Prologue I
HANNE
I stood on the balcony of the palace, embracing the warmth of the winter sun.
In spring, these lands were covered with luscious gardens and trees, their branches packed with leaves.
Honeybees traveled from petal to petal in search of nectar.
But now, winter winds swept across the land, bringing snow and hail and darkness.
I wore a long-sleeved dress that was hidden underneath the long coat, lined with animal fur that warmed the most delicate parts of my body, from my wrists to my neck. My gloved hands gripped the banister, and I looked at the kingdom that would soon belong to me—that might belong to me soon.
“They’re ready for you, Hanne.” Kendra, my handmaiden for the last two years, approached me from behind. She was an older woman who supervised all the maids, had been doing it her whole life, and once I was orphaned, she’d taken me under her wing.
I gripped the banister one last time before I left the balcony and approached her. “Thank you.”
Vulgaris had become my legal guardian, but I needed to be supervised by a woman because that was above his station. She was good to me but not particularly affectionate or kind. There was always a distance between us, like she knew the job was too temporary for a deeper attachment.
We returned to the castle and took several flights of stairs and many hallways until we entered the Ornate Room, a room with windows made of colored glass, each window featuring a different flower that grew in the gardens.
Rose, lily, lavender, poppy, peony, carnation.
Sunlight flooded the room on quiet mornings, and this was where I would come to read when I wanted to escape my reality and not be found.
The five chairs were occupied by the elders, men in various stages of old age, bone-white and already withering away, in no position to rule the lands that had been in my blood for generations.
But I was the first to admit I wasn’t a much better choice because of my tender age, just a week away from my twenty-second birthday.
Instead of preparing myself for the burden of the crown these last two years, I’d hidden away with grief as my only friend.
Vulgaris was there, my father’s best friend, the closest thing he’d ever had to a brother, seated apart from the others because he wasn’t a part of the Ring of Elders.
He looked so much like my father despite their lack of relation, just a couple years younger.
My grandmother had only given birth to one child.
She tried for more, but it didn’t happen for her, so she cherished my father as a true blessing.
At the age of twenty-one, I knew my value was already in question and my fertility was in doubt.
My father had died suddenly, discovered collapsed in his study.
There were no wound marks, no indication of a fight.
Perhaps he’d suffered a heart attack or some form of sudden death.
It was a shock because he’d been so strong and healthy, carrying his sword with every intention of wielding it.
I’d looked up to him as a king and a leader.
People would say he was the greatest king who ever lived.
Sometimes I believed he would live forever.
My father had known Vulgaris for nearly his entire life.
They used to play together as kids, Vulgaris the son of one of the maids.
That friendship continued, despite their differences in class, and once Vulgaris became a man, my father employed him in the castle.
He was an adviser, a confidant, a soldier, and then, eventually, the general.
Kendra removed my coat that I’d forgotten to take off, and I stood before them, my pulse twitching in my throat with every beat of my heart.
The silence was heavy, the disapproval in the air around us like the scent of roses.
My eyes were on the floor.
One of the elders spoke. “Princess Hanne, the only child of King and Queen Barclay, Highborn of Dahlia Valley and Baccara Lands, the time of your ascension is upon you, but yet, you have not secured a suitor, despite the overwhelming interest in your hand.”
I lifted my chin and looked at Tomlinson, Voice of the Ring of Elders, the oldest one of all.
Like a goat put up to auction for the butchers, I’d sat there and watched men I didn’t know petition for my hand.
Some were honorable, soldiers in the army, blacksmiths, and members of the church, and others were farmers who simply came to gawk.
It had been an all-day affair, during which I had to sit there and endure the obscenity of it all.
“If I marry, it’ll be for love.” My father had loved my mother, and he’d loved her far longer dead than alive.
That was what I wanted, to have a love that carried on beyond the veil.
“Duty to your people always comes before love, child,” Tomlinson said, giving me that disapproving stare, like I was nothing more than an obnoxious child.
“Everyone in this kingdom has the privilege to love whom they wish. Seems barbaric that I’m not entitled to the same freedom.
