Jasi had spent the remainder of the day cursing herself for skipping lunch.

Pangs of nausea had called away her attention and made her irritable through her afternoon meetings, and by the time she was through with them all, she was certain only half of them had been productive. Most of them had been meetings with merchants and artisans in the city below, and so she had follow-up meetings scheduled with all of them. Then, in the evening, when she would have otherwise taken time to read in the gardens and eat to her desire, she had decided instead that a visit to the temple was in order.

She had never quite cared for the gods. She took after her father in that respect—it was said her mother was a particularly devout woman. And still, the Queen Consort Lila had not ascended in a great glimmering light as the texts said the devout would. Instead, her soul was whisked away to wherever it was souls went before rebirth. Jasi had seen more noble families than she could count, spoken to more noble parents and noble children than there had any right to be, and so she knew that beliefs and opinions were not always passed from father to son or mother to daughter. Still, Jasi found that the ocean of discrepancy between her and her mother bled heavily these days.

Jasi had never truly known Lila. She had died when Jasi was only three, taken by sickness that neither alchemy nor prayer could alleviate. It had never bothered her. How could she miss that which she never truly had? But now she wondered. The questions about Lila that she had never asked Thomes or Athyew seemed unavoidably heavy in her mind. And apparently in the minds of others, she thought in the palanquin ride to the temple. It was the reason she was wasting her time visiting the temple, the reason she was sitting in this miserably stuffy box, the reason she would suffer Prophet Sueda’s carping: the people were questioning her legitimacy. Her ability to rule. She was a woman, and that in itself was enough for a revolt, but she was also not known for keeping the faith particularly well, and now her lineage was questioned.

So she had decided that visiting the temple on her own, beyond the regular morning visit, and making a show of it by traveling in the gilded box with a full complement of guards, might earn her favor with the faithful of Erest. With luck it would help absolve the sin of being female, would help wash away the accused adultery of her father. Wishful thinking, to be sure. Eventually the jostling of travel stopped, and she felt the palanquin touch the ground. The door opened, Sir Willew—the second-in-command of her personal guard—offering his hand to help lift her out into the street.

She thanked him once outside, and looked up at the temple. Kaewold was often likened to a cake, the Tower on the keep on the upper city on the lower city. But it was too steep for that, the buildings too rectangular, too tall for the comparison to make proper sense to her. The First Temple, though, fit the description perfectly. It was a squat cylinder, embellished with stained glass and chiseled depictions of the gods and their lives. Atop it, another cylinder, slightly smaller, but even more gaudy: the glass and marble were replaced with golden reliefs depicting the ascensions of the gods. They glimmered in the late sun.

“Your Majesty!” A middle-aged man called to her. He wore thick robes, colored blue to signify his devotion to Gilan. They swayed with each step. When he reached her, he knelt before her. “We weren’t expecting you.”

Jasi clasped her hands over her stomach. “Yes, well, I felt it prudent to spend extra time in reflection today, and the reflection room in the Tower lacks the…supreme guidance of the First Temple. You may rise, Disciple of Gilan.”

Her words overjoyed him. “How wonderful! I am Colmer, forever your servant, ma’am. Shall I take you to a reflection room?”

A crowd of commoners had peered on and followed Jasi since she left the keep. She looked out to them now, held back by her guards. It was a good audience. “Is Prophet Sueda unavailable?”

Colmer’s cheery smile faulted for a moment. “I-I’m afraid Prophet Sueda is tied up in a meeting.”

Thank the gods. “How unfortunate.” She gave Colmer a reassuring smile, trying her best to keep the genuine happiness out of it. “Though I’m sure your words of guidance would be most helpful.”

“I would…I would be honored, Your Majesty.” He beckoned to the temple. “Please, this way.”

Jasi followed him as he led her to a reflection room. She was somewhat disappointed that she had missed the opportunity to see Sueda’s face at learning Jasi had come for meditation of her own will, but between the disciples and the crowd out front, it wouldn’t take long for word to reach her. Another wave of hunger-driven nausea rolled over her, and she pushed it away with annoyance. She admired the interior of the temple as a means of distracting herself.

The center chamber was massive—meant to hold an entire district at a time for reflection services. Rows and rows of pillows for kneeling in meditative silence covered the room, split only by the aisle and the reflecting pool at the center. Long and narrow and waist-height, the pool ran from the entrance to the altar at the far end, where one of the prophets would lead a sermon from one of the texts and guide meditation. Colmer led Jasi through the center of the room, by the pool, rather than around the edges. She glanced at it as they went, the bottom a pristine mirror, and the clear water so still that there was no distortion in the reflection.

