The Shattered Throne

The first thing Azreal remembered was the smell of iron.

It lay beneath everything else in the square, faint at first and then impossible to ignore, threading itself through the sweeter scents of warm bread, crushed flowers, horse sweat, and the perfume of nobles who had come down from the upper streets to be seen near the King.

Her fingers tightened around King Lucien’s arm.

He glanced down at the hand gathering the heavy velvet of his sleeve. Gold and silver thread curled along the cuff in a pattern of laurel leaves, each stitch so fine that Azreal had once listened to the royal tailor lament for half an hour after Lucien snagged one on a carved door.

“If you continue gripping me like that,” he murmured, “Master Pell will accuse you of treason.”

Azreal loosened her hold at once. “Against the Crown?”

“Against his embroidery.”

She looked up.

The corner of his mouth had lifted by barely a breath, but she caught it. Lucien rarely laughed in public. Even smiling seemed to him a luxury best rationed.

“You might have warned me.”

“And lose the opportunity to discover whether you valued your father above his tailor’s temper?”

“That is a cruel test.”

“A monarch must know where she stands.”

Azreal’s smile came despite herself.

Around them, the square was crowded enough that the royal guard had cleared a narrow passage through the press of bodies. Merchants stood outside their shops in feast-day coats. Children balanced on crates and fathers’ shoulders, waving ribbons until anxious mothers dragged them down to bow. Flower sellers had pushed their carts to the edge of the route, and the fountain at the center of the square glittered beneath a cloudless sky.

Everyone bowed when Lucien passed.

The bows, Azreal had learned, meant very little. Faces were more useful.

Some people watched her father with admiration. Others smiled because one smiled at kings. A few lowered their eyes too quickly, while others allowed their attention to linger just long enough to feel like a challenge.

He paused before a prosperous cloth merchant.

“Master Ellison. Your eldest joined Captain Varden’s company this spring, did he not?”

The merchant brightened. “He did, Your Majesty.”

“A sound regiment. Varden has a gift for turning reckless young men into useful soldiers.”

“My wife has been praying for precisely that miracle.”

Lucien’s smile warmed by a fraction. “Then we must hope Captain Varden does not disappoint her.”

They moved on.

A widow in dark blue offered Lucien her hand. He accepted it with grave courtesy, asked after the lingering pain in her knee, then inquired after her brother, Lord Corren, whose vote in council had become troublesome during the previous winter.

The woman’s expression changed for less than a heartbeat.

Lucien saw it.

So did Azreal.

Her father remembered everything: marriages, illnesses, old debts, feuds between houses, which merchants controlled the roads and which lords owed favors to whom.

He knew people the way other men knew maps.

As a child, Azreal had found the talent extraordinary. As she grew older, she had begun to wonder whether it was also lonely. Lucien could enter a room of a hundred people and know what each wanted from him. She was less certain he knew what any of them loved.

His hand settled briefly over hers.

“Your expression.”

Azreal blinked. “What about it?”

“You look as though you are deciding whom to have executed.”

“I am observing.”

“You are glowering.”

“I had not realized the distinction was so severe.”

“It is a vital distinction.” He inclined his head toward two guildmasters arguing beneath an awning. “A queen observes. An executioner glowers.”

Azreal’s mouth twitched. “I shall endeavor to remember.”

“You had better. Executioners are paid considerably less.”

She looked at him properly then and found the humor in his eyes before he turned away.

Those moments were rare enough to be precious.

Lucien had never been an easy father. He was not cruel, nor had Azreal doubted that he cared for her, but affection seemed to embarrass him. Praise often arrived disguised as criticism, tenderness in brief touches he pretended not to have made.

Her mother had been different.

Queen Elara had loved openly. She had laughed without lowering her voice, embraced without considering who might be watching, and made even the coldest rooms in the palace feel inhabited. Years after her death, Azreal could still remember rosewater in her dressing chamber and the soft rasp of embroidery thread pulled through linen while Elara told stories.

After she died, the palace remained beautiful.

It simply never felt as warm again.

Perhaps that was why Azreal held so tightly to every small softness her father allowed her.

