Dania let her arm fall away and peered out the window beside her, scowling as a Blessed bypassed the queue, head held high. “You have nothing to worry about. You won the Challenges, and the Coronation Ball will begin with the recording of it. The Blessed will bend the knee to you because you’ve already bested the best of them. The noble houses will bow too, and you can bet I will.” She gave Kyrja a wink. “And I’m sure all the other Fjorders will follow my gallant lead.”
Kyrja grimaced at the thought of that “bending the knee,” though. “It’ll be like all the practices with Einar that I inevitably failed at. All the Blessed throwing whatever they can at me.”
“So that you can prove your dominance and give them a reason to bow. It’s just a show.”
That didn’t help. “That’s the problem. I was never good at the show.”
“But you came through when it counted.” Dania motioned behind them.
Nik paced the floor, careful to avoid the tapestries, given the flames that tended to lick up his arms without warning. WhenKyrja turned to look at him, he was studying something on the ceiling.
Seeing him doing something so mundane shouldn’t make new flutters flip through her stomach, wobbling about like a child on her first pair of skates. But the look on his face as he studied the woven scene, the intensity there, the appreciation… She’d never known anyone so enthralled by such old, simple artwork.
At their attention, Nik smiled. “I can’t believe my first time in the Grand Kyrka, I don’t even dare to enter the nave.”
Kyrja’s lips pulled up. She’d wanted him here, and he’d wanted to come. But a man who kept erupting in flames, sitting on an old wooden bench soaked with centuries of polishing oils? They’d agreed he’d better stay in the stone antechamber. “Daemon said you’d learn to control it soon. You’ll be able to attend services in a few weeks.”
Though he looked out of place with his black leathers, it was a good kind of out of place. To her mind, anyway. She leaned into the cool stone arch around the window. “I’ve been thinking. We can’t keep calling your family Cursed, like Daemon has done.”
Nik faced her, a smile on his lips that somehow looked entirely different than it had two days ago in his prison cell. It wasn’t the smile of a scholar, a friend. Or notjustthat. It was the smile of a man who’d been sent into the fire and emerged as something new. “I don’t know, Kyrja. I did walk into a kyrka and burst into flames.” He held out a hand, fire springing up.
Kyrja chuckled.
Dania sucked in a breath. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“You’re demonstrating my very idea though.” Kyrja nodded toward his hand. “We’ll call you the Aflame.”
He considered, made an impressed face. Nodded. “I like it. Certainly better than my grand-uncle’s interpretation of things.”
“Renaming them isn’t the only concern.” Dania bumped her shoulder into Kyrja’s. “Once you’ve established yourself as the new queen, you’re going to have to introduce them to Fjordlandi. And that could be tricky.”
The very thought made her stomach go tight in a far less pleasant way than looking at Nik did. Not that she didn’t want to grant the Aflame freedom to come and go from Helviti as they pleased, but, well, she had to make sure the citizens of Reykstoll realized they weren’t, in fact, the daemons they might appear to be, with their scorching heat, black leather, and the smell of sulfur that accompanied them everywhere. Those under the domes, fed as they were by geothermal vents, would be accustomed to the distinct smell of the volcanoes, but those who lived in the open cities were more sensitive to it.
Nik’s hand landed on her shoulder, warm and soothing. “We’ll worry with that later. Today isn’t about us, Kyrja. It’s about you.”
“Nik’s right. And also,” Dania said, turning to him, “don’t singe her cloak.”
He pulled his hand back with a chuckle. “Sorry.”
She almost told him to go ahead and burn it to ashes—she’d rather have the warmth of his touch than this centuries-old heirloom. But then, she shouldn’t be so cavalier. It was part of her history, held in cold storage between coronations. If the paintings could be trusted, this very cloak, with its rich silver embroidery and white fur lining, had been worn by every monarch since the first Blessed who took the Ice Throne, over a thousand years ago.
Only when the massive front doors of the kyrka closed did she realize the chatter from the street had faded. Kyrja sucked in a long breath and turned to Dania. “How do I look? Are the pins holding?” She lifted a hand toward her hair.
Dania batted it down, scowling. “Stop it, or they won’t be. You know very well those curls of yours think pins are their mortal enemies, and it won’t take much encouragement from you for them to break free.”
“You look beautiful.” Nik offered her a smile and edged back, well out of reach.
She smoothed a hand down the cloak. Per tradition, she had it clasped for this ceremony, so that in all the images, it and her crown would be all anyone could see. But once they arrived at the arena, the cloak would be left behind. Under it she was wearing the last gift her mother would ever give her.
The gown she’d commissioned for Kyrja’s Blessing Day celebration. It had still been underway at the seamstress’s at the time of the explosion, and the woman had finished it a week ago, right on time.
The door to the antechamber opened, and Leif stepped halfway in. “It’s time. If you could find your seat,” he said to Dania.
She reached first to squeeze Kyrja’s hand one more time. “You’re our queen,” she said softly. “Don’t forget it.” Then she slipped out of the room, off to find the pew where her husband and daughters waited, along with her brother and his family.
The dominie’s eyes were on Nik, who stood with his hands behind his back and a rueful smile on his lips. “I haven’t caught anything on fire, erkebyshop. I promise.”
The old man grunted, but a smile hovered around his mouth. “Learn to control it quickly, son. I am eager for a few conversations with the one Gylfi has told me so much about. If you read all those books I sent to Harroby for you…”
