Page 196 of The Crown's Awakening
She makes another small sound in response, entirely content now.
Colsar remains where he is.
I do not look at him again. "Goodnight," I say. Soft and final both.
A pause. Then, "Goodnight."
The door closes behind him and the room quiets. Kiss shifts in my arms, warm and calm, her fingers still moving through the water.
I lean back and let the heat hold us both.
Porraya. The word moves through my mind again, and next time I will already know.
CHAPTER 58
The Shalvar Throne Room
Iwake before the light fully reaches the room. I stay where I am, aware first of the quiet and then of the absence beside me. Colsar is already gone. The place he left behind is still warm, the sheets slightly disturbed. The children had stirred in the night as he returned from his study, Ari first and Kiss following, and his voice close to my ear telling me to rest.
I slept more deeply than I have in days. I sit up, and for once there is no pain in my abdomen, no pull. The absence is so complete that I pause, testing it without meaning to. I move again, standing and crossing the room. Still nothing.
I send for the healer, and she does not make me wait. She removes the bandage swiftly, her hands moving with quiet precision as she unwinds the last of it from my body. I look down. My skin is whole. The place that had torn bringing them into the world is gone, as though it had never been.
I release a breath slowly. “Fully healed?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“Completely.”
I look at her, then back at my skin, and something lifts inside me so quickly it almost feels like laughter. I dress slowly after she leaves, not because I need to but because I want to feel the difference, the way nothing catches or pulls or reminds me of what it has been. When I finish I stand at the window for a while, looking out at the hidden kingdom below, watching the morning move through it at its own pace.
Then I go. I have not seen much of the palace beyond the corridors I already know, and today I let myself wander further than I have before. The hidden kingdom folds into itself in ways I am still learning, rooms that should not exist alongside rooms that feel older than the structure around them, light moving through the walls differently depending on which threshold you cross and which world you are standing in.
I find a gallery I have not seen before, long and high-ceilinged, lined with portraits of Shalvar's royal line going back further than I can trace. I walk the length of it slowly, taking my time with the faces, the way they shift across generations, certain features returning again and again. Some of them look like the Sovereign. A few of them look like Kentan.
None of them look like Colsar, and I find I do not mind that. He did not come from this line. He was chosen into it, which is a different kind of belonging, and perhaps a stronger one.
I leave the gallery and take a corridor I have not tried before, following it until it opens onto an outer courtyard I did not know existed. The air is cold and sharp after the warmth inside, and the sound reaches me before anything else.
The Avanki.
They move across the training ground in formation, precise and unhurried, their drills carrying the particular quality of people who have done this long enough that it has stopped requiring thought. I watch from the edge for a moment, long enough to place Trophi at the far end, standing with his arms folded, watching a pair of soldiers work through a sequence he is clearly not satisfied with.
I cross the courtyard toward Trophi. He sees me coming before I reach him, his attention moving from the soldiers to me with the same careful assessment he gives everything.
"Majesty," he says.
I almost ask him to spar with me, but then I remember Aunt Petunis.
A queen does not ask or beg. She commands.
"You will spar with me," I say.
A brief pause. Something moves through his expression, not reluctance exactly, more the particular consideration of a man deciding how honest to be. "Are you certain?"
"Yes."