They had nearly reached the fountain when the smell of iron returned.

Stronger now.

The musicians near the guildhall were still playing, though one missed a note badly enough to make several people glance over. A guard near the fountain shifted his stance. On the far side of the route, a woman caught her young son by the shoulder and pulled him abruptly behind her skirts.

“Father.”

Lucien turned toward her.

The scream came first.

It tore across the square so sharply that the musicians stopped mid-phrase. Pigeons burst upward from the roofline in a thunder of wings. The crowd recoiled, then surged, bodies pressing backward while someone shouted for the guard.

A basket overturned. Apples rolled beneath fleeing feet.

Then a man broke through the confusion.

Azreal saw the blade catch the sun.

Lucien was turning. A guard lunged forward. Someone fleeing the square struck Azreal’s shoulder hard enough to knock her sideways.

The dagger drove into her father’s chest.

“Father!”

Lucien staggered.

The sound forced from him was unlike anything Azreal had ever heard, a harsh breath stripped of all dignity. The assassin reached for the hilt again, but Lucien caught his wrist.

Azreal knew stories of the man her father had been before the crown. Ronan had told enough of them—campaigns in the eastern passes, reckless courage, one notorious tavern brawl neither brother ever adequately explained. She had always struggled to imagine that younger Lucien beneath the polished king she knew.

She saw him now.

He struck the assassin across the face with enough force to send the man stumbling. Lucien tore the dagger from his own chest and drove forward, not with the measured discipline of a ruler but with the violent certainty of a soldier who understood exactly what hesitation would cost.

The guards surged between them.

Someone seized Azreal around the waist.

“No!”

“Your Highness, move!”

“Let me go!”

“My father is there!”

She fought with everything she had. Her nails scraped against metal, her elbow caught someone in the ribs, and she kicked backward hard enough to hear a muffled curse.

Then Lucien stumbled.

Azreal stopped struggling.

Blood had spread across the silver-threaded front of his doublet. It ran between his fingers and darkened the fabric in widening stains, too much of it, far too quickly. For one terrible moment he looked down as though his own body had betrayed him.

His knees struck the stones.

The sound that came from Azreal scarcely seemed human.

Her father’s cloak had fallen open during the struggle. Something slipped free from beneath his tunic and swung forward on a thin silver chain.

The pendant caught the sunlight.

Her mother’s necklace.

Azreal knew it instantly.

Lucien had worn it beneath his clothing every day since Elara’s death. He never spoke of it. Azreal had seen it only twice, and both times the sight had moved her in a way she had never been able to explain.

Her father, who spoke so rarely of grief, had carried her mother against his heart for years.

Now the pendant was streaked with his blood.

“Please.”

Azreal did not know whom she was begging.

The guard. Her father. The gods.

“Please let me go.”

Lucien raised his head.

Across the confusion of guards and terrified citizens, his eyes found hers.

She had never seen him look at her that way. Pain had stripped away the king’s reserve until what remained was simply her father.

His lips moved.

The shouting swallowed whatever sound he made, but Azreal knew the shape of the word.

Her name.

Something moved behind him.

Another blade rose.

Azreal screamed.

Then there was blood everywhere.

The square vanished.

She woke with her father’s name caught painfully in her throat.

For several frantic breaths, Azreal did not know where she was.

The bed curtains swayed around her. Gray morning pressed through the tall windows, rendering the familiar furniture of her chamber in shades of silver and shadow. Her lungs dragged for air while cold sweat dampened her nightdress and made the linen cling to her back.

She looked down.

White fabric. No blood.

Her hand flew to her throat.

The pendant lay beneath her nightdress, warm from her skin. She pulled it free and closed her fingers around the stone until its edges pressed into her palm.

Her mother had worn it first. Then Lucien.

Now it belonged to her.

The necklace should have felt like a treasure. Instead, it felt unbearably heavy for something small enough to hide in her hand.

Only four nights had passed since the square.

Four mornings in which the sun had risen with offensive reliability. Servants still carried trays through the corridors. Bells still marked the hours. The kitchens still sent up meals whether she ate them or not, and the council continued sending messages sealed in wax.

