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“But you won’t yell at me.”
She nodded. “Do you know why?”
“You are the queen?”
“Exactly,” she replied. “Even if the sky is falling. Even if all the world is in chaos and I am in pain, even if my children are in pain, I must be the calm one. I must be the queen, not the sovereign but the queen. My role is to support. And so, I am supporting. I shall ignore everything else and do what I must do anyway. Gale is the future king. Sadly, he does not see me as his support but as another person demanding something of him that he does not think he can do. You married him, even though no one else knows or if it is legal, so you are that support. He needs it now, and he will need it again tonight for the state dinner. Therefore, you will need to choose a crown.”
“If I wear a crown instead of a tiara, won’t everyone know what they reported was the truth?”
“Of course, someone will say that. Others will say it is customary that every woman wears a crown or tiara at a state dinner. People will always say something. We are above it. We ignore it. Choose the one you like so it can be taken out of the volt and prepared for you,” she demanded, waiting.
Once again, I looked around at the crowns.
“With haste, Odette, you still have a schedule to keep.”
At first glance, it was hard to choose. They were all so sparkly and royal. A room of crowns worn by former queens, all of them different, but all of them stunningly beautiful. I wasn’t sure which one to pick. How did you just pick a crown? Part of me wanted to pick the least “in your face” looking one. However, as I walked, I found myself stopping and staring at a golden crown covered in every color of jewels—sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pink diamonds, and white diamonds. It wasn’t at all quiet. It was in your face. I glanced up at the queen, who had worn it in the painting above. She was a petite woman with long, light-brown hair and a large, red birthmark on her face right under her eye.
“Queen Polina,” she said, coming up beside me. “She was a commoner. The first commoner to ever marry into nobility, let alone become queen. To make matters worse, she was not of stunning beauty, either. But she not only saved then Prince Michal during the Second War of Princes but treated his wounds and helped him sneak past enemy lines to rejoin his army. After the war, he came back for her—a butcher’s daughter—and married her. But she was not treated nor felt like a queen. So, he had a crown of every jewel, embedded in gold, created for her.”
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “Well, they are all beautiful, but this one really is.”
“It has a name.”
“A name?” I looked at her.
“Kings named their swords. Queens named their crowns,” she replied, amused. “This one’s name is Bevilën.”
My mouth dropped. That could not be possible. “Bevilën? Beloved? Really?”
“Yes, really. Why?”
When the queen asked a question, you had to tell her the truth. But I couldn’t look at her face to say it. “Gale has started calling me that.”
“I see.” Her voice was unshaken. “It is fate then. I will tell them to have it ready.”
“No, isn’t it a bit too much for my first crown? People will think—”
“People will always think, Odette. Did I not just tell you that?” she asked, walking away from me and back toward the door. “Come, there is still much to do.”
“Coming,” I replied, watching all the crowns sink back into the floor. I had been so focused on where we were going and why we were there, then on the crowns, that I had forgotten about what I should have been worried about. It was when I saw Gelula still waiting for me outside that panic and the fear that I might be pregnant entered my mind again.
Logically, I tried to tell myself that it was just one time. I was safe. Puking once in the morning and sleeping all yesterday, and then being nauseous because of smells were all just coincidences.
“Ma’am, we have the finalized seating chart,” Ambrose stated to the queen, giving her the folder.
I let them walk forward a bit, and Gelula came over to my side.
“Where is it?” I whispered.
She leaned in closer. “On me. Everyone is cleaning and preparing for the evening. I did not wish to leave it—”
“Odette?”
“Yes,” I asked, both of us immediately separating.
“Do not lag. Come and see.”
“Of course,” I replied, stepping up farther.
