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Cyara was still staring at me in the mirror.
“What?” I asked, lifting a hand to my temple.
She didn’t bother to hide her amusement as I tried to massage away the side effects of my own actions.
“Councilor Roksana has sent a request on behalf of the Royal Council.”
I sighed. “Esa thinks that if it comes from Roksana, I’m more likely to comply.”
The grim line of Cyara’s mouth confirmed as much.
I leaned forward on the dressing table, resting my elbows on the gleaming mirrored surface so I could massage both my temples at once. “What is it?”
Cyara cleared her throat delicately. “In keeping with tradition, the Royal Council requests that Her Royal and Powerful Majesty select a gown which reflects the customs of her court and the elemental Ancestors who have come before.”
A laugh peeled from my throat, a humorless and cold sound. “You know what they really mean.”
“Indeed,” Cyara said.
She turned away for a moment, reappearing with a diaphanous white gown draped over her arm. I could see the scalloped edges of the hem, gilded with gold. Beautiful, angelic. A statement of purity, peace, and power.
As if our court, our entire kingdom, had not been torn to shreds just six months ago.
As if Arthur had never existed.
The royal council requested I wear white?
They could go right to hell.
I’d given them the power to rule my kingdom. They would not have another damn piece of me.
“No.”
Cyara nodded. “I suspected as much.”
Charis appeared over her shoulder and the white gown disappeared.
When Cyara turned back to me once again, she held an altogether different option.
My hand fell away from my temples. “Yes.”
* * *
I turned away from the mirror when Cyara placed my mother’s crown upon my head.
The Dowager would be in attendance at the Offering, there was no way to avoid that.
It doesn’t belong to her.
It is the crown of our court. Of the elementals, worn by Nimue herself and every heir after.
But I didn’t care about my court. All they’d ever done was cause me pain.
The same as my mother.
Arthur had worn this crown, my father’s massive sword at his side, when he’d been crowned King of the Elemental Fae. At my own coronation, I’d managed to wear the thing as well. Though my memories of that event were foggy at best. Hastily executed in the days after my brother’s murder, my coronation had been a farce—an opulent show by the elemental court that although their king was dead, all was well.
All was not well.