Azreal could not understand how the world had continued.

A quiet knock sounded at the door.

She flinched.

“Majesty?”

Mira.

Azreal wiped at her cheeks. She had not realized she was crying.

“Enter.”

The door opened, and Mira slipped inside with the quiet efficiency of someone who had spent much of Azreal’s life entering royal chambers before sunrise. Her dark hair was already pinned beneath a plain cap, her gown neat despite the early hour. Only the faint shadows beneath her eyes betrayed how little she had slept.

She bowed.

“Your Majesty.”

Azreal closed her eyes.

The title still felt like an injury.

She had always known the crown would one day be hers. Lucien had never allowed her to forget it. But not this way. Not because her father had bled to death in a city square while she watched.

When Azreal opened her eyes, Mira was already looking at her face.

“Oh, love.”

That was all it took.

Mira crossed the room and gathered her close.

Azreal folded into the embrace with none of the dignity expected of a future queen. She clutched at Mira’s sleeve and buried her face against her shoulder while the sob she had been holding since waking broke loose.

Mira said nothing at first. One hand settled at the back of Azreal’s head while the other moved slowly over her shoulder, tracing the same soothing circles she had used through childhood fevers and summer thunderstorms.

It was an old gesture.

Mira had held her exactly so when Queen Elara died.

Azreal remembered black ribbons tied around the palace gates and the way every room seemed to smell of lilies for weeks afterward.

The memory made her cry harder.

“I saw him again.”

Mira’s hand slowed. “I know.”

“I keep waking up before—”

Azreal could not finish.

Mira understood anyway.

They remained that way until Azreal’s breathing steadied.

When she drew back, she glanced at the damp patch on Mira’s shoulder. “I am sorry.”

“For what?”

“Your gown.”

Mira looked down. “I have others.”

Azreal gave a shaky laugh.

“There you are,” Mira murmured.

The tenderness of it nearly undid her again.

Azreal looked toward the windows instead. “What time is it?”

“Just past sunrise.”

“I should get up.”

“You should sleep.”

“I will dream.”

Mira considered her. “Then perhaps getting up is the kinder choice.”

Azreal pushed the blankets aside.

Mira rose toward the wardrobe, but fear seized Azreal before she had time to be ashamed of it.

“Mira.”

She turned.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

For a moment, Mira said nothing.

The words sounded painfully young. They belonged to the child Azreal had been when her mother died, not the girl everyone now insisted on calling Majesty.

Mira came back and sat beside her, taking Azreal’s hands between her own.

“You will lose me one day,” she said gently.

Azreal stared at her, appalled.

Mira’s mouth softened. “I am older than you, love. I should hope I have the courtesy to go first.”

“That is not funny.”

“It was not entirely intended to be.”

“Whenever someone leaves now, I wonder whether something will happen before I see them again.”

“I know.”

“It feels ridiculous.”

“Fear often does when one says it aloud. That does not make it less real.”

Mira squeezed her hands.

“I cannot promise you forever. But I have no present intention of dying, and I shall avoid it whenever practicable.”

A laugh escaped Azreal.

Mira nodded gravely. “I am pleased you find my commitment reassuring.”

“You are impossible.”

“I have been told so.”

“Mostly by me.”

“You are not an impartial witness.”

When Azreal finally released her, Mira brushed a strand of white hair away from her cheek.

“Now,” she said, “shall we make you presentable enough that Chancellor Hadwin does not summon a priest?”

Azreal groaned.

That, at least, felt familiar.

Mira drew the mourning gown from the wardrobe.

Black silk spilled over her arms in a heavy, lustrous fall. The fabric had been embroidered at the cuffs and hem with thread only a shade lighter than the gown itself, vines and small flowers appearing when the morning light touched them. Even grief, it seemed, required excellent tailoring.

“How much does that weigh?”

“Less than you imagine.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the answer you are receiving.”

Azreal stepped into it.

The silk settled heavily over her shoulders as Mira drew the laces together, each careful pull shaping the gown more closely to her frame. The fabric was finer than anything grief had a right to be, soft beneath her fingers and weighted at the hem so that it whispered over the carpet whenever she moved.

