Chapter 18 Meryn
MERYN
Two days later, I watch from my bedchamber as Nocturna’s nobles depart Sturmfrost Castle.
The scene is fuzzy and dreamlike through the rippled panes of glass in the window. Cold fog has descended from the mountains this morning. It coats everything I see, dampening the landscape and dulling the colors.
It’s like my grief made tangible. A blanket of sorrow, heavy and thick and cold, reaching icy fingers into my flesh and bones. I wonder if I’ll ever be warm again.
And there’s so much to do.
I need to check in with Siegrid and Tormun on the progress with Killian, the bracelet on my wrist a constant aching reminder of his menace.
I need to get a status update on the war front.
I need to check on my sister, who has remained in her bedroom since the coronation, terrified that she’ll be the next target.
But I can’t move from the window, the inside of my head a dull buzz.
It’s an endless parade of horses and carriages. Wagonloads of trunks full of ball gowns and pearls and perfumes. All the traces of a royal coronation, slowly emptying out of the castle and leaving nothing but sorrow behind.
What’s happened to Izabel’s clothes? All her beautiful party dresses.
Her riding leathers, the new jacket her parents had made for her for the Trials still barely broken in.
The thought rises in my throat, making it hard to breathe. I press my face to the frigid windowpane, screwing my red-rimmed eyes shut. The freezing glass smarts against my tight, tearstained skin.
I half-heartedly suggested to Matron Alienor and Siegrid that I be present as the nobles departed, to leave a last impression, but they both agreed the impression I left them with was “suitable” for now.
An impression of violence, nobody had to say out loud.
Of swift, ruthless retribution.
I don’t regret killing the councilor; he deserved what happened to him. But his family? I killed them without a thought. Just pure emotion made lethal by my shadows.
Is this the kind of ruler I am to become?
Is this what it takes to wrest this kingdom from the grasp of Killian and Alistair Brightbane?
The parade of departing noble guests continues, but I turn my face away.
I’m staring sightlessly at my sister’s room when a knock sounds on the door.
Stark, here to escort me to Izabel’s funeral. He’s insisted that he accompany me as guard whenever I leave my chambers, at least in the immediate aftermath of the poisoning.
He and Anassa are always there, always present. It’s like I’m a fragile child who needs watching over, and it’s starting to make me itchy.
Somewhere in the back of my mind is a woman who wants to snap at them that she’s fine, that she’s strong. Toss a rude joke their way, and escape their cautious babysitting.
But I’m too hollow to reach her.
Now, I open the door to his bulky frame, draped in mourning black. Not that he often wears any other color. The color suits him, this harbinger of death.
He looks too handsome for a funeral, his face clean-shaven. I breathe him and want to rage against the annoying comfort the smell brings me. I don’t deserve comfort.
We leave Saela behind and go outside to meet our direwolves. Anassa is as edgy as I am today. I pat her fur, and she huffs at me.
“We have lost a good wolf and a good rider,” she says in my mind. “But your distress is going to leak out into the entire bond if you are not careful. Izabel’s memory will live within you forever. Now it is time for you to lead.”
“Okay,” I say quietly, digging into that hollow place, searching for the brash, strong woman I once was.
With effort, I slip back into the mask of the person who doesn’t let difficult things break her.
How many hits can I take before that illusion is shattered for good?
Straightening my shoulders, I mount Anassa, then nod at Stark. We move as one on our direwolves to the site of the funeral, a clearing at the edge of the Bonded City.
By the time we arrive, I’m able to shake hands with Izabel and Venna’s parents without trembling.
“You honor us with your presence, Queen Meryn,” their mother murmurs.
I reach for her hands again, awkwardly pressing them in a show of support. “Your daughter was very dear to me,” I manage, the words a paltry ghost of what our relationship meant.
Venna stands next to them, face pale and eyes bloodshot. She looks at me only briefly, then nods and looks away.
I understand. In her place, I’m not sure I could speak without breaking down.
Stark and I reach the platform to the left of the family, where space has been reserved for the new queen. I look around. The landscape is barren but still beautiful; the rocky ground austere, small scrubby pines fading into forest and then mountains, peaks as far as the eye can see.
The fog is breaking up, and the midmorning light slants through the pine branches, illuminating Izabel’s funeral pyre.
