“Huzzah!” the other thirty-five shouted.
“Hip-hip—”
“Huzzah!”
“Hip-hip—”
“Huzzah!”
The group all dropped to their knees. “The thanes bend the knee to our queen.”
Kyrja pressed a hand to her heart. “The Crown acknowledges the thanes. I pledge my service to you for all my days.”
“So shall it be.”
After they rose, the thanes skated forward, grins on their faces as they stretched their long-stemmed flowers up toward the dais.
Kyrja knelt down to take the roses—and she thanked each one by name. He knew that Dania had been the one to submit the names of the thanes for this honor, and he realized only now that Kyrja must have met them all in Dania’s clinic over the years.
But not just met them. She remembered them. Enough to greet them like old friends. His chest filled again with that pride he had no right to feel.
Only once the thanes had returned to their seats and Kyrja stood tall again did the ice wall in front of the Blessed come down. Kyrja moved her gaze over the line of them. “Does Ivar Emilsson speak for the lot of you?”
Nik shifted from foot to foot, glancing at Arne. Traditionally, the new monarch shouldn’t address the Blessed before they made their show of fealty, certainly shouldn’t ask them a question that would disrupt their ranks. Arne, as the First Seat of the Grand Council and the one in charge of this event, could have intervened.
But then, it was the Blessed who had already broken from tradition. Arne just smirked.
A woman stepped forward, chin up. “He does not, Your Majesty.”
Kyrja tilted her head. “In my court, you will find that traditions will be upheld only when they benefit the people—all the people. We will break from those that no longer serve us.” She moved her head, and given the uncomfortable shifting among the Blessed, she must have met and held each gaze. “By the Rules of Challenge, the twelve vacant seats are mine to fill by appointment, if I make my decisions within a month, and the appointees will serve for four years uncontested before Challenges or the Proving can begin again. And I will fill them, based not on brute strength but on those who demonstrate themselves to be loyal to the true heart of Fjordlandi—those who have a heart for all our people. Tonight, Laila Magnusdottir, you may lead the Blessed onto the ice as a nod to your bravery in disavowing your cousin’s disloyalty. But consider the existing ranks wiped clean hereafter.”
Ivar looked about to shout in protest, but before he could, Laila leapt onto the ice, the other Blessed rushing to follow.
They called up ice, but Kyrja was clearly not in the mood to humor them. They’d no sooner launched it into the air than she shattered it and turned it to snow that drifted slowly down.
The crowd went wild. Shouts of “Long live Queen Valkyrja!” tripped over each other, blending in with whistles and hollers and deafening applause.
Arne seemed to be doing some mental calculation. With no skating to pick up the flowers necessary—which is what usually signaled the dance—he shrugged and nodded toward the musicians. They all picked up their bows, their maestro awaiting their cue.
Kyrja stepped off the dais, onto what was moments ago thin air. An ice step rose to meet her, then another and another, until she stood on the rink, the stairs melting down again behind her.
Ivar shoved his way through the Blessed still moving toward the outside of the rink, gaze on Kyrja and intent clear. He’d try to reclaim what he could.
Far too late. The first dance went to the Blessed who led off the display portion of the ceremony—not the one who’d tried to snub his queen. Nik brought a wall of flame up through the ice in front of Ivar—quickly extinguished and iced over, but it got his point across. He moved out onto the ice again, turning to face Kyrja. He bowed.
A grin played at her lips. “You’re not wearing ice skates, Nikanor,” she said, too softly for anyone else to hear.
He grinned back. “It’s worse than that. I haven’t the first clue how to dance.”
She laughed. “Didn’t teach you that in your abandoned kyrka?”
He shrugged. And offered his hand anyway. “Even so, it would be my honor to accompany you around the rink to greet your people.”
She put her fingers in his palm, sending a blessedly cool tingle up his arm.
The orchestra launched into a song.
Nik expected Kyrja to move to his side so they could walk around the long oval, but she settled her other hand on his shoulder, leaving him little choice but to set his on her waist. Frost and snow, but he hoped he didn’t singe the very lovely silk she wore. He cleared his throat. “Not lying, Kyrja. I really don’t know how to dance.”