In the mirror, all that black only made her look paler. Her white hair seemed almost luminous against it, and the violet of her eyes stood out too sharply in a face hollowed by four sleepless nights.

Mira caught her expression.

“Do not begin.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were about to.”

“I look twelve.”

“You do not.”

“Fourteen?”

“Seventeen and a half, tragically.”

Azreal turned her head.

“That distinction matters.”

“I am certain history will devote several pages to it.”

Azreal almost smiled.

Mira lifted the sheer black veil and settled it carefully over her hair. The gauze softened the brightness of her white hair without hiding it, casting a faint shadow over her brow and cheeks.

The effect was beautiful in a way Azreal resented.

She looked like a girl dressed for someone’s funeral.

Her father’s.

Mira’s hands paused on her shoulders.

Neither spoke.

After a moment, Mira reached for the small carved box containing the powders permitted during mourning.

“Must we?”

“Yes.”

“I thought mourning freed women from cosmetics.”

“Mourning frees women from looking cheerful. It does not free queens from looking alive.”

Azreal sat.

Mira dusted pale powder beneath her eyes and added enough color to her cheeks that she no longer resembled a ghost.

“Your uncle should arrive today.”

Azreal’s gaze lifted.

“Ronan?”

“His messenger reached the western gate before dawn. He was less than a day behind.”

Relief passed through her so sharply that she had to look away.

She had sent for Ronan the night Lucien died.

Her uncle had always been different from the rest of the court. He was blunt where Lucien had been measured, impatient with ceremony, and incapable of pretending to respect a fool. He had taught Azreal to ride properly and once smuggled sweet cakes into her chambers during a week of diplomatic dinners.

Most importantly, he had never made her wonder whether he loved her.

“When he arrives, send him to me.”

“I intended to.”

“Before the council.”

“Yes.”

“Before Hadwin.”

“With pleasure.”

Azreal met Mira’s eyes in the mirror.

“I would ask him to be regent if I thought he could leave the army.”

Mira set down the powder brush.

“He might leave it if you asked.”

The possibility hurt almost as much as it comforted.

Ronan would come if she called. That was precisely why she had to be careful what she asked of him.

Lucien’s death would already have neighboring rulers studying the kingdom for weakness. Ronan belonged where the danger was greatest.

“I cannot take him from command because I am frightened.”

“No,” Mira said. “But you may still be frightened.”

Azreal looked back at the mirror.

The girl there did not look like someone who ought to command armies or councils or anything larger than her own chambers.

Still, when she rose, she straightened her shoulders beneath the weight of the black silk.

“Bring me your wax tablet.”

Mira raised a brow. “Before breakfast?”

“If I eat first, someone will interrupt me.”

“That is pessimistic.”

“That is court.”

Mira retrieved the tablet and stylus.

Azreal crossed to the window.

Beyond the glass, black mourning banners hung beneath the royal standard, stirring softly in the wind. Servants crossed the courtyard below with baskets, folded linens, and armfuls of flowers intended for the funeral.

The palace was already awake.

For four days it had continued around her while she grieved, each bell and footstep a reminder that kingdoms did not stop simply because the people ruling them wished they might.

Azreal rested her fingertips against the cool glass.

Then she turned back toward Mira.

“Very well,” she said. “Let us begin.”

“Mira,” Azreal said before the attendant reached the door.

Mira turned.

“There are matters I want arranged before my uncle arrives.”

She crossed back to the writing table and took up a wax tablet. “Of course, Majesty.”

Azreal looked once more at the girl in the mirror, then away. If she remained before it much longer, she feared she would begin to see only her age.

“I want the library cleared after breakfast. Have the Master Archivist bring every law concerning regency, along with the records of every regent appointed during the last three hundred years.”

“That is a considerable number of documents.”

“Then he had better begin at once.”

The faintest curve touched Mira’s mouth before she lowered her stylus.

“I want the original records,” Azreal continued. “Not a summary prepared by the council. I want to know how each regent was chosen, what authority was granted, what authority was taken, and how the regency ended.”

“Some of