Just as the water must be at peace for you to see yourself, so too must you be at peace to reflect upon the teachings of the gods. She’d heard the words countless times in the countless services she had attended as a member of the royal family. Jasi glanced around. The temple was mostly empty at this time of day. A few commoners and disciples sat with their eyes closed, in meditative silence, while others scurried along the curved walls, reading the passages from scripture engraved in them or moving in and out of the many arched doorways. As far as she could tell, no one watched her.

It was an uncomfortably unfamiliar feeling, to be unseen. How long had it been since she was last in public, unwatched by any? Too long. But the sacredness of the temple kept eyes off her, even if just for a moment. And so she reached down quickly, and touched a finger to the pool. The ripples sprouted forth, bouncing off one another and the edges of the pool. Her reflection below began to warble. It had been a favorite form of rebellion for her as a child, a silent push against the endless, boring hours duty demanded she spend in the temple. As an adult, as the queen, such blasphemy might have brought righteous fury down on her. But none watched her, and seeing Ancin had reminded her ever so slightly of the joys of childhood, and so she indulged.

Colmer walked ahead of her in silence. He was leading her to the doors behind the altar. There, the greater of the personal reflecting rooms sat, used only by the prophets and nobles. Two of the four of them were already occupied, thick dark oak doors hiding their contents. Jasi wondered briefly who else shared the temple with her this evening. Colmer ushered her into an empty room, closing the door behind her. It was small and bare, as a reflecting room should be. Well-kept marble walls glimmered in the light of a single torch on the right wall. A white pillow—the color of Tane, god of devotion and faith—sat in the center of the room for Jasi to kneel on. She maneuvered her gown and took her place, while Colmer sat in front of her, in the only chair in the room.

After an intentional moment of silence, Colmer asked, “What might I help you with today, my queen?”

Jasi closed her eyes, as is customary. It was time to play the part, to pretend she needed the advice of a fanatic. “I seek the guidance of Gilan. I seek to know how best to strengthen the realm.”

“Hmm. I see.” Colmer took a moment to reflect on her question. “You are lucky to have met me first, then. Dare I say, luckier than had you met Prophet Sueda, who, is of course, a disciple of Tain. The Cerulean Codex is my specialty.” He cleared his throat. “In it, Gilan teaches us that…”

Jasi let his voice trail off. He continued on, as disciples did, for entirely too long, laboring over the teachings of a centuries-dead king everyone thought a god. He told her to think about this or that in her meditations, to remember one teaching or another. But her stomach churned, unhappy without sustenance, and when he stopped speaking and began meditating, a tempest of anxiety began to storm through her mind. It had raged for weeks now, since her ascension, taking years off her life no doubt. She soaked herself in the thoughts.

It brought out the weariness in her—all she had done all day was think, and overthink, and plot and plan. And that’s all she had done the day before, and all she would do the day after. And the day after, and the day after—until she died. Briefly, she wondered if it might be better to let Artis or Elres take the throne. But no. It belonged to her. It would fall to her children—she shuddered at the thought of bearing any—and their children after. She wouldn’t surrender it to either uncle or any of her brat cousins.

Briefly, she thought of Liamond. He’d be furious with her if he knew she was making such a mockery of the faith. He was a worshiper of Gilan himself. Part of her shrunk at the fear of disappointing him. He was her lesser, and to worry about his disappointment was no more significant than worrying about the disappointment of an ant. But he was also her friend. And he had been good and kind to her, and the guilt of using reflection as a political tool against a prophet bit at her, if only slightly. But then she thought of Ancin, of a black eye he’d suffered when they were kids. A group of young boys from Gawic had held him down and beaten him until Master Inghard had dispatched them with a thick, greatwood staff. The memory made her feel sorry for Ancin. Sorry for sending Liamond to find him, for whatever injury had befallen him as a result.

Liamond saw his faith as a tool for good. But he was naïve. It was a tool, for good or for bad. And today she was wielding it. Perhaps one day she’d convince him of that.

But maybe she wouldn’t. She tried to count her allies in her head, and they were so few that it almost made her shake. She had lied to Ancin when she told him her life depended on his findings. Whether or not he found the truth would not change what the people thought of her, what the other lords thought of her. It would only give her personal solace. But that did not mean she was safe from danger. Whoever was behind the rumors meant to kill her, and they would unless she found them before they could rally their troops. Thoughts about handing the throne to her uncles were lies she told herself more than anything—they’d likely kill her for it, to cut out any other claimants.