I’ve seen too many Bonded die, but this is the first Bonded funeral I’ve attended; such indulgences weren’t allowed to us as Rawbonds, not under the Valtiere kings at least. Now, though, people have turned out in droves to honor Izabel.
Her extended family. Young friends from the Bonded City who haven’t attempted the Trials yet.
Tomison and Nevah, of course.
Egith, now the Alpha of Strategos, here to pay homage to our lost packmate.
And others, too; Izabel’s maidservant from the castle, and two children of a noble family who stayed behind to honor Izabel before returning to their fiefdom, evidently having befriended her at some royal function years ago.
Others I don’t recognize, but who are nonetheless familiar because we wear the same expression of grief.
I try not to notice how they all avoid looking at me. Stark is a reassuring presence at my back. Ready to defend me, as always. Whether or not I’m worthy of such protection.
The pyre is built high, in accordance with Bonded tradition. Izabel has been dressed in ceremonial armor. Her direwolf, Asteio, who perished when Izabel took her last breath, is laid out beside her.
Together in death, after all too short a time together in life.
I blink rapidly, willing tears away. It is time for you to lead.
After a brief piece of music played by a woman I don’t recognize, Izabel and Venna’s father says a few words of welcome and then steps back so that Venna can deliver the eulogy.
She moves stiffly, as if having to remind her legs how to walk, her body how to move, without her sister present. Her hands tremble as she pulls a parchment out of her jacket, then swallows.
Their mother stifles a sob, and I bite my inner lip until it nearly draws blood. Press my eyes closed, then focus them on Venna, who’s started speaking.
“Before yesterday, there was never a single day that I was apart from my sister.” She stops, gathering herself. One of the noble girls behind me starts weeping softly.
“We always knew, though, that being Bonded meant that we’d likely one day be parted. It’s not unusual for Bonded to die young, whether in the Trials or at the front. We used to argue about it when we were little—which one of us would go first, and how.”
Venna smiles lightly, looking over at her mother and father.
“I always predicted Izabel would go out in a blaze of glory, doing something courageous and foolhardy. I think if she were able to talk to us now, she’d say she was thrilled to have gone out partying.”
I glance over at her parents. Her father manages a watery chuckle. Her mother just shakes her head, eyes glazed.
Venna’s tone turns somber. “When we’re faced with it every day, when we know so many who have passed on defending our country, death starts to seem commonplace.
But my sister’s life is not an abstraction, not a statistic.
Every day, I’ll look in the mirror and wonder how this face would have aged on Izabel.
Every day, I’ll wake up with half my heart gone forever. ”
Venna stares ahead, and I see the moment she locks eyes with Tomison.
The two of them stand motionless, just looking at each other.
Time slows down as their grief reaches out in ripples, sending small painful threads through everything and everyone, like millions of cracks in a pane of shattered glass.
Finally, Venna looks down, gripping the parchment in front of her blankly as if she’s forgotten what she was doing.
My heart clenches. I hunch my shoulders at the ache of it.
If I’d taken that drink instead, Izabel would still be alive. If I’d never stepped into their lives, Izabel and Venna would still be together. Tomison and Izabel would still have a future together.
The hurt is a vise, constricting my chest, and I struggle to draw breath.
“Get it together, girl,” Anassa chides. “Fair or not, you must become a place for others to rest their heartbreak. You cannot lose yourself to it, too.”
I let out a harsh breath, the warmth of it misting in the cool air around me. Suck in another one. Over and over. Breathe, until Anassa’s advice takes root.
Venna recovers and looks around at all the faces gathered.
“I know that Izabel would hate for us to wallow. She’d have some kind of plan for how to help everyone around her recover and keep marching on, making jokes the whole time.
It would be obnoxious, and she’d probably overdo it, but in the end we’d all be better for it. ”
Her voice wavers, then gains strength again.
“So that’s what we have to do, for Izabel. Keep going. And know that she’d be proud.”
Venna steps down from the platform, and her father moves forward, taking a torch up from where it’s been waiting and lighting the pyre. The flames move fast, climbing high until Izabel’s face is obstructed.
Anassa moves behind me, then the wolves circle around us—the wolves of every Bonded present. They form a ring and, one by one, begin to howl, starting with Venna’s wolf, Skaia. The sound is wild and haunting.
Venna’s face is a stoic mask as she stares at the fire.