Chapter 58 The Shalvar Throne Room
The Shalvar Throne Room
Iwake before the light fully reaches the room.
I stay where I am, aware first of the quiet and then of the absence beside me.
Colsar is already gone. The place he left behind is still warm, the sheets slightly disturbed.
The children had stirred in the night as he returned from his study, Ari first and Kiss following, and his voice close to my ear telling me to rest.
I slept more deeply than I have in days. I sit up, and for once there is no pain in my abdomen, no pull. The absence is so complete that I pause, testing it without meaning to. I move again, standing and crossing the room. Still nothing.
I send for the healer, and she does not make me wait. She removes the bandage swiftly, her hands moving with quiet precision as she unwinds the last of it from my body. I look down. My skin is whole. The place that had torn bringing them into the world is gone, as though it had never been.
I release a breath slowly. “Fully healed?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“Completely.”
I look at her, then back at my skin, and something lifts inside me so quickly it almost feels like laughter.
I dress slowly after she leaves, not because I need to but because I want to feel the difference, the way nothing catches or pulls or reminds me of what it has been.
When I finish I stand at the window for a while, looking out at the hidden kingdom below, watching the morning move through it at its own pace.
Then I go. I have not seen much of the palace beyond the corridors I already know, and today I let myself wander further than I have before.
The hidden kingdom folds into itself in ways I am still learning, rooms that should not exist alongside rooms that feel older than the structure around them, light moving through the walls differently depending on which threshold you cross and which world you are standing in.
I find a gallery I have not seen before, long and high-ceilinged, lined with portraits of Shalvar's royal line going back further than I can trace.
I walk the length of it slowly, taking my time with the faces, the way they shift across generations, certain features returning again and again.
Some of them look like the Sovereign. A few of them look like Kentan.
None of them look like Colsar, and I find I do not mind that. He did not come from this line. He was chosen into it, which is a different kind of belonging, and perhaps a stronger one.
I leave the gallery and take a corridor I have not tried before, following it until it opens onto an outer courtyard I did not know existed. The air is cold and sharp after the warmth inside, and the sound reaches me before anything else.
The Avanki.
They move across the training ground in formation, precise and unhurried, their drills carrying the particular quality of people who have done this long enough that it has stopped requiring thought.
I watch from the edge for a moment, long enough to place Trophi at the far end, standing with his arms folded, watching a pair of soldiers work through a sequence he is clearly not satisfied with.
I cross the courtyard toward Trophi. He sees me coming before I reach him, his attention moving from the soldiers to me with the same careful assessment he gives everything.
"Majesty," he says.
I almost ask him to spar with me, but then I remember Aunt Petunis.
A queen does not ask or beg. She commands.
"You will spar with me," I say.
A brief pause. Something moves through his expression, not reluctance exactly, more the particular consideration of a man deciding how honest to be. "Are you certain?"
"Yes."
That is enough. He turns without further discussion and gestures toward the open ground, and when the blade is placed in my hand it feels right. Familiar. Like something returning rather than something new.
Trophi watches me differently from the first movement. I see it, and I press harder. Faster. The rhythm returns without effort, the motion flowing where it had once required thought. I shift, turn, strike, recover, and this time there is nothing beneath it waiting to punish the movement.
Trophi adjusts. Then again. Then he smiles, the kind that belongs to someone who has just learned something worth knowing.
"You did not mention this," he says.
"You did not ask."
That earns something close to a laugh. We go again.
By the time I dress afterward the decision has already formed.
I will go to Veynar. The thought remains, certain and clear.
Colsar has too much here, the borders and the undead and the kingdom pressing in on him from every direction.
Or perhaps he is simply happier here. The thought passes through me and moves on. Either way I am done waiting.
I finish dressing and then pause. The circlet rests where I left it. I reach for it, the metal cool against my skin as I set it into place, the weight of it natural now in a way it had not always been.
A queen. The word holds.
I step into the corridor. The palace moves around me in its usual rhythm, entirely unaware of what has shifted in me.
I walk without direction at first, then change course toward the throne room.
