She said that to be your beloved, we must admit we have done wrong. That alone, we can never make it right, that the cost is too high. But that you already made atonement.Her gaze tracked to the window with the bent mother and broken son. The sacrifice, that was what Mamma had called it. A perfect son, given up for imperfect humanity. One who died yet still lived.
Impossible. Illogical. Forbidden.
Fodur’s voice, echoing always in her mind like thunder.
But he wasn’t here. Had clearly never felt so empty inside, so alone and frightened and desperate for something greater than himself to believe in.
What made Fodur so certain he was right, anyway? This kyrka had been built eight hundred years ago, presumably by a former Fjordic king. Why would he do so, if he didn’t believe? What made that king wrong and this king right, if kings were inerrant, as Fodur claimed?
You are weak, he accused in her mind.Too weak for this role. Too weak to rule.
It was true. She knew it. She was too weak…on her own.
But what if the dominie was right, and she didn’t have to be alone? What if there really was a Giver in his Himmel, waiting to take her by the hand? To fill her empty places, strengthen her weakness, welcome her as a daughter, even as she mourned her mother.
If you are there, Giver, I am here. I am yours. You will have to teach me, but I will learn. Please, just don’t leave me here alone.
Music drifted into her awareness, so softly she scarcely noticed it at first. The old dominie or his wife must have turnedon a crystal with the haunting melody recorded, hooked up to play throughout the entire building. It came from all directions, a gentle serenade.
Snow falling. Wind chimes. The soft touch of frost on a pane of glass.
Or on the columns of crystal where the dominie had paused upon recognizing her, at the base of the four steps. They arched upward, meeting in a point at the highest part of the ornate ceiling. But where before she was certain the crystal had been clear as the goblets she used every day, now they hosted a dance inside.
Snow, ice, frost. All swirled within them, drawing upon the surfaces as Kyrja did upon fabric or walls, but with far more detail, more skill. Erasing as soon as a picture was complete, then shifting into a new one, crystal by crystal, while the snow danced behind it.
“Breathtaking.” She looked around to see what Blessed had come in to create such art—but whoever it was must be in a back room, perhaps wanting to avoid notice. He or she certainly wasn’t out here with Kyrja. Curious, she reached her ice-sense toward it. She had only to touch the work of another Blessed to know them.
But that was odd—she could sense nothing within the columns. Not only the absence of a magical signature, but the water itself was beyond her reach. Crystal could cut off one’s magic, yes, like in the prison. But to do so this completely, the arch must be fully sealed. Isolated. But if so, then who…how…?
The dominie rushed out, quickly enough to suggest his earlier toddle had been put on, and skidded to a halt under the columns. He tilted his head back so far she feared he’d topple over, splaying a hand over his gray-clad chest.
She began to suspect that the music was not of his making, and that he’d never before seen such a display in the columns. “Dominie?”
He lowered his head slowly, wide-eyed gaze settling on her with something raw and dangerous and unmasked. Something hopeful. He dropped to one knee without any hesitation now, head bowing. “Majesty.”
Kyrja shot to her feet, hands out. “Are you daft? Only my father can be called—”
“Only the anointed of the Giver can be called that—an anointing displayed by these channels, which have been silent for five hundred years.”
A shiver blew up her spine. “You must be mistaken.”
“I am not.” He didn’t stand, but he lifted his face. Met her gaze.
She stumbled back a step at the intensity in his, hot as a flame. Her legs hit the bench, but rather than sit, she reached out to steady herself on the pew’s side.
“Your father stood in this kyrka for his coronation, but the channels were silent, as they were for his father before him, and for the previous king as well. Between the Proving and the Challenges, our nation has a means for deciding who will rule, but for centuries, we have been ignoring the one vote that matters most—and the Giver has allowed the apostasy. He knows that faith not freely chosen is no faith at all.” He lifted his arms, held out and up, toward the still-singing columns. “But at last, the Giver has spoken. He has shown us the queen he has chosen. You, Your Majesty, have been anointed to lead Fjordlandi into a new era.”
She edged around the pew, still gripping the side so tightly her knuckles went white. As did the wood, as her frost crept over it. “Quiet.” She craned around, fully expecting Fodur or hisVektors to stomp in and arrest the old man. Arrest her. “You mustn’t say such things. They are treason.”
His nostrils flared, eyes burning all the brighter. “To not say them would be blasphemy. I would rather stand condemned before a pretender-king than before the Giver.”
A backward step, another. “If you say such things in my father’s hearing tomorrow, you’ll bring trouble down on both our heads. If you truly believe this, then bide your time. I am the Heir now—that must be what this sign is for. A blessing upon my new position. An encouragement.”
The dominie rose to his feet without a wobble, without a wince, without a creak of his supposedly-old bones. “The Song does not come for the Heir. The Song comes for the Crown.” He leveled a finger at her chest. “You, Valkyrja Isidordottir, are our queen, in truth if not yet in deed. And when you seize that crown, you will have the backing of the kyrka and the dominies.”
Sixty old men? Powerless, without a Blessing? What could their backing really give, if ever she were insane enough to make a Challenge and a grab for the throne?
Insanity. Madness.
