Page 75 of Into Ember

And something deep in my chest rolls over and settles.

Settles. Like a cat finding the sunny spot. A warm, low, satisfied weight spreading out behind my ribs, content for the first time since I fell into this realm, and it takes me a second to understand that the feeling isn’t mine. Or it is mine, but it’s the other mine. The one everybody keeps insisting lives in here.

Are you kidding me.

I shoved a full-grown dragon three entire steps. I growl, allegedly, and can’t hear it. My tattoo feels like a lighter sparking under my skin. And through all of it, every impossible thing, you’ve been dead silent — and the first time I really feel you, actually feel you, it’s now?

For GOLD?

We are going to have a conversation about priorities, you and I.

The settled feeling does not care. The settled feeling would like to move in.

And then I make the mistake of looking past the gold at the people, all of them, the entire realm in formal wear staring up at me in ringing silence, and the panic arrives right on schedule.

I can’t do this. I cannot do this. Who ordered a ball? Who decided I’m a queen? Nobody has shown me a single document. There’s been no test, no ceremony, no background check — there has to be a mistake, some other Elara, a realm full of dragons and they’re all looking at a journalist from Chicago whose greatest achievement this year is a listicle about fictional men, and I can’t, I truly can’t, my feet are not moving, I am going to stand on this staircase until I die and they will dust me seasonally—

And then I find Rayner.

Across the whole room, past a thousand strangers, at the far end of the room with the others, up by the throne situation, and he’s already looking at me. Of course he’s already looking at me. He smiles, slow and sure, and dips his head, just once, like we’re the only two people here and everything is already fine.

The panic lets go of my lungs.

I don’t ask why that works. I’ve stopped asking why they work. It works, and I can breathe, and my feet remember their one job.

Then, floating above the strings and the murmur of a thousand people, I hear a laugh. One specific laugh, choked off in the middle like somebody elbowed its owner, and I know exactly whose it is, and I remember all at once what I’m wearing.

The heat starts at my ears and goes all the way down. I’m going to descend this staircase like a dignified pastry, and then I am going to have Gunnar executed as my first official act, and the realm will understand, because the realm can see the dress.

I start down the stairs.

And for a minute — one whole minute — it’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. The music swells back up. The crowd sighs. People bow as I pass like a wind moving through a field, and it’s beautiful, it’s genuinely beautiful, and some tiny traitorous part of me that has read ten thousand ballroom scenes thinks — oh. So this is what it feels like on the inside.

I reach the floor. The crowd folds back to make a path, a long golden aisle of smiling faces between me and the throne end of the room, between me and my men, and I can see them at the end of it. All five. Erik a pace ahead of the others, eyes on me like a rope I could walk across.

I start toward them.

The first tug at my dress, I think I’ve caught it on something.

I glance down. A man’s hand is holding my hem. A stranger, bowed low, his fingers full of white fabric, and he’s not letting go, and his face lifts, and the look in it is want.

“Excuse me—” I pull. The fabric slides free.

Another hand catches the other side of the skirt.

Then another.

They’re reaching out of the crowd. Bowing and grabbing at the same time, murmuring my queen, my queen while their fingers close on ruffles, on tiers, and I keep walking because I don’t know what else to do, and something at the back of my skirt gives with a long ripping sound, and a piece of my dress just — leaves. Goes into the crowd. A man holds it to his face.

I watch as he takes a long, deep breath and I am not okay.

“Stop—” I’m turning, trying to see all of them at once, and there is no all of them, there’s only more of them, the aisle that was so wide narrowing on both sides, smiling faces leaning in, hands and hands and hands, and I look for someone to stop this, a guard, an attendant, anyone.

Nobody moves.

Nobody moves.

The music keeps playing. Beautiful, unbothered, like the strings can’t see this, and a sleeve seam pops at my shoulder, and I hear my own voice saying excuse me, excuse me, please— in the tone you use when the world has stopped making sense and you’re still trying to be polite to it.