” I knew Tomlinson could make my life a living hell and I should tread carefully, but the idea of taking a stranger to bed and letting him claim me as his queen just because seemed wrong.
“You’re a woman, Hanne.” He didn’t raise his voice, but I saw a flash of frustration across his eyes that he didn’t release. “You’ve had plenty of time to find someone, and you have not.”
As if his palm had struck my cheek, I felt the heat flush my skin.
I had to swallow the profane response I wanted to unleash and replace it with something more savory.
“Not every flower blossoms in spring. Some of the most beautiful flowers bloom in the winter, like cyclamen, crocus, and primrose, and some blossom in the dark, like the firefly petunia, which glows in the night. Do not tell me when it is my time to bloom when I do not yet know what flower I am.”
Tomlinson stared in silence, my words seeming to have some sort of effect. “Put it as eloquently as you wish, but you lack the experience to rule the Kingdom of Baccara. Without a king to rule at your side, your leadership can’t be trusted.”
“So, if I married one of the farmers or butchers who propositioned me, I would suddenly be fit to be queen?” I asked incredulously. “You trust a peasant before a royal just because of the dangler between his legs—”
“Hanne.” Vulgaris rose from his chair but didn’t rush to my side.
I shut my mouth, but the flames continued to burn on my tongue.
“Perhaps you could continue your provisional rulership until I’ve found my husband.
” I didn’t desire the crown like most people would, but I felt obligated to take it because it’d been in my family for generations.
It was my legacy. But I didn’t want to rush into marriage for the sake of wearing a crown upon my brow, and I didn’t want to have to deal with these stuffy old men all the time.
My father had mocked them in private many times.
“The law cannot be undone,” Tomlinson said. “You’ve come of age of rulership, the same age your father was when he wore the crown. Marry someone who gains our approval—”
“Excuse me, Elder. Did you just say I need your approval to wed?”
“Yes,” he said. “A majority vote from the Ring of Elders.”
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there and stared, how long it took me to talk myself out of drawing Vulgaris’s sword and chopping off all their damn heads. “Remind me, did you vote when my father wed my mother?”
Silence.
“Has the Ring of Elders ever voted on a spousal choice?”
Vulgaris continued to stand there, visible in my peripheral vision.
Tomlinson didn’t need to converse with his fellow elders to give me an answer. It was written on his face. “This is the first time a king of Baccara did not sire a son since the Ring of Elders was established.”
“My father never once cared.” He said he was grateful for the child he had with my mother.
He always said I was enough for him, and one day, I would make a beautiful and mighty queen.
He would have handed me the crown sooner, but he had to wait until I came of age.
And unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to see that happen.
“He never questioned my ability to continue his reign.”
Tomlinson’s hands rested on each of the armrests, and he gripped the edges. Then he glanced at Vulgaris, the look quick and fleeting.
Vulgaris said nothing.
The old man straightened in his chair, wearing a black robe lined with gray fur on the inside, whatever he had left of his gray hair combed back, huge patches of snow-white skin visible in between.
“Perhaps. But the Ring of Elders must protect the people who put their faith in us. Without your having a husband for experience, support, and guidance, I don’t believe you’re fit for the position.
Choose a husband and submit that name for a vote, and we will consider it. ”
I was a forest fire confined inland, but I wanted to burn all the lands to the sea. My anger was trapped within my flesh and bone with no way to escape, but it continued to pound on my walls as it tried to find an exit. If steam would come out of my ears, it would whistle like a boiling teapot.
I was tempted to let the fire on my tongue burn forth, but fire couldn’t destroy a mountain, only singe the surface. Without a curtsy or manners, I turned on my heel and walked out, my boots loud against the tile in the silent room, my rage hotter than the fire in the hearth.
I sat alone in my bedchambers. Darkness had fallen, and the fireplace blanked the room in a powerful glow. I got lost in those flames, seeing myself reflected in the light. It cracked and popped, just the way my heart did.
A knock sounded on the door.
I already knew who it was. “Come in.”