It wasn’t the last of the political skirmishes, but in the wake of that particular earthquake, the rest proved to be minor ones. Not that there weren’t dissenters and grumblers, but without Stefan’s vocal leadership, no one else had the courage to speak up. Stefan wasn’t happy, of course, and departed the next morning in a huff, announcing he refused to witness “that travesty of a coronation.” He also refused to renew the treaty or give a vow of loyalty, but that mattered little. Such things fell to his father, King Teodor, regardless. As an additional blessing, he took the entirety of Duranor’s armies with him—the final remnants of the looming civil war all had dreaded—declaring that Ordnung would have to defend itself without Duranor’s help.
To Stefan’s face, Ursula refrained from pointing out that such a statement was treasonous. Instead she had me transcribe a carefully worded missive to Teodor requesting his presence at the coronation, along with the tithe of troops he owed the High Throne, and incidentally mentioning that his son seemed to have mistakenly taken too many home and that she was sure he’d want to personally correct that oversight. The lethal gleam in her eye as she chose her words gave me a bit of a chill, knowing that’s how she must look with the point of her sword at someone’s throat. She refused all of my suggestions for mitigating the implicit accusation of treason.
“You’re making an enemy of Stefan,” I warned her, feeling I should.
“Not true,” she corrected me, reading over the letter with a sharp-edged smile. “He was already my enemy. I’m just letting him know that I know it. I have no wish to follow in my father’s tyrannical footsteps, but neither did Uorsin raise me to be too soft to hold the High Throne. You’re determined to put me on it. I’m determined to stay there.”
I breathed a mental sigh of relief at her resolute tone. Somewhere amidst the fighting for her right to rule, she’d given up some of the doubts that had plagued her.
Someone who knew her less well might have heard ambition in her words, or the lust for power, as Stefan assumed. I knew it for the duty she felt she owed her people. She might not be the megalomaniac her father had been, or someone like her mother, who’d acted because she believed only she could prevent a terrible possible future. No, Ursula was simply born for this. Salena had gone to impossible lengths to bring her daughter into being, blood of her blood, to hold and keep the peace. Danu’s bright blade, avatar of justice that cut through the posturing and nonsense.
This is what made her a queen, while I remained the one who stood behind her.
* * *
Ambassadors, royals of all tiers, and various other representatives of lands far and near continued to arrive through the following weeks as word of the coronation continued to travel. The sheer number of guests strained our hospitality with so little time to put the castle and environs to rights—or to replenish the supplies depleted by the siege situation Uorsin had created in his paranoia. Harlan finally convinced Ursula to delegate security to him, which let her concentrate on smoothing relationships. She didn’t love ceding control of that aspect of things, but she trusted him to do it, which helped immensely.
Each daily onslaught of new arrivals, however, failed to produce the three guests I most hoped to greet. Zynda hadn’t returned, but sent a vague message with the Tala artisans who delivered the new throne. I read it nine times, but never got more from it than I should be able to have what I wanted and they’d get to Ordnung eventually. As the goddess of the shapeshifters, of wild magic, the moon, and the ever-changing shadows of night, Moranu did not instill organization in her followers.
Conversely, the message sent from Danu’s central temple, from a high peak at the nexus of six kingdoms, near the geographical center of the continent, had come back with crisp precision within days. They knew where to find the priestess I sought, but obliquely referenced that she must be retrieved, which would take some time. They also did not promise when she would arrive.
I began to kick myself for this brilliant plan. So far I not only lacked the perfect persons to crown Ursula—I had none at all. With Glorianna’s central Temple on the grounds of Ordnung itself, I could have at least made that part easy, with so many convenient priests to choose from, most of them highly placed in the Church’s hierarchy, but no. No, I had to send away to the White Monks, all the way on the coast of the Strait of K’van.
Who hadn’t answered at all.
With a week until the coronation, I began to consider that I’d need a back-up plan. We had the throne and the crown. The rose window had been replaced with stained glass in three overlapping circles—Danu’s star ascendant on a summer-blue field, Glorianna’s sun against the pink of dawn or sunset on the lower right, and Moranu’s crescent against a midnight sky on the left. Where the colors overlapped, they blended shades, so the curve-sided triangle in the center glowed a majestic purple. It was a thing of astonishing beauty.
Pennants once again flew from the shining towers of Ordnung—now thirteen of them, Annfwn’s joining the others. Ursula’s personal banner and the one Ami had designed to represent the united kingdoms were folded away, awaiting coronation day.
Ursula’s sword had been repaired and she’d even, with surprisingly little rancor, met with Denise, the head seamstress, to discuss her coronation gown. Without me present. Which was fine, as I had more than enough to occupy me and Denise promised me that Ursula would look extraordinary. I tried not to be concerned when I heard she’d recruited the armorer for advice.
We were talking about Ursula, after all.
I’d very nearly decided to send to Danu’s temple and ask them to send someone, anyone to perform the ceremony, when I got word that the person I’d most hoped to see had just been granted permission to enter Ordnung.
Ursula had adjourned court for the day and had gone for a “light workout” before the evening’s meal. With more and more dignitaries in residence, the feasts grew longer and more elaborate with each passing day—with Ursula valiantly attempting not to count the cost of feeding so many so lavishly for so long. She deserved the outlet, so I kept my mouth shut when those supposedly light workouts produced bruises and the occasional bleeding wound.
At least those impressed the newer members of court, to witness for themselves the ferocity of their future High Queen—and would give them exciting tales to carry home. That she’d be in the practice yard for this reunion was serendipitous. A thrill of uncertainty went through me. Hopefully I had not overstepped.
