chapter nine

I had to pretend in front of the eyes of the people who were against me. Fake my easiness, the confidence I never felt. I must be able to face them without fear or curiosity, like I know their secrets. Every inch of me despises this. I couldn’t be more different from them if I tried. Their hearts have been turned cold, unfeeling towards hunger, starvation, death.

I’m wise enough to know they’re not reliable. They won’t hesitate to stab my back the second I utter a word they don’t like. My aunt, however, has a relationship with my country signed by the former king, and an alliance. We share blood.She can’t turn her back on us. Still, I’m bewildered of her support. Overwhelmed and secretly pleased.

The lights overhead flicker in the summer thunderstorm taking place outside. Cleansing, powerful enough to erase any footsteps marked on the mud. I wish the pour was strong enough to take away my regrets, my fears. Wash me clean with reckless winds and fat drops of warm water.

I focus my attention on the task at hand. Calibrating Heaven, the reason why she’s here.

As much as her presence comforts me, her clear defiance against the council pleases me, I know she must have other manners to attend here. Supervise the proper speech after my parents’ death. The one I’ve been postponing. Challenge the council with the power she wields in fine jewelry. Her motives spin around a crafted schedule. I would know.

Narrowing my eyes at her, the sky thunders angrily, the gray clouds swarming, visible through the skylight on the observatory. The fragrance the thousands of flowers expel is drunkening. They ease the cord tugging at my chest. Anxiety. “Why would you do that?”

Her dress engulfs her petite figure, every bit as expensive as mine. Born a royal, now a queen, she wears the crown resting on her blonde hair proudly. I’m surprised the weight of diamonds, glass, and marble carefully embedded and twisted doesn’t crack her neck.

She looks young, beautiful and mortal in her dress, green eyes darting from side to side as we help ourselves with tea and bread. No wrinkles are visible, though I know she must be strained. She lost a brother, and she came here in a rush. I appreciate her efforts. Yet, there is no trace of fatigue in her, her smile and sweet voice carrying across her to me.

I wonder how the crown doesn’t weight as heavily on her as it did on my parents, like it will on me. Her face remains perfect, her neck never wavers. Her dress is black in mourning, but longer than it should be, the tail falling in a mess of silk and embroidery around the small table. She basks in being the focus of attention. Golden gems and jewels on her neck and wrists, accompanied by a luxurious fragrance in her aura putting the flowers around us to shame make her dashing and daring. She looks imposing. Subtilty is a word she doesn’t know.

She merely shrugs, somehow making the action seem perfectly royal. “Well, it’s what your father would’ve wanted. What you were born to do. Or am I wrong?” She raises a perfectly waxed eyebrow. I can only swallow. “Those foolish men. You can’t alter the line

of succession when the whole country is already crumbling.”

I look down, the stale bread limp in my hand. “So you know?”

She chuckles darkly. “Of course I know. My best strategist is here for the cause. I hate to admit it, love, but your parents didn’t leave you in a... comfortable position to rule a country.”

A scoff leaves my throat without my permission. “No shit.”

I get no reprimand for the lack of manners. I wish I did. Seemingly, she’s too busy or distraught to notice my lack ofetiquette. We are grieving. I grieve by distancing myself from the power as much as I can, and she does it keeping up her mask and charade.

Wearing her power in every bare inch of herself. Different coping mechanisms.

“How are you doing?”

The question takes me aback. It was to be expected, but my lack of response and knowledge baffles me. I almost choke on the words. “I... I guess I’m fine.” It’s a lie. But I don’t feel like breaking down now. I’ve been trying to hold back temperamental tears since yesterday. The council meeting prodded at my insecurities, my fears, and confusion.

They took advantage of me and my naivety. I had to be rescued by Heaven’s petty attitude from the lion’s den.

Barely moving she blinks at me, tipping her head on her hands. She looks like a well-presented, beautifully carved statue. “You’re fine? You can’t be fine when you lost your parents and now you have the crown to worry about.” She must see something in me, something she likes. The side of her lips twitches to a barely concealed smirk. “The more you wear that sorrow, the stronger it’ll make you. Even as queen, you’re allowed to feel sad.”

