Chapter 16 Meryn
MERYN
All the Bonded jump to their feet so quickly, weapons drawn, that it takes me a moment to realize what’s happening.
It’s the direwolves. They stream into the throne room en masse. There must be at least fifty of them, claws clicking loudly on the shining marble. Their presence looms over everyone as they fill up the room—heads high, eyes gleaming, muscles rippling with their graceful movements.
The nobles draw back in fear. Gasps and whispers ripple through the crowd as they whirl around, craning to watch the procession as it overwhelms the borders of the room.
Some of my wolfish viciousness returns, watching the power shift. I have a flicker of satisfaction at their discomfort. Good, I think. Let them be the vulnerable ones for once.
Even nobles who attended the Trials were seated far away from the direwolves, watching the events at a remove. This is the closest most of them have come to the wolves, and certainly to this many. I’m proud to see that the common people temper their reactions.
Some of the wolves are the companions to the Bonded at the ceremony. But I know others have not taken riders yet. Bounding playfully among them are four direwolf pups, one in each pack color.
Saela gasps in joy. “Cute,” she squeals.
“What is this?” I quickly ask Anassa.
It takes a moment for her to respond, but she sends me her emotions. She’s awed, humbled. Deeply touched. “They have come to show their respect and loyalty to us as the royal pair.”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I weave my fingers through her coarse fur.
When the last wolf has entered, barely contained within the boundaries of the hall, Anassa moves to stand before the throne. She lifts her massive silver-white head, her muscles ripple, and she tilts her muzzle back in a haunting howl.
The sound is the ghosts of all our losses, the echo of the Sturmfrost Queens, and it moves through the throne room like a wave. It wakes the voice of the other wolves. They reply in kind, howling in unity. Their song echoes over the vaulted ceiling and rattles me to my core.
The nobles watch, speechless, as the wolves fall silent and begin to move as one. The direwolves bow deeply, first to Anassa, then to me. Then, as swiftly and surprisingly as they entered, the wolves file out of the throne room.
The Mother Priestess clears her throat, redirecting the crowd’s attention to me. “Long live the queen!” she calls out.
The assembly rises, nobles and Bonded and common people calling out in a unison far messier than the wolves’.
“Long live the queen!”
The words ring hollow.
Coronation day is endless, blending into night in a long blur.
When I first swept into the central ballroom, trailed by Anassa and Saela and Siegrid and the rest of my entourage, the light of the thousands of flickering candles and sparkling chandeliers struck me with its beauty.
Now, hours later, the dancing lights are like a thousand tiny pinpricks in my eyes, accentuating the headache that’s continued to throb dully at my temples.
Anassa left with the rest of the direwolves hours ago, instinct calling her to hunt. She told me she wanted to make a new coronation tradition for the wolves, since all the traditions from the Sturmfrost era had been forgotten.
Occasionally I get a flash of awareness from her as they bound through the snow, skirting around Mount Wolfsbane to the deeper forests—and bigger game—beyond.
Lucky bitch.
Unfortunately, the recent coronation traditions from the Valtieres haven’t been forgotten. The tables in the central ballroom circle around a cleared area, where seven dancers from the city are engaged in a “special performance.”
That’s what Matron Alienor called it when she insisted we needed to have it, that the nobles would expect it.
The “special performance” is some sort of erotic striptease.
The dancers are all stunningly beautiful and talented. I’m in awe of their physicality. But…
“Is this appropriate for a coronation meal?” Izabel says, coming behind me where I sit at the head table. The table has been covered in dish after dish of food. We’ve been eating for hours, one exquisite, absurd, rich thing after another.
We watch together as one of the dancers bends over, wraps her legs around her head and exposes her—thankfully, covered—crotch to a table of practically panting nobles.
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I mutter as one of the other dancers goes onto her toes.
The woman next to her grabs the first dancer’s dress and spins her.
The first dancer pirouettes around the room, her dress unraveling as she goes until she’s in only pasties and glittering bottoms. She ends her move in the splits, and several of the noblemen whistle.
“She’s really flexible,” Saela says innocently through a mouth full of venison.
She can eat regular food, another thing we learned from Aldrich’s research, although only blood will provide her sustenance. Food is just meant for pleasure. And for someone rarely exposed to these kinds of meals, Saela is delighted by all her options.
