Without hesitation I gave him another truth.
You . . . are . . . impossible . . . to overlook.
His breath caught, and for the first time, I was the one who leaned in, the one who pressed my lips to his, the one who cradled his face in my hands. He allowed me to lead for several long seconds, letting me taste him and test him. Then he rose and brought me with him, scooping me from the water like a nymph from the sea.
And I was consumed once more.
My father left Jeru City without a word. Maybe he was resigned to the fact that he would never be king, or maybe he simply went home to plot and plan beyond the king’s easy reach.
The lords from Enoch, Janda, and Quondoon left two days after the wedding, but Lady Firi, Lord Gaul, and Lord Bin Dar remained in Jeru City for a week, making everyone uncomfortable and making Tiras take precautions with my safety and his own that he would not otherwise take.
Why must we tolerate them at all? I asked Tiras, sitting at his side, watching Jeruvians dance and minstrels perform the evening’s entertainment, wishing I were free of my crown and the secret looks and the words that slid around the lords like snakes.
“They are members of the council. They are lords of Jeru. Lords of lands that have been passed down through their bloodlines since the children of the Creator came to be. Do you want me to murder them in their sleep, my bloodthirsty wench?” Tiras murmured with a smirk.
I thought of Tiras, chained and naked in the dungeon of his own castle, and was tempted. Tiras asked Kjell if he’d been the one to lock him in the dungeon on our wedding day. I was not present, but I’d felt Kjell’s flood of betrayal and outrage rise up through the walls, even as he pledged his loyalty to his brother. Tiras believed him. I believed him. I wished I didn’t.
They want to oust you.
“I am king, but I am subject to the support of the provinces. If the provinces rise against me, against Degn, then my kingdom ceases to be. They will put a puppet on the throne. Someone they can easily influence and control.”
Like my father.
“I have a powerful army. I have loyal soldiers. But they come from every province, and they are sworn to protect all of Jeru, not just the king.”
We were interrupted by Kjell, accompanied by the ambassador from Firi. She curtsied before the king then curtsied to me, giving us both a brief glimpse of her beautiful breasts. Kjell moved to Tiras’s side, and the ambassador extended her hand to me.
“My queen, will you join me?”
I looked beyond Ariel Firi to the long line of ladies assembled to engage in a traditional dance, and immediately started to shake my head.
“It is custom,” she said, dimpling prettily and grabbing my hand. “You must.”
I don’t know how, I pleaded with Tiras to intervene.
“You are Jeru’s queen, of course you must participate in the dance,” he said, his grin wicked. “Lady Firi will take good care of you.”
Drawing more attention to myself with my hesitation than I would by simply going along and blending into the bright fabrics and spinning women, I stood and followed Lady Firi to the floor.
“Have you done the dance before, Majesty?” she asked innocently.
I shook my head.
“Follow me. It’s quite simple.”
The music began, a song I’d known once, long ago, a song my mother had sung, and her mother before her, and her mother before that. It was the maiden song of Jeru, a song of celebrations and rituals. A song for women. But there’d been so few opportunities in my twenty summers to celebrate or sing, tucked away from the world where I would not harm or be harmed, that the song was like a long-lost sister—part of me, but a stranger still.
I did my best to copy the graceful sway of hips and arms, the steps and the turns, but my mind was captured by remembrance, and as the words to the maiden song were sung, I knew them, though I couldn’t have pulled them forward on my own.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
He is coming, do not hide.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
Let the king make you his bride.
I heard the words in my mother’s voice, lilting and sweet, as if she sang my future from my past. I spun without knowing the steps, and danced without knowing what came next. My eyes found Tiras, visible in slivers and pieces as I whirled with Jeru’s daughters, and the voice in my head became a voice of warning.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
Wait for him, his heart is true.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
‘Til the hour he comes for you.
It was a silly song, an ancient song, a song of being rescued by a powerful man, of becoming a princess, as if a princess were the only thing a Jeruvian daughter might want to be. But it disturbed me, as if my mother, a Teller of considerable power, had made it all come to pass. She had sung me to sleep with that song—Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter, ‘Til the hour he comes for you.
‘Til the hour.
Curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour.
‘Til the hour he comes for you.
The maiden song and the curse my mother whispered in my ear the day she died became one in my head.
“Are you unwell, Highness?” Lady Firi touched my arm lightly. I realized I had stopped dancing, making the line bunch around me.
I fanned myself, signaling a need for water and air, and she nodded agreeably.
“Let’s step into the garden, shall we?”
I followed her gratefully, keeping my chin high to keep my crown from sliding around my ears and over my eyes. I knew it made me look haughty, but haughtiness was preferable to bumbling.
The garden was fragrant with the last of the summer’s blooms. The leaves were falling and the air was starting to grow crisp and cool. Jeru City didn’t get much snow like Corvyn, or Kilmorda, or even Bilwick to the east, but the days were growing darker and shorter, the light fading faster, taking Tiras when it fled.