contenders’ skates. And their magic.
Kyrja emerged from the tunnel opposite theirs, the First Seat of the Great Council at her side. Arne Jakobsson—a Fjorder, of course, but not Awakened—was a bear of a man, and he’d been dubious at best about her claims before Henrik had showed him the recording of the Challenges within Helviti.
While Kyrja sat on the Ice Throne, Arne strode to the middle of the rink so his voice would carry to every seat—even the thanes up so high.
“Fjordic friends, we welcome you tonight to a celebration held so rarely in our great land. A night where we honor a new queen. Those of us there for the coronation ceremony beheld a sight that hasn’t been seen in five hundred years—the Song of Snow within the crystal columns of the Grand Kyrka. ”
“I wish I’d been there to see it,” Nik’s mother murmured from where she’d drifted to his side.
“It was breathtaking,” Nik said, keeping his eyes focused on Kyrja. She’d ditched the voluminous cloak but he couldn’t tell from here what she wore now. No doubt something in Fjordlandi’s state colors of white and silver, with ice-blue accents.
Arne continued, turning in a circle. “Our new queen rose victorious from an unprecedented thirteen simultaneous Challenges. A claim so bold I doubted its truth—and I’m certain you all doubt it as well. So before the ceremony begins, behold! The official court recording of the Challenges!”
The lights went out, and then a crystal reader cast out its three-dimensional display onto the floor of the rink, where Arne was scurrying out of the way.
Nik was once again in the throat of Helviti, the recorder having perfectly captured the scale of it, the way waves of heat distorted the view, though of course it couldn’t convey the feel of that heat.
He knew the entire event had been recorded, but the display tonight picked up with Isidor forming a giant ball of ice in his hand, glaring at Kyrja.
His recorded voice boomed over the assembly. “Council, I move to strike the Heir from her position by Rite of Challenge.”
“So stricken,” someone said.
Projected-Kyrja planted her feet shoulder width apart. “You mean ‘so moved.’ I need to lose the Challenge before I can be stricken—and if I win, it is you who will stand deposed, Fodur. Count your costs before you do this.”
Nik watched, enraptured, as the events played out—events he’d seen only the aftermath of.
While this was happening the other day, he’d been trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he was standing on lava without being burned, that while his clothes turned to ash, his skin not only didn’t, it felt new.
As if the molten rock welcomed him. That when he lifted a hand, magma rose to meet him.
The recording cut off before Daemon appeared, just after the members of the Vektor Guard had recognized her win.
As it should—the existence of the Aflame was something the people would need to learn soon, but not tonight.
Tonight was for Kyrja, as he’d told her in the kyrka.
Tonight all the awe of her people should be directed squarely upon her, where it belonged.
Even down here in the tunnel, he could hear the murmurs, the exclamations, feel the rumbling of ten thousand amazed people.
Arne had made his way, during the replay, to the throne, clearing the rink. The light came back up, and Nik shifted along with the rest of the assembly. The evidence of the Challenges spoke for themselves. Now the ceremony would begin. The crowd fell silent.