“Do me a favor,” I tell Izabel. “Find out how much Matron Alienor is paying these women and triple it?”
“Done,” she says. “I was coming to let you know that the greeting procession is about to begin.”
I sigh as a long line of nobles forms at the stairs to our dais. “On it, thanks.”
Siegrid’s work has been a victory—the nobles are lining up to greet me, pay respects to their new queen. Everything is going as planned. If only their queen wanted to talk to a single fucking one of these sniveling dipshits.
I rise and step forward reluctantly, taking my place on the throne that’s positioned just by our royal table. Saela comes to stand at my side. She’s doing great so far, but I’ll need to send her to bed after this.
“Your Highness,” an older man intones, his voice a bit nasal. He moves slowly, and I swear I can hear his knees creak as he bends down to pledge his house’s allegiance.
“Lord Blumenfall,” I respond, thankful that Siegrid made me study the names, titles, and portraits of each lord or lady. “And Lady Heir.”
The younger woman to Lord Blumenfall’s right, also kneeling, stands and offers me a gilded box. “Our congratulations, Your Highness. We brought this as just a small token of our gratitude to have the rightful queen returned to us.”
I meet her eyes, looking for sarcasm, but her gaze is steady.
Perhaps these nobles genuinely are open to a commoner, Bonded queen? As the lord’s only child, Lady Heir Blumenfall is set to inherit his estate and responsibilities when he’s gone. She’s solid-looking and flinty-eyed. Maybe in her fifties at most.
She notices me giving her the once-over and quirks an eyebrow, eyes glinting. “We look forward to getting to know you better, my queen.”
As she steps away, I cast my mind around for the name of the next lord who approaches, a tall and thin man with a wispy mustache, but it’s escaping me. He doesn’t offer it, either, and I can see his gaze grow calculating when he realizes I’m not sure who he is.
“Congratulations on this momentous day,” he says, voice dripping with insincerity.
“Thank you for being here,” I murmur, distracted by my effort to match his face to one of the portraits I studied.
He sneers at Saela behind me and then marches off without a farewell. Saela and I exchange glances, but there’s no time to talk before the receiving line carries on.
The next couple is somehow better and worse: a young husband and wife whom I luckily remember as royal cousins of the Valtiere line, twice removed or something.
Despite the fact that I just recently decapitated one of their family members and snatched the throne from another, they’re bending over backward to fawn over me. The husband bows so deeply his head touches the ground, and the wife weeps as she grabs my hand and presses it to her forehead.
It’s transparently phony, the sycophantic worship, but I suppose I can’t blame them. They’re trying to persuade me not to lock them up for being distant relatives to the previous rulers.
I turn and grab my water goblet, taking a few quick gulps.
The Councilor of Sturmfrost, Gerhold Herzog, approaches next. The oily man is a necessary but unwelcome part of my Council Palast, and I spend our weekly meetings trying desperately not to engage in conversation with him.
Neighbors in the Eastern Quarter used to crack jokes about how he’d bestow royal contracts on folks who did him favors… especially beautiful young women. I believe the rumors even more now that I’ve had the unfortunate luck of getting to know him.
“You changed the coronation ceremony,” he says bluntly by way of greeting.
“I did,” I say, trying not to scowl. “Elements of it did not suit me.”
He sneers. “I beg to differ, Meryn.” I bristle at the casual use of my first name—from him, it’s an intended slight. “Those elements would have suited you quite well.”
My face burns. This fucking pig.
My first order of business now that I’m officially crowned will be finding a suitable replacement for him, an appropriate steward of Sturmfrost who can be trusted to run our city well.
He must see the barely controlled rage behind my civil veneer, because he smirks and bows his head, taking his leave.
Noemi and her father, Lord Eisenfall, are next. Noemi’s gown is a showy, sleek, fiery red, almost matching the color of her hair. To call it a gown might be an exaggeration. It’s a garment made of crisscrossing straps that cover up just bits of her body, with very little left to the imagination.
It reminds me uncomfortably of the balls held during the Bonding Trials. I blink in surprise at it; she struck me as demure when we first met.
Her attire looks drab in comparison to the wealth draped across Lord Eisenfall. His suit is a gaudy velvet, his sword hilt is studded in rubies, and precious stones glint from rings on every finger. Noemi stands slightly behind him, her head bent.
“Lord Eisenfall—you’re Noemi’s father?”