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The coronation ceremonydrifted past Elma like a dream. It was as solemn as a tomb, only the opening fanfare of trumpets serving to indicate this was an event worth celebrating. Incense choked the room, and Elma breathed deeply until her lungs burned. Then there were the prayers, the chanting everyone knew by heart. Elma’s slow procession to the throne.
There, she spoke the words of the ruler in the language known only by those descended from the line of kings. It was a strange language, its origins having come from the people who lived on the ice thousands and thousands of years ago. And before that, it came, her father had said, from the stars.
Finally, Elma knelt before her uncle, Lord Godwin, brother of the late Rafe III, King of Rothen. He placed the coronation crown upon her head. It was heavy and black, with sharp spires of metal inlaid with rubies. It dugpainfully into Elma’s skull, her neck aching under the weight.
“Stand, Elma Volta, Queen of Rothen,” her uncle intoned.
She stood.
At last, there was applause, small and scattered.
And then the ceremony was over. Elma I, Queen of Rothen, took her leave with a lump in her throat. None of it felt right. Her mothers should have been there. Her father shouldn’t even be dead. She should not be wearing his crown, draped in his furs, applauded by a throne room of subjects she hardly knew.
The antechamber door slammed behind her. She leaned against it, breathing hard, relieved to be out of the throne room. She had hardly noticed Rune following her in, always her shadow.
“I want to be alone,” she said. All she wanted to do was rip off all these layers of finery, get that horrible crown off her head, and go to bed.
But she wasqueennow.
She closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself not to cry.I am strong enough, she thought.I was born for this.
Rune said nothing. It was then that Elma realized he had no reason to be here. She had been crowned; she was Queen Elma, alive and breathing. Rune had fulfilled his half of the deal.
“You can go,” she said, spitting the words even though it hurt. “You’re pardoned. I’ll uphold my end, sign the papers. I’ll make peace with Slödava.”
Rune tilted his head. “That’s not why I’m hovering at your shoulder if that’s what you’re wondering. I can’t leave you here alone yet, a ripe fruit ready to be plucked from the tree.”
“What a metaphor,” Elma said, trying to ignore the relief she felt at his words.
A growing storm howled outside the Frost Citadel, rattling the windows. And as the reality of Elma’s coronation sunk in, as the rest of her life extended before her, she felt as if her chest were crumpling inward. Even after all these years, her heart was still in Mekya, in that beautiful garden kingdom, with her mothers at Orchard House. Yet today, she had tied herself inextricably to Rothen. She could never truly leave. And Rune would soon be gone. The storms would forever envelop her.
Rune moved to her then, wordlessly reaching up, and lifted the crown from her head. It was a quiet gesture, kind, as if he had known exactly where her pain was. And if it was just a distraction, if he planned to kill her now, then she wouldn’t fight it.
But he only set the crown aside. And when Elma made no move to protest, his deft fingers unhooked the coronation robe from her shoulders and draped it gently across the back of a chair. She watched as if from far away, these simple movements, the intimate closeness of him. The gestures of a friend.
“I know what it’s like,” he said, running one hand down the soft, furred edge of the coronation robe. He was half-turned away from her, his face obscured behind a fall of white hair. “To be overwhelmed by one’s duty. To wish for something different.”
When he turned back to Elma, his gaze was open. There was sadness in his eyes, reflecting back at her. She saw her mothers there, the blue sky, the fruit trees, and the symphonies. She wondered what he saw in her own eyes, what it was that he wished for. And she wondered, a crack opening in her frozen heart like spring’s first thaw, if she would miss himwhen he was dead.
You’ll miss him like a vital organ. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Something in Rune’s expression changed then, like a fire burning out. And Elma knew, somehow, that he had been thinking the same. That there could be no homecoming between them. Not in that lifetime.
Twenty-Three
An hour had been set aside for Queen Elma I of Rothen, for her to reflect. To be alone. To be pious and quiet and solemn. Elma, the woman, could not have wanted anything less. She had few things to cling to, few comforts in that life, and her enemy had become — inexplicably, achingly — one of them.
“Rune…” she spoke his name softly, that single syllable laden heavy with a question.
“Come here,” he growled and pulled her into him.
She bent to him like an aspen in a gale. He was eager, forceful, rough. Exactly what she needed in that moment. To give way, succumb, to melt into pleasure. Rune seemed all too ready to please her without being asked. He kissed her deeply, pulling at her hair as he did. His other hand braced against her back, holding her body flush with his while his lips explored hers.
His mouth alone nearly undid her. It was so easy to give in to Rune. He knew how to nip her lips, when to lower his mouth to her jaw, to scrape his teeth along her flesh. When tokiss her neck, softly sucking. He knew exactly how to make her moan.
Everything he did was planned, immaculate. As if in the throes of pleasure, just like in taking a life, one need only apply the right pressure to the right plane of skin. To elicit the right response. To cause Elma’s breath to catch in her throat, her hips to roll against his.
As the ache between her thighs grew into a desperate need, Rune lifted her effortlessly in his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist and felt his hardness there. She arched her back to press herself against him, the heady feel of it eliciting a soft moan from his throat.
