We came down the staircase into the throne room, where hundreds of fae had gathered. Nobles, commoners, all in midnight-black. Eleyrie said they’d come from around the court’s lands, from the fringes I’d never seen, as was custom for the passing of amonarch. Some fae lived their whole lives, childhood through adulthood, without a queen’s death.
Many times the four courts gathered for such a funeral, but Sylvanwild was insular. Rhiannon in particular disdained or despised the other courts, so the only autumn fae had gathered. For love? Doubtful. For spectacle? More likely.
Voices died away as I descended, and eyes found me.
Any one of them could hate me. Any one could be hiding a blade meant for my gut.
Yet Rhiannon was little beloved. And Haskel had told me Rhiannon’s family was all gone—her sisters dead by her hand, her parents dead of broken hearts soon after.
Faun’s voice boomed behind me. “Kneel for your queen.” It was not the entrance I wanted; it was the one she had insisted I make.
All those below found a knee. Their heads bowed. And amidst all those bent knees, a sight revealed itself?—
There, in the central aisle, a veiled body lay atop a black-cushioned bier.
Rhiannon.
I came to the base of the staircase and approached. Her body looked small, frail. As though when her soul left it, she’d withered like an overripe fruit. Hard to believe this was the arm that had shot an arrow across a meadow, the hand that had nearly killed me.
I set my fingers to the bier’s edge, lifted my gaze and shifted it around the throne room. Still no Dorian. Only faces I didn’t recognize. Lowered brows, hard eyes, tight lips.
Haskel had thought it best I lead the funeral, to show I respected Sylvanwild tradition. How many of these people were here because they had been commanded? A few days ago, they had derided me in this very throne room.
Faun was right. I must never show weakness.
I turned a slow circle, gaze passing over all these fae—my subjects. “Tonight we hold a funeral for Rhiannon, the queen whowas. She will be honored in the Sylvanwild tradition, and her body will be offered to the night.”
I stopped, facing her. “Kairen vor thynar.If you are among her friends, then I bid you rise. Rise, and approach, that you may pay last respects and speak her qualities.”
I clasped my hands. I waited—and waited. As a girl in the Kingdom of Storms I’d learned of the king’s tomb, where centuries of monarchs were buried. A terrible, quiet place with only the scratching of rats and maggots to break the silence.
This felt worse. We had not even rats or maggots to break the awful quiet.
No one rose. Not one fae.
Either Rhiannon had not one friend, or none were brave enough to show themselves. Which meant they feared me more than they were willing to honor her.
I felt pity; I felt gratitude. The word of what I had done in that meadow must have spread and settled.
The double doors were open to the night, its chill billowing in. Through those doors, two rows of torchlight led out into Sylvanwild.
I faced the waiting flames. “Follow. Carry her high, walk among the wraiths, and we will usher her to the next life.”Whatever life that might be.
The funeral pyre had been built, stick upon crossed stick, ten minutes’ walk from the citadel. I led the silent procession, and the night—the wraiths—remained at the edges of the torchlight.
Fear of them still gripped me tight. Would that ever change? They respected power above all else, and I had that now. As we walked, I sensed the wraiths tasting the air around us. If we didn’t hold magic to us, then we were weak. Prey.
Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
The procession moved unobstructed through the forest,hundreds of fae. It was the first moment I understood the collective strength of Sylvanwild, how every fae present—noble or lowborn—could step into the woods at night and face death without it taking them.
A ruthless court. A bold one.
Someone in the procession played a stringed instrument as we walked, like a violin but low and groaning. Darker, more mournful than any tune I’d known. Every stroke of the bow was a dry rasp of horsehair against gutstrings. Not a clean sound—textured and wild, biting at the silence of the procession.
These rituals occurred around me every day, and I was folded into them. Hundreds of them, small and large. And I expected to understand, to speak, toknow. I could hear Elisabet’s voice from years ago, chiding me when I complained about a heavy text:“Don’t despair over the size of the spine, Eury. Just read the page in front of you.”
The page in front of me. I could do that, at least.