Chapter 24 Beneath the Heavy Crown
BENEATH THE HEAVY CROWN
“Tsars rot faster than corpses when they crown themselves gods. Let him wear the crown. Let him rot beneath it.”
—Unknown
Tsar Varyán II
The candlelight glows in the cold study. Old tomes line the shelves, their spines worn from centuries of use by my ancestors. Maps and documents, detailed lands and plans known only to me, are lain across the large wooden desk. The crown is heavy on my head, and my migraines trouble me constantly.
I trace a finger over the map, stopping at ávera. My gaze narrows as I contemplate the mistake I made when I allowed her to join the military. The moment comes back to me like a nightmare every time I close my eyes.
It was a visit to Tárnov to greet the people, a routine display of my power. There, I saw her, a young woman fighting with the boys her age, making them eat dirt. I had never seen a woman behave in such a manner. Amused, I told my guards to stay back and approached her.
“How can you fight like that?” I asked.
“I’ve been training,” she said simply. She didn’t bow or tremble. No, she looked directly into my soul.
The poor boys, shaking with fear, looked at my feet and struggled with words as if their mouths were full.
I dismissed them with a wave, and they darted away on unsteady legs.
“Why would you need to do that? A woman should be in the kitchen or, at your age, nursing her child.”
“I train to keep my mother and myself safe from men and boys like those who attacked me.”
I laughed, a sound that echoed through Tárnov’s stones. “Where is your father?”
“I don’t have one,” she replied, apparently unbothered by the presence of the tsar.
I hummed, looking at her toned figure, studying her face. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want to do in life, young maiden?”
“I want to join the military,” she said as if she had been waiting for this question to come. I had never been astonished so many times in one day.
I laughed again, harder than before. But she didn’t smile. And so I asked, “Do you think you can do it? Those men would eat you alive.”
She smirked. “I’d love to see them try.”
At that moment, I decided to do something no one would ever think of. I allowed her to join the army.
From that day, I received detailed reports of her progress.
She was different, stronger. I was fascinated by her achievements, her ability to talk back to me without fear, and her strength against the men around her.
But then her extraordinary abilities began to frighten me.
She won every competition, broke the men into pieces, and memorized every lesson. She was unstoppable.
I had plans for her, to make her strong and bring her under my command, but everything changed when I discovered who Noel’s mother was.
The day is so clear in my memory. Suspicion made my nights sleepless, so I sent one of my shadows to infiltrate her home and search for clues.
The ache behind my eyes returns. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I breathe slowly, then rise from the desk and make my way to the tall window that overlooks the southern garden in the hope fresh air might offer some relief. And there she is. Elara, my lovely daughter.
A streak of light against the dark green of the grass, her pale gown spilling around her like she was placed there by an artist’s hand.
Her back is straight, and yet, her shoulders are relaxed.
She sits beneath the old maple, head tilted, light catching the gleam of her golden hair as she turns a page.
One leg is tucked beneath her, the other stretched out, her shoe kicked off without thought.
I’ve told her nursemaids time and time again not to let her sit directly on the soil.
Not only is it improper, it’s dangerous.
But of course, she never listens. And worse, now they join her.
Three grown women in pressed gowns, skirts soaking in dew, sitting in a circle like they are her sisters. Not her keepers. Not her servants.
I hear their giggles even through the glass.
She’s reading again. Of course she is. The book lies open in her lap, resting on the same embroidered shawl her mother once favored.
I narrow my eyes. Green cover, gold trim, I recognize the book immediately.
Some fairy-tale nonsense about a knight who saves his fragile wife from a vólkin.
The knight slays him, is praised by the people, and the couple live happily ever after.
Elara looks up as one of the nursemaids leans in and says something, likely some foolish comment about finding a handsome knight of her own. Tipping her head back, Elara laughs, a sound that rings like bells in the garden. Her hand flies to her mouth, as if trying to hold in her amusement.
“One of them has a chin too large,” another nursemaid says, and the others erupt with laughter. Elara slaps the book closed and presses it to her chest, leaning forward as she whispers something, and now all four of them are nearly in tears from the joke.