The lords of Erest weren’t her only problem, either. Jasi thought of the crowd of commoners that had followed her here. How many of them thought well of their queen? How many spat insults and cursed her name behind closed doors? Erest’s last true queen had been Queen Sabel I, over a century and a half ago. Under her rule, the kingdom never saw a day of war. It survived a famine that nearly fractured Somyard, and she revitalized Kaewold Road, which had spent nearly five decades being washed away by rain and snow. The history books listed the songs they sang when she died. Her house didn’t even exist anymore.

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Jasi wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Colmer spoke. It startled her. “I hope not to interrupt, Your Majesty, but you have finished a full reflection. Would you like to continue?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “No, thank you. I think I’ve reflected enough for today.”

-

“I’m not really sure one problem at a time really applies here, Jas.” Esri pulled the brush through Jasi’s hair.

Jasi winced as it caught on a small tangle. “Well, I can’t quite focus on my legacy and the threats to my throne at the same time. I’d sooner lose my mind.”

Esri stopped brushing and looked at Jasi in the mirror. “You have to deal with these things in tandem. You know that. How you deal with the rumors will be part of your legacy. And how you deal with the next problem, and whatever comes after that. There isn’t a whole lot of ‘now’ in your position.”

When Jasi turned fifteen, she had demanded that her father allow her to return to Kaewold. She was determined to learn the rules of court, and Thomes had thought there might have been an opportunity to find a young lord to betroth her to, so he had let her. But the move meant that Jasi was returning to the care of the royal household and was in need of a new master of wardrobe. Esri, daughter of the royal family’s chamberlain, and only a few years older than Jasi herself, had seemed the ideal choice. The two had grown close, as personal servants and their lieges often did. The two were in Jasi’s chambers. Jasi sat before her vanity while Esri helped her prepare for bed. While she worked, Jasi had asked for advice about her thoughts in the temple.

Jasi sighed at Esri’s answer. She was right. She normally was, Esri. Sometimes Jasi envied her, to have spent her whole life in the castle, watching the players at court, watching them maneuver around each other, while Jasi got sent to frolic in the flowers down in Gawic for half a decade. But Esri was lowborn. A servant with no name, with no inheritance. Her time at court had been at others’ feet, unseen and unheard. “Well. I’ll keep that in mind once I’ve figured out who’s behind them.”

Esri nodded. “Your friend, the mage, will he help?”

“No, probably not.” She thought back to her conversation with him earlier. “I fear I might have asked too much of him. But I put a point on the request, made sure he knows how important it is he follows through.”

The brush hit another snag. “And if he doesn’t?”

Jasi winced and then scoffed. “Gods, I don’t know. Another bridge I’ll cross when I get to it. But either way, I don’t think he’ll be terribly helpful with finding the source of the rumors.”

Esri knitted her brows. “If the rumors have any truth to them—”

“They don’t.” Jasi hadn’t even thought the words before she spoke them.

Esri looked up from Jasi’s hair and stared at her in the mirror again, her pale blue eyes catching Jasi’s brown, striking and apologetic. “If you thought that were true you wouldn’t have called him to investigate.” When Jasi looked away but didn’t respond, Esri put the brush down and laid her hands on Jasi’s shoulders. They were warm and familiar and kind. Something in Jasi’s chest called for tears, but she refused it.

“I know you’re nervous about this,” Esri told her. “I know what it would mean if the rumors are true. I know the pain that would cause. But you have to consider that there might be truth behind the words. You have to prepare yourself for that.”

The words fed a small hole in Jasi’s stomach. It stirred beneath the horde of other thoughts she had buried it beneath. For a second, it stole her voice. Eventually, she asked, “How are the preparations for my uncles’ arrival proceeding?”

Jasi felt Esri’s eyes, but her master of wardrobe pulled away eventually, taking up the brush again. “Well. To a degree. The Tower’s meant to host. It can be prepared for a feast on short notice relatively easily, but Prince Artis’ ever-expanding retinue is putting it to the test.”

The same day she’d called for Ancin, Jasi had summoned both of her uncles, the Princes Artis and Elres, to Kaewold. ‘To swear oaths of fealty to the newly crowned queen and the realm over which she governs,’ the official summons had said. There was truth to it—all of the lords of the realm had sworn oaths of fealty had been sworn to Athyew on his selection day, when he’d become the crown prince, but not to her, not yet. And it made sense for the remaining members of House Valonde—as those with the greatest claim to her throne—would swear them first. But the greater truth of it was that Jasi knew one of them would have been responsible for the rumors.

If a lord wished to see her deposed, then all they needed to do was to claim that she was unfit to rule, convince enough of his peers of it, and march on Kaewold to prove it. But by calling her legitimacy into question, the rumors appealed to the tradition of inheritance—saying that she could not have the crown, but another member of her house should. A different house making such claims could rally troops against her, but would find