I have not watched him there. Not properly. I have heard it spoken of, the way he holds the room, the way the court responds, the way things move when he decides to let them.
I want to see it for myself.
When he is finished, I will tell him.
Colsar
The throne room was warm with the low murmurs of petitioners.
Colsar endured it. Courtiers bowed and spoke in careful voices while scribes scratched quills across parchment.
Complaints about borders, trade roads, and ancestral rights blurred together into a dull procession of obligations he had never wanted.
He had slept perhaps an hour. He had been up late staring at maps and ledgers.
Then, the twins had decided sometime before dawn that sleep was a suggestion rather than a necessity.
He was already awake and Asharin needed the rest. It would be absurd to awaken Cambra or Saurin.
So Colsar put them to sleep. He had remained awake afterward, staring at the ceiling while one small fist remained stubbornly wrapped around his finger.
Another nobleman finished speaking.
Colsar’s head tipped back briefly against the carved wood of the throne. “Yes,” he said.
The man blinked. “My lord?”
“Resolved,” Colsar replied with mild impatience. “Whatever it was.”
The courtier bowed several times and retreated quickly.
A ripple of movement stirred near the doors.
Jessamy entered the throne room. Colsar felt a flicker of irritation.
She bowed gracefully, dark hair slipping over one shoulder. “My lord.”
“What do you want?”
“My father waits outside,” she said softly. “But I hoped to speak with you first. There is a matter between our houses that requires… discretion.”
Colsar exhaled slowly and lifted a hand.
“Leave us.”
The court emptied with visible reluctance. Guards remained along the walls.
Jessamy rose from her bow and approached the dais. “Our houses were always meant to stand together,” she said.
Colsar’s eyes had already drifted toward the tall windows.
“Our bloodlines strengthen one another. Our territories complement each other. Although I am illegitimate, I carry the royal glyphs of my line, a symbol of a strong bloodline.”
She stepped closer. “Look.” Her fingers moved to the neckline of her gown. The fabric slipped lower. The curling lines of her glyphs appeared beneath her collarbone. Jessamy smiled faintly.
Colsar did not notice the doors open behind her. He did notice something else. The room had gone silent. Every guard along the walls had suddenly gone still.
Jessamy frowned slightly, sensing the shift.
Then she turned.
Asharin
I stepped into the throne room just as her dress fell, and for a moment neither of them noticed me. Jessamy stood close to him, one hand resting lightly against the lowered neckline of her gown. Colsar stood only a few steps away from her.
The intimacy of the moment struck me like a physical blow.
My eyes moved between them slowly. Then I reached up and removed the crown from my head.
The gold circlet felt strangely heavy in my hand.
It crossed the chamber in a bright arc before striking Jessamy and clattering across the marble floor. “Take it,” I said.
My voice sounded calm. “It’s yours.”
Colsar was already on his feet. “Asharin.”
“I’m leaving.”
His expression hardened immediately. “No.”
A laugh escaped me, harsh and brittle. “I have given you everything,” I said. “Everything. And still it is not enough.”
“Nothing happened.”
“I do not care.”
My eyes flick briefly to Jessamy. “This is the woman you hurt me for on our wedding night.”
Jessamy opened her mouth.
I cut her off without even turning toward her. “The woman who mocked me in Veynar while you watched.”
My eyes returned to Colsar. “And now I walk in to find you alone with her, while she disrobes in front of you.”
Jessamy lifted her chin. “I was merely demonstrating the compatibility of our houses.”
I ignored her completely. “Our children will always be yours if you want them,” I said quietly.
I paused. “But I will not be. I will not chase after a man who does not want me.”
Colsar stepped down from the dais. “You are not leaving.”
My expression did not soften. “Perhaps I should go disrobe in front of your brother,” I said. “In the name of diplomacy.”
“Sevrin may be insane but I know, without a doubt, that I am all he thinks about.” I step forward. “And Teorin, he may be a liar. But he traveled from Thrykis to come find me, yet my own husband can’t even travel twenty paces from his study to dine with me.”