They are children. All of them.
Yet I watch in silence.
Elara is everything they once said a daughter of mine could never be.
She’s soft, untouched by the shadows this stronghold was built upon.
She walks through these halls as if they were made for her.
Servants bow, courtiers perk up at the sound of her voice.
She’s beloved by all who meet her. She is the light of this place.
And they call it innocence.
But I know better.
Elara is not weak. Not truly. Her softness is not fragility.
She listens, she smiles, she obeys just enough to be praised.
But I have seen it. The moments when her eyes sharpen, when she asks too many questions.
When she lingers in the temple corridors longer than she should.
When she copies the old symbols from the archives into her personal journal.
She is more like me than anyone realizes.
She does not yet understand what I’ve protected her from, what I’ve planned. She plays in the garden now, giggling about cleft-chinned knights and beast-slaying husbands, but soon, she’ll grow into the crown I carved for her.
“One day, little rose,” I promise quietly, “you’ll learn the stories aren’t real. You’ll see the beasts wear crowns. And still, you will choose me.”
The ache behind my eyes begins to fade.
A slight noise pulls me back to the present. From the corner of my eye, I see my trusted shadow, Bard he is called, slip through the other window to land silently on the cold floor. The shadow’s hooded cloak blends into the shadows of my study, and only the gleam of his eyes is visible.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Bard begins, bowing low. “It is done. Eyleen is dead.”
Good. This is very good. “Where is she, then?”
“Ice chambers, Your Imperial Majesty.”
I nod, brushing my fingers through my beard. “Noel . . .” I mutter under my breath. “Is she dead yet?”
Bard stays silent for a few moments before closing his eyes. “We lost sight of her.”
Black dots begin to swim in my vision. I turn my gaze from Elara to him.
The barrier has stood for four hundred years, proof of the control and order my ancestors and I maintained for so long.
I know all too well what would happen if women were free—chaos, rebellion, the end of my rule, perhaps the end of everything.
I should have punished her that day in Tárnov, should have sent her to the work camps to break her spirit like I did with so many others.
Allowing her into the military was a grave mistake, one that might cost me everything. “Where is Noel?”
The shadow bows his head. “We do not know, Your Imperial Majesty. She escaped into vólkin territory, and we’ve lost track of her.” He pauses, then adds, “But we do know how she was taken out of the village.”
I narrow my gaze. “Speak.”
“Two soldiers took her. One of them, a fool named Arnold, thought he could dispose of her. We know he hated her since she enlisted, and he severely underestimated her. He was killed by a vólkin, probably the son of Vládan, who had blue crystals, likely indicating the blue rose. The other man, Gregor, managed to escape.”
My brows furrow. “This Gregor is alive?”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” the shadow replies. “He was captured while wandering, attempting to return to Tárnov. He’s being interrogated as we speak.”
Why would everything happen so suddenly? Is this also Eyleen’s doing?
“What has he revealed?” I demand.
The shadow pulls a sealed scroll out of his cloak. “This contains everything he’s confessed so far, though we believe there is more he has yet to reveal. We are . . . persuading him to speak further.”
I tear open the scroll, quickly reading its contents.
Gregor’s account aligns with Bard’s report.
Noel is out there, beyond the barrier, and the vólkins have already caught her scent.
If she ventures too deep into their territory, she may slip beyond our grasp.
Perhaps she already has. If what I’m reading is true . . . she was last seen with a vólkin.
“We have the perfect plan for dealing with Gregor,” Bard says.
Sitting in my chair, I put the scroll on the desk and lean forward. “I’m listening.”
The shadow outlines the plan, detailing each step. The candles flicker, and the shadows dance across the room as my mind races with possibilities, each more dangerous than the last.
As the shadow finishes, I nod. “Very well. Proceed with the plan. And keep me informed of every development.”
Suddenly, the room grows dark and quiet, and my heart almost stops beating. If Noel met a vólkin . . . This could mean only one thing.
“Your Imperial Majesty?”
I slowly turn to Bard.
“There’s something else.” After taking a deep breath, he says, “She slit her own throat, Your Majesty. Eyleen . . . chose her death.”