I hurried to the inner courtyard, spotting our new visitor immediately. She’d grown older, of course, over the last dozen years. Goddesses knew we all had. But she also looked as supple and keen-edged as ever.
“Kaedrin!” I called out and her head whipped around to pick me out with unerring precision. She left her horse and strode to me, wrapping me in an enthusiastic embrace.
“Dafne.” She squeezed my shoulders, scanning my face. No doubt witnessing the lines I’d gained. “Danu could have struck me down, I was so surprised to get your missive. Uorsin dead and our little Essla ready to take his place at last, eh?”
“Not so little. Wait until you see her. She’s in the practice yard, naturally.” We exchanged grins, turning together in that direction. “Will you do it—handle Danu’s part of the ceremony? You’re still a priestess?”
“Once a priestess of Danu, always one,” she averred. “And it will be the greatest honor of my life. You know how I hated to leave her to him.”
“Yes.” Ursula had been desolate for months after Uorsin banished her mentor—along with all mentions of Danu and Moranu—from Ordnung. “But you equipped her well. Look.”
We stopped just inside the practice yard, the snow of the morning’s storm melted away from the sun-warmed stones. Ursula sparred with Harlan, while some of the other Hawks and Vervaldr watched and others ran their own exercises. Lean and lithe as the daggers she used, Ursula spun in and out of Harlan’s brutal attack, avoiding the devastating sweeps of his broadsword, wielded with all the brute strength of his large body. I winced, unable to look, knowing now where the bruises came from.
Neither of them ever held back. And she looked less strained than she had an hour before, now fierce and free, bleeding off the tension of the days. Something else he did for her.
Kaedrin waited until Ursula, laughing, danced back from a narrow miss. “You’re still dropping your left guard,” she called out.
Ursula, never taken by surprise, froze in shock. Then turned.
“Kaedrin?” She whispered it, staring as if at an apparition.
Kaedrin held out her palms and shrugged. “That or the avatar of Danu come to discuss your failures of discipline.”
Shaking her head, Ursula handed her daggers hilt-first to Harlan, then broke into a run and seized her old mentor in a fierce embrace. “I never thought I’d see you again.” Her gray eyes, not steely at all, but fogged with uncharacteristic tears, found me where I hovered on the edges still. Thank you, she mouthed. And I knew it had been the right decision.
* * *
After Kaedrin’s arrival, as if Danu’s blessing had created the path, everything else fell into place. Andi and Rayfe returned to Ordnung, bringing word that Zynda would arrive shortly with the same shaman who’d married them. He’d been on some sort of retreat somewhere in the depths of Annfwn, but had been persuaded to leave his homeland. Andi promised he and Zynda would be in time. I made a deliberate resolution to believe her. I also managed not to ask again about the Dasnarians. She’d said she’d tell me if anything changed.
Apparently we still had time.
Ami and Ash also returned with the twins in tow—both babies seeming as if they’d grown a hand’s-length each. And both, it turned out, had shapeshifted during their time at Castle Avonlidgh. Stella had led the way, becoming a black jaguar kitten—something that seemed to please Andi no end—and Astar, upon witnessing the event, had crawled after her, transforming into a baby bear, swiping at her escapades.
They recounted the tale over a private dinner, a great relief after all the formal feasts and one they insisted I join, despite that I made for an uneven seventh at the table. By the time Ami told it, from the mad escape from the nursery, to the consternation of the castle guard and Ash’s eventual rescue of the spitting kitten from the height of one of the tapestries—heroics for which he bore four long scratches on his forearm that he claimed he wouldn’t part with even if he could heal himself—everyone was in tears from laughter. Ursula even took Harlan’s hand, lacing her fingers with his and exchanging a long look, as if at some private joke.
“I’m just glad you thought to send those Tala nurses with us,” Ami told Andi, wiping the moisture from under her eyes. “I don’t know what we would have done otherwise.”
“I’m glad, too,” Andi said, “though I didn’t really expect them to shift so soon.”
“Especially so far from Annfwn,” Rayfe put in, frowning a little.
Ash shook his head, going solemn. “I’ll tell you—what we’d heard doesn’t touch on the reality. The magic eddying around the countryside, it comes in fits and starts, sometimes crashing like surf and then leaving only tide pools behind. In some places it’s much stronger than anywhere I encountered inside Annfwn. In others, it’s almost barren.”
That sobered everyone. “And Windroven?” Ursula asked Ami.
“Rumbling,” she confirmed. “But so far no more than that. We’re watching it and we’ve made evacuation plans.”
“It will be full winter soon.”
“I know that,” Ami retorted. “I’ve been snowed in at Windroven, but Glorianna curse me if I’m going to make everyone leave during late fall harvest just for some rumbling.”
Ursula rapped her knuckles on the table, jaw tightening “Yes, but how long do we get between rumbling and exploding?”
“I don’t know!” Ami fired back. “We haven’t done volcanoes before.”
“Unless you count within the family,” Andi remarked to Rayfe in a dry tone.
Ami ignored her. “These are my people, too. My home. Let me handle it, Essla.”
Harlan refilled Ursula’s wine goblet and nudged it against her clenched fist. She flicked him a glance and uncurled her fingers in a deliberate move. “You’re right.” Then she grinned. “But if my niece and nephew shapeshift in Ordnung, you get to handle that, too. I won’t be chasing any jaguar kittens.”
Ami groaned and dropped her forehead onto the table, Ash stroking her hair in amused comfort.
I made a note to study up on volcanoes.