Chapter 22 Beneath the shadows
The words landed like a slap.
No one spoke. The silence was deafening.
I looked at Elowyn, who was smiling her blade-velvet smile. At Lord Castellan, who looked vaguely uncomfortable. At the courtiers, who were watching with the eager, hungry eyes of people witnessing a scandal.
And then I looked at Cardan. My husband. The male who had sworn, only yesterday, to stand beside me. To guard my back. To be my ally.
He did not meet my eyes.
"Of course," I said. "I am not in Hel. How foolish of me to forget."
I stepped down from the dais.
"Where are you going?" Cardan asked.
"I am returning to my chambers. As the Queen Consort has no official duties, I assume my absence will not be noticed."
"Nyx..."
"Good day, Your Majesty. Princess Elowyn. My lords."
I walked out of the throne room with my head high and my heart in ashes.
\---
I was still fuming when I reached my chambers.
"Three thousand years!" I shouted, pacing back and forth while my handmaidens watched from the safety of the sitting area. "Three thousand years of this court, and they still think women are decorations!"
"Technically," Liriel said carefully, "the Aurelian Court has existed for four thousand years."
"That's even worse!"
"I was just clarifying..."
"It's worse, Liriel!" I threw my hands up. "Four thousand years of patriarchy and tradition and knowing your place. In Hel, my grandmother led armies into battle! My great-aunt negotiated the Shadow Concordat! My mother..." I stopped. Swallowed. "My mother was the most powerful sorceress our realm had seen in a millennium. And here, the Queen Consort's greatest responsibility is providing heirs."
"The Aurelian Court is very..." Sera searched for the right word.
"Backwards?"
"I was going to say traditional."
"Same thing."
"It's not quite the same thing."
"It is absolutely the same thing." I collapsed onto the sofa. Ash immediately climbed into my lap and kneaded my thigh with his claws. "I cannot believe he supported her. He just sat there and let her lecture me about knowing my place."
"King Cardan has been raised in this court," Thalia pointed out. "He may not know any different."
"Then he's an idiot."
"Possibly," Liriel agreed. "But he's an idiot who is now your husband. And unfortunately, that means you have to deal with him."
I groaned and buried my face in Ash's scales.
"There's more you should know," Sera said quietly. "About the court. About the kingdom."
I looked up. "What do you mean?"
The three handmaidens exchanged glances. Finally, Liriel spoke.
"The Aurelian Kingdom is not as perfect as it appears," she said. "We've been talking to the servants. The lower nobles. The people who aren't invited to the glamorous parties." She lowered her voice. "There are cracks, Your Majesty. Big ones."
"What kind of cracks?"
"The border disputes in the north aren't just disputes. There have been raids. Villages burned. People killed. The King's council has been downplaying it, but the army is stretched thin."
"And the trade agreements with the human kingdoms," Thalia added. "They're falling apart. The humans are demanding better terms, and the Aurelian lords are too proud to negotiate. The human kingdoms may push back any time from now."
"And the treasury," Sera said quietly. "Lord Percival has been embezzling funds for years. The kingdom is nearly bankrupt, but no one will say it out loud because he's Princess Cressida's father-in-law's brother."
I stared at them. "How do you know all of this?"
"The servants know everything," Liriel said simply. "No one pays attention to the people who pour the wine and make the beds. They talk freely in front of us."
"The Aurelian Court is a beautiful cage," Thalia said. "But the bars are rusting."
I sat back, processing this. The golden kingdom. The perfect court. It was all a facade, gilded rot hiding beneath a layer of sunshine and tradition.
And Cardan was sitting at the center of it, surrounded by lords who lied to him and a sister who manipulated him and a kingdom that was slowly crumbling beneath his feet.
"The Queen Consort has no official duties," I murmured.
"That's what they said," Liriel agreed.
"But they didn't say anything about unofficial duties."
My handmaidens looked at me.
"Your Majesty," Sera said slowly. "What are you thinking?"
I smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of a princess who had been told to know her place, and had decided to claim the whole damn table instead.
"I'm thinking," I said, "that the Aurelian Court has underestimated me. They think I'm a decoration. They think I'm a womb with a crown."
Ash rumbled in agreement.
"But I am the Princess of Hel. Daughter of shadows. Heir to a throne of bone and obsidian." I stood, lifting Ash onto my shoulder. "I did not survive years of waiting and silence and poisonous flowers just to be told I would be bred like a mare."
"Then what are you going to do?" Liriel asked.
"I'm going to learn everything. Every crack in this kingdom. Every secret. Every lie." I met her eyes. "And then I'm going to use it. Not to destroy them, that would be too easy. I'm going to make myself so valuable, so indispensable, that they will beg me to sit on that council."
"And King Cardan?"
I thought of him in the throne room. His refusal to meet my eyes. His silence while his sister humiliated me.
"King Cardan," I said quietly, "is going to learn that the woman he married is not a decoration. She is not a formality. She is not a womb with a crown."
I turned to the window and pulled back the curtain. The sun was setting over Aurelia Prime, painting the sky in shades of gold and amber and rose. It was beautiful, in its way. It was also a lie.
"Let them think I'm nothing," I said. "Let them underestimate me. Let them believe the Queen Consort is just another gilded ornament in their gilded palace."
I let the curtain fall.
"They'll learn. The hard way."