Chapter 8
The first things I noticed were the massive tents constructed of thick, colorful canvas panels. They looked like big top circus tents mixed with the kind of pop-up stalls I’d seen in videos of Renaissance fairs.
The tents had been set up in three layers of concentric circles, with the largest tents in the innermost circle.
A large area of open grass was in the very center of the setup, and the tents got smaller as they moved away from the middle, but their numbers multiplied fast until they reached the outermost edges of the camp.
Soldiers encircled the entire place, and it was like a long line of Red Rover players waiting to clothesline anybody who tried to enter the camp.
Massive wooden poles held up two, three, or four points of the canvas tents, depending on their sizes, and square-shaped borders hung around the tops. The largest tents had full canvas panels to create sides on the tents, but some of them were currently tied back.
I spotted the telltale purple and gold of Nalatria’s tents.
The largest were obviously for us royals, and the next-largest structures were probably for our retinues.
That left the smallest ones for the other members of the royal households’ staff.
Beyond the two innermost circles of tents were hundreds of small white tents that reminded me of the training camp in Mulan.
Those had to be for the hundreds of soldiers who milled around the camp and stood in groups of four around the perimeter.
Each country had national colors, and I spotted the familiar color combo of emerald and gold that signified the Kingdom of Basstrum.
I guessed the silver and purple were probably for the Silver Coast, and I was pretty sure the tents in shades of red, orange, and yellow were from Zall.
The blue-and-emerald-green combo was beautiful, but I wasn’t sure if it belonged to Valnar or Kestran, and whichever one it didn’t belong to had terracotta orange and maroon.
“It’s incredible,” Yori said with a wide grin.
“Who’s the blue and green?” I asked with a glance between Tanell and Serra.
If any of my queens would know the answer, it was one of them, but it was Carissa who answered.
“Kestran is blue and green,” she said. “So the orange and maroon must be Valnar’s.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Serra confirmed, and she ran through all the nations and their colors.
I was impressed with myself that I’d gotten most of them right.
“There are so many soldiers,” Yori murmured.
“It was part of the agreement,” I explained. “The Silver Coast royals were kind of squirrely about this whole thing. They wanted to bring twice the number of soldiers we finally got them to agree to.”
“Twice?” Carissa’s eyes went wide. “Goodness.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That was a hard no from everybody, thankfully, so I didn’t have to be the bad guy and tell them to go fuck themselves.”
“I’m sure Enken and Doria were as shocked as we were,” Tanell agreed.
Our caravan pulled up to what looked like an entrance to the circle of tents, and there were four soldiers from each nation lined up on either side of a new path that had been worn into the lush grass.
The telltale ruts of carriage wheels led straight between the rows of soldiers toward the open area in the middle of the tent city.
As the first carriage in our caravan stopped in front of the soldiers, I watched Palchur ride forward to speak with them.
He gestured back at my carriage, and one soldier pointed in the direction of the purple-and-gold tent inside the campground.
Then the soldiers stepped aside to make room for us to enter.
As our carriage passed, the soldiers from the other nations nodded in respect or stood dutifully still like the King’s Guard outside Buckingham Palace. My soldiers bowed deeper to us than any of the others, and I waved in return.
Many of the soldiers from the other nations craned their necks as we passed, and I wondered what they had heard about me.
I was the newest royal among the gathering, and I’d come to the throne in a fairly interesting series of events.
I wondered how fanciful the tale had become as it had spread across the continent.
What rumors had these soldiers heard about my car smashing the former king to death?
Tanell drew me out of my thoughts with an affectionate hand on my knee, and I smiled across at her.
“You’ll be great,” she murmured.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Do you think our new titles will be enough?” Yori asked with sudden nervousness in her voice.
The rest of us turned to look at her as the carriage came to a steady stop in front of our tent.
“Enough for what?” I asked.
“To appease the other royals,” Serra answered, and she reached out to take Yori’s hand in hers. “One can only hope.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said. “You’re queens, both of you, and there’s nothing they can do to change that.”
“Ken’s right,” Tanell said. “You have all the authority and status I do now. Hold yourselves as such.”
I nodded in agreement, and Serra and Yori smiled gratefully at my golden-blonde queen.