Sorrow. A word, a feeling growing closer to me in the last weeks. I know sorrow like an old friend. It seems like it is the only thing queens and kings can rely on. Pain and excruciating thoughts.

I nod but not because I agree. The rings at my fingers are a good distraction. I fidget with them on my lap. Gold, delicate, fragile. I could snap them in half with two of my fingers. They’d bend at my will—unlike the council. “Really? Because if I did, if I ever even showed as much as a crack on my face, they’d riot again saying I’m not fit enough for this role. They don’t want me here. So, no, I can’t mourn the way I want to.”

Her tongue clicks on the roof of her mouth as she watches me. A cat watching a mouse. A mouse she finds amusing. “They don’t need to want you here. The power was in you the moment you were conceived. They are nothing compared to you. Don’t let ants ruin your life.” Her dismissal comes with ease. A shoulder of hers rises up and down, a hand lazily swapping in the air.

I can’t help but wonder, does she know? Does she know in what a treacherous position dad was? That there’s a chance maybe he was killed by the council that holds us, queens, in power? I don’t dare prod at another wound. Joanna. Her name echoes in my mind, bringing with it Lennon’s somber expression. I blink it away. Does she know the danger we all are in, incremented by the brides?

It’d be better if she didn’t.

Perhaps her country is different. Maybe they respect the power the monarchs have, and she isn’t in danger. I dare to believe it. Even with the decrees established in every nation of the continent but Spilten and Nalyn, there’s hope people want to change. There’s hope not all councils are corrupt.

I look at her through the brim of my cup. “I have to be strong. To look like it, at least. To look strong is to be strong. And no one will dare to impose a strong monarch,” I remind her. My voice sounds so much like mother’s. I resist the urge to wince.

A few seconds go by. Finally, her eyes snap to mine after she’s pleased with the toast coated in butter before her. “So your father wasn’t strong enough?”

I feel myself blush. “I never said that.” He was stronger than I knew, or than I hated to admit. He wore power and dignity like armors meant for this life. He wore his armor to the grave.

“I know.” She leans back on her chair, raising her chin high, like she’s talking to an enemy rather than her niece. “He was too kind, though. The new decrees he dropped, the arrangements and alterations he made were too little and too late. If he would’ve made them sooner, maybe he’d be alive.”

My fist balls under the table, gripping the fine tablecloth like a lifeline stopping me from spitting at her and her know-it-all face. Kindness is a word kings should wear. But the last moments I saw of the king, the monarch drilled in Lennon’s mind, no kindness was displayed. The shots resound in my ears. I know it’s a product of my imagination. Heaven doesn’t wince. I try not to. The eyes of the woman before being shot cloud my vision.

I choke back the words. How the decrees are wrong, how the people just wish to be heard. She’s here to help and mourn but asking for her to share the same beliefs I do is pushing my luck.

For some reason, I feel the need to provide an explanation. “He placed them after the attack on the castle. After Odin got here. They—the day after, he held a council meeting.

Shot the rebels. There was this kid and I—” I stumble over the words, her brow furrowed in concern. “And I saved the kid. Maybe the decrees were tightened because of me.” I want to crawl in a hole and disappear. My face burns with shame. There’s no maybe. She knows this.

Instead of giving me the shoulder to cry on I so desperately need she shrugs, sipping her tea with impressive manners. “You need to know kindness will get you killed. There’s no place in this world we know for soft-hearted people.”

My mouth works faster than my brain sometimes. “Odin isn’t a merciless killer.” A childish, desperate remark.

She smirks. The familiar sensation of wanting to mess with her perfect makeup, slapping her, anything to make her understand, stop her from saying the words, takes longer this time to subside. “Not here, while you’re weaving around in beautiful dresses and heels. But he got a place on the battlefield,”—she raises a hand to smack against the table, shaking the cups—“he’s important because he’s not soft.” Her words slam against my rib cage. I feel slapped.

