“Damn.” Ridge scratches at his jawline, now freshly shaved and somehow still managing to look dangerous in formal attire. His eyes narrow nearly imperceptibly toward the south entrance. “I’m surprised they showed up.”
I follow his gaze to the Nóthos delegation settling into their assigned seats, and my stomach twists.
“I’m happy they did,” I whisper back, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. “It means they’re just as committed to peace as we are. Or at least, they want us to think they are.”
“I know they want peace,” Ridge mutters, folding his arms over his chest, his attention never wavering from the newest arrivals. “But seeing them here is making me antsy.”
“I’m breaking out in hives,” Kylian adds, scratching erratically at his arm.
“This won’t be like last time,” Luka says quietly. “I trust the princes. They seem to truly want peace.”
I want to believe him. I really do.
But the last time a Noth was in this throne room…
A shiver reverberates through me at the reminder, ice tracing my spine. I’ve told myself time and time again I won’t think about the attack that killed my parents. Not now. Not today. But the memory comes unbidden anyway—the smoke, the screaming, the way my parents’ eyes glazed over…
Stop,I tell myself.Breathe. Today is for Teddie.
The Nóthos delegation sits like a shadow among the celebration—dark suits where others wear color, stern faces where others smile, their newly appointed ambassador a woman with silver hair and a scar bisecting her eyebrow, who looks like she’s seen things I can’t imagine.
She meets my eyes without flinching. No hostility, but no warmth either. Just assessment. Calculation. The weighing of strengths and weaknesses.
Stefan sits beside her. Hedoesoffer me a smile, though it’s tentative, strained, riddled with a weight I can’t even begin to comprehend. The ring around his irises glows a little brighter today than it has before. I’m not sure the suppressants are working for him quite as well as they did when he arrived, an issue I’ll have to confront at some point. But not today.
The war has paused. That's the most anyone can say. The treaties sit unsigned in diplomatic pouches in my brother’s study, the borders remain tense as drawn bows, and the history between our kingdoms still bleeds in too many places.
But for today, for this hour, the guns are silent. The bombs aren’t falling. My brother gets to be crowned without the soundtrack of artillery thundering in the distance.
It's enough. It's everything.
We’re doing what we can to uphold our end of the agreement with the Noths. Teddie thinks he might have discovered the location of the esteemed scientist, Dr. Daimon, and her team of alphas. Mother hid her pet project well, so we’ll have to see.
This is the third lead. Earlier searches didn’t pan out. But for the sake of Stefan and his brothers, I hope this one does.
The music swells—our national anthem played on sixty-seven strings, the same arrangement that’s been used for three centuries—and Teddie begins his walk down the aisle. The crowd rises like a wave, a rustle of silk and wool and held breaths, but I'm already standing, already trembling, already lost in the sight of him moving with purpose instead of stumbling with weakness.
He nears me, and for one perfect moment, his eyes catch mine.
We made it,that look says.We’re here. We’re alive. We made it.
I think of our mother's funeral six months ago, how I had to be strong when all I wanted to do was collapse. I think of how sick Teddie became, even after being administered the cure, the long nights where I bargained with gods I don't believe in, promising everything I had if they’d just let him stay.
I think of crying over his bedside, of doctors with grim faces and gentle hands who administered a bolstered dose from Stefan, of the morning I walked into his room and found him sitting up on his own, asking for toast with blackberry jam, and how I’d had to leave the room to sob with relief in the hallway.
I think of the future, unspooling before us like golden thread, fragile and bright and terrifyingly possible.
“By the power vested in me,” the archbishop begins, and his voice carries the weight of centuries, the authority of generations, “and by the will of the people, and in the name of the Divine…”
Luka grabs my hand in his and idly begins to play with my fingers, his touch grounding me. Ridge, on Luka’s other side, gives me an assessing look, but I simply offer him a wobbly smile, one that eloquently says,I’m fine, just emotional; don’tfuss.He rolls his eyes but reaches across Luka to squeeze my elbow briefly, his version of comfort.
“I crown thee, Theodore Castor, King of Hypso, Defender of the Realm, Protector of the People?—”
The crown descends, eighteen-karat gold catching the light from those stained-glass windows, throwing prisms across my brother’s face, and his head bows beneath its weight. Not just the metal, but the responsibility, the history, the lives of millions resting on the cradle of his skull.
The archbishop’s hands tremble slightly—he’s old, older than he was at my mother’s coronation, older than the infantile peace between our kingdoms—and for a heartbeat, I’m terrified he’ll drop it.
But he doesn’t. The crown settles, and Teddie rises.