The air grew thick with tension as we sat in silence for a moment that seemed to stretch out, and a sudden knock of knuckles on the carriage door startled all of us.
“I suppose it’s time,” Serra said with a nervous laugh.
“Keep your heads up,” I encouraged the women. “Let’s do it.”
The knock came again, and then Roald opened the carriage door just enough to speak to us without actually looking inside.
“Your Majesty?” he asked. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, Roald,” I said. “Open the door.”
He opened it further, and his smiling face appeared in the gap. He glanced around at the women, like he wanted to double-check that everyone was decent, and then he opened the door all the way before he pulled the little folded steps out from underneath the carriage.
Three more footmen stood just behind Roald. One by one, they helped the women step down from the carriage. Carissa was the first to exit, then my three queens stepped down. Yori climbed out first because she was excited, then Serra went, and finally Tanell kissed me before she left.
Anders appeared at the door as I shuffled across the carriage toward the little steps, and he gave me a reassuring nod as I stepped down.
“All things are in order, sire,” he said in a hushed voice.
“Thank you, Anders,” I said. “Anything to be concerned about?”
“No, sire,” he reported. “The Silver Coast royals are the only other ones who have arrived.”
“Really?” My eyebrows went up in surprise.
“Captain Greer said they arrived a few hours ago,” Anders said.
Kilmar Greer was one of my commanders who’d been in charge of the soldiers who’d come to the location ahead of the meeting to help set up the tents and secure the area. Now that Palchur had arrived, he would be the second-in-command.
I nodded my thanks to Anders, and he fell back to his usual position of being nearby without crowding the women and me.
A trickle of uneasiness started to slip into my veins at the news of the Silver Coast royals’ presence.
I hadn’t expected them to be first to arrive because they had further to travel than we did.
Even the Basstrum royals were closer to the location in their capital city than the Silver Coast king and queen.
I’d assumed Enken and Doria would have been the first ones to arrive, or that it would have been us.
Tanell caught my eye, and I could tell by the tension between her eyebrows that she didn’t much like that turn of events any more than I did. She breathed deeply through her nose and put on a diplomatic expression.
“Shall we greet them?” she suggested.
“Have they said anything to Greer or you?” I asked Anders. “Are they ready to meet?”
“Captain Greer confirmed they would welcome you in their tent upon your arrival,” Anders said. “Palchur organized an additional security sweep the moment we stepped into camp, and–”
Anders’ eyes shifted over my shoulder, and he nodded like he was mentally checking something off his to-do list.
“He’s coming this way now,” Anders finished.
I turned and looked in the direction Anders had indicated, and sure enough, Palchur was walking over with a group of ten soldiers on his heels.
“So it begins,” Serra mumbled under her breath.
“Sire.” Palchur nodded his head at me and then the women. “Your Majesties, Lady Carissa.”
“What’s the word?” I asked as my heart raced in my chest.
It felt like the same kind of anxiety I used to get before starting a new job or beginning a new class, and I took a deep breath to steady myself.
I reminded myself this was a meeting of hopefully like-minded royals like myself in an attempt to come together to handle a situation that threatened all of us.
Hypothetically, we were all on the same side here, and there was nothing to worry about.
“Everything is clear,” Palchur reported. “One of my scouts spotted the Basstrum royals. They’re a few miles out and should arrive in an hour or so.”
“Anders said the Silver Coast royals arrived hours ago,” I said, and I let my question color my tone.
“Mmm.” Palchur nodded. “I didn’t expect them to arrive first, either, but I see no inherent issue with it. Perhaps they are simply punctual.”
His opinion helped soothe my nerves a little.
Before I could ask Palchur anything else, a footman in silver-and-purple livery strode up with his hands folded neatly behind his back.
A pair of fully-armored soldiers with silver emblems painted on their breastplates flanked the footman, and the three of them stopped about six feet away from where Palchur and I stood.
The footman bowed deeply at the waist, but the soldiers didn’t make any such moves, and I couldn’t see their faces behind their helmets.
“King Kenneth,” the footman said in a rather snooty-sounding voice. “Her Royal Majesty and King Giles wish to extend their finest greeting to you.”
It didn’t escape me that he’d mentioned the queen first. Not that I had a problem with that personally, but it wasn’t what I’d expected.