I bow my head, studying the cup in my hand with much too interest. There it was, the thing I’d tried to ignore and keep out of my head, but she has so nicely just pointed out.

He has killed people. Yes, it is his job, and he was protecting my country, aunt’s, but he’s a murderer all the same.

So why do I feel safe with him?

I have no answer to my question. I don’t waste energy figuring it out.

I don’t speak up again. She takes it upon herself to continue the conversation. “Did you and Lennon ever speak about a wedding?”

My head down, I can only whisper, “Lucas’?”

Her eyes travel down my face to my collarbone. I feel them as I raise my head to the sky. Insistent drops pound on the glass. Thud, thud, thud. I shift, my prominent cleavage making me squirm. “Yours. You’re in age already. I’m surprised you’re not married yet. You should be.”

I sigh. “I don’t know, Heaven. I can handle the crown on my own fine enough.”

She shakes her head while smiling at me like breaking the news to a baby. “You can. For now. But the council is set on seeing you without it. And how can you—will you—keep it on your head then?” She makes a pause, raising her eyebrows. Her question is a test. I fail by not answering. “With an heir. The second you give them one, they’ll be off your shoulders. If your brother gets an heir first, the allegiance half the council pledged to you will shift. We don’t want that, do we?” The force of her words astounds me.

I feel like a scolded child. “We don’t.”

“So, you need to marry. Did they ever—”

I cut her off before she goes on. I’d rather hear it from my own lips. “Lucas spoke to me about suitors. Nothing formal or decided. I don’t know any of them.” I desperately look for ways to stir the conversation away from me marrying. I wait for her to finish chewing before I ask her the question I’m dying to know. “Why are you here?”

Never losing her manners, she picks up her napkin, dabbing at the side of her mouth. When she speaks, her voice lowers. “I’m here because my brother and my sister-in-law just died. But even more important, I’m here to help you stay in the position you were born with. And that will take you to form alliances and to marry.”

“I wonder why they killed them and not me.” The thought leaves my lips like an instinct, something I must say so I don’t drown. I recover quickly, slipping on the rage mask. It takes everything in me not to wince. Stupid. “I mean, the purpose of the rebels is to end the decrees. They knew if they killed my parents, a new ruler would take power. They accomplished nothing. Why kill them and not me?”

She laughs. She must find the cracks in my voice hilarious. “Oh darling, they think you’re weak. They think you will twist and bend at their will because you’re inexperienced, naïve, young.” Her body leans forward. Instinctively, I inch backward. Her eyes narrow. I’m reminded of a snake. She strikes. “I am here, and the council, so you don’t fall.”

I gulp. “Should I say thank you?”

Amused, she stands up with agile, toned legs, clearly done with the conversation or the food. Maybe both. Her perfume chokes me with her swift motions. “Don’t thank me. Thank Odin. He’s doing most of the work here. Keeping the battlefield and the castle safe.” She turns but thinks better of it, sneering over her shoulder. “Plus, he looks unbelievably handsome doing it.” I wince as she winks.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You better.”

I stand up, too, smiling. Anything to cover my pain. The words sound confident. I will them to drip eagerness, even if I fear them. “So it’s official then? I am the queen?”

She wraps me in a hug when I reach her side, whispering in my ear with her sweet breath.

“You were always. Now it’s just official.” I let her warmth envelop me, inhaling her delicate scent.

“Oh, my bad,” she says, pulling back, eyes wide. She runs a hand down her dress, smoothing invisible lines. She’s scared of physical contact as much as Lennon was. “I almost forgot I brought a little something to cheer you up.”

My eyebrows rise. “You did?”

She nods, shrugging. Secretly, she loves being the center of attention. Her smug look confirms my suspicions. “Lady Greece has never been the best at staying away, has she?”

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this one is a shorter chapter but writing Heaven was so much fun! also, im severely sleep deprived lol so im gonna take a nap. let me know if you enjoyed it and would like to be tagged.

thank you so much for reading

-goldenmel