The egg is waiting in my new bedroom when I arrive, and I spend a few moments warming its shell with my hands before I start unpacking the trunks. They brought the entire contents of my tent, it looks like, so I’m only choosing the things I think I’ll need for the next week.
When I open the third trunk, I sit down abruptly and start laughing. I’d almost forgotten about Magwen deciding I needed to look presentable once I arrived at the capital so I could find a suitable husband. I stroke the fine fabric of one of the dresses and shake my head. I haven’t thought of my former steward in what feels like years. I wonder how he’s finding swinging a sword—or more accurately, given how much action we’ve seen since he chose re-assignment, shining his buckles. Smiling I move on to the next trunk, which also contains clothes. These are the shirts and trousers I’ve been wearing regularly, except that my eyes catch a gleam…like silk.
With trembling hands, I pull the robe from the trunk and let it spill over my forearms. The bright teal makes my eyes water, contrasted against the red-and-gold phoenixes embroidered on it.
Of course she left it for me. Of course.
This bedroom has a mirror. I walk to it and press the robe to the front of my body. It’s too short, of course…and there are no holes for my wings. But the colors work on my—!
“When were you planning to tell me?”
Tell you what?
I fold the robe over one arm and glare through the mirror at the reflection of him sprawled on my bed. I point over my shoulder at one pinion.
Oh. That. I didn’t think you’d need to be told. You were there for the whole ‘The gods are free to choose a new tool’ bit, yes?
“Gods!”
Just two now. I like to think I’m the incumbent though, having known you from before your glorious vesselhood.
I touch my face beneath the white-ringed eye. “So the Stars are staying.”
Sssh, you might catch his attention. My ears are still ringing from the last time.
“You don’t have ears,” I say, my own flattening.
Go ahead, strip. You know you want to look.
He’s right, curse him. Though the biggest difference is obvious: my wings are light again, not the peacock-black of the Sea. And my eyes…the Star-eye remains pale, though there’s more of a hint of blue in it now. The opposite eye is all fire: flakes of pyrite and cinnamon. My body is unchanged, but now there is a dark mark over my navel: a vertical swatch elongating it that is somehow both the color of the ocean at night and the color of wet, fertile earth.
I think your feathers might grow in with a few more blue and brown bars, the Godson says. A memento. They like your wings.
I look at myself in the mirror. “It really is over, isn’t it.”
Yes. When I don’t immediately say anything else, he says, Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty to do without having to ask Shraeven’s gods for assignments.
I finally chuckle at that, but I am surprised at the sense of loss I feel. I’ve learned and loved and lived so much during this campaign. And as irritating as being Angharad Crowned was, there was something gratifying about it also.
Ah well. I came, I was Crowned and I passed the Crown on. It’s time for other work. Which I begin now by pointing in the mirror and saying, “If you’re going to insist on being visible, put on some clothes!”
He turns over and wags his tailless backside at me.
I cover my eyes. On the other hand, being Angharad, vessel of the Godkindred gods, looks like it’s going to be just as irritating.
* * *
My temporary office is the receiving room of a suite in the governor’s mansion, and it feels pleasingly familiar to me with its high ceilings with their elegant crown mouldings, rich carpets and wainscoting. The building was apparently renovated after we conquered, and I wonder if Ragna will tear it down and redecorate it something more Shraevenaese in style.
For now, I am content. I sit at the desk beside the window overlooking the sea and I write out points I’d like addressed in the treaty, prioritizing them and noting which ones I’m willing to discard to win more difficult provisions. I don’t see this agreement being too difficult—Ragna and I are not enemies—but what little I’ve done to aid my parents in the management of the Sunblood Cliffs has given me more than enough experience to expect it will be tedious, and most of it will involve commerce…not my best subject.
You’d best learn, the Godson says.
“I know,” I mutter, and continue writing. He mostly leaves me in peace so I must be doing something right.
Early in the evening, a visitor swoops in through the window to preen his feathers while perched on the back of an empty chair.
“Hello again, far-traveler,” I say, lifting a brow at the messenger. “Do you have something for me?”
The corvid messenger tilts his head but hops no closer, so I assume not. But he looks far too smug for my tastes.
“Where’s your mate?” I ask, suspicious.
That gets me a raven’s grin, gape-beaked with shining eyes. I sigh, wondering what that portends. “All right, all right. Another secret. I trust I’ll learn soon?”
The messenger jerks his head in what looks like a nod. I reach over and scratch him behind the head, which seems to please him. “Well enough. Are you coming to the Kingdom with us? You’ve certainly earned an assignment closer to home if you’re so minded.” When I get no reply that I can read, I say, “You’ll be welcome, either way. If you end up staying here with your new mate, I will ask Ragna to…I don’t know. Give you some shiny things from time to time.”
A croak of a laugh at that. I smile too.
I return to my work, and the messenger keeps me company for a while before dropping out the window…perhaps to rendezvous with his gray woman. I glance out after him at the distant stars and wonder. But it’s late, and it’s been a long day. I blow out the candle.
* * *
When I wake in the middle of the night, I find a pard’s back against my chest. I find this salubrious and fall back asleep again. It is perhaps a sign of impending senility that when I wake I am surprised to find her in my bed.
She doesn’t look different to me. I stroke the heavy fur on her side, and when the guard hairs part from the soft undercoat I see no sparkle, no dazzling spots, no strange colors. They have not changed her mane, her long, thick tail, her heavy body…nothing. When she yawns and then twists to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes are the same sea-green they always were, not a glint nor a shimmer.
“Looking for a mark?” she asks.
“You’ve noticed they took mine,” I say. “I thought maybe...”
She smiles with her whiskers, still drowsy. “The historical function of Shraeven’s monarch has been to mediate between the gods and the monarch’s functionaries.”
I squint. “Functionaries…people like the mayors?”
She nods. “So I do not have paint. But I can direct powers like a god.”
The Godson makes a noise in the back of my head. I admit, I’m surprised too. “The tree...?”
She shakes her head. “I did not call that tree, no. But I could make another.”
“Magic,” I murmur.
“In the service of the country,” Ragna says. “Only that.”
I smile a little. Who of us does not have constraints on our powers? Even the Godson is stuck with me. “How did you like your first day as queen?”
“Hard work,” Ragna opines with typical candor. “But good.”
“You looked well up there,” I murmur, hugging her.
“Thank you,” she says. “And thank you for the chance to put my suit before the gods.”
“I like to think I’m a good judge of character,” I say. She is warm and soft and fluffy, and I am now creaky and feeling my age thanks to the Land withdrawing from my joints. Nevertheless, it occurs to me to ask, “Should you be here?”
“Perhaps not,” she says. “But I wanted this night with you. My old life’s ending, the new beginning.”
I draw her close, mindful of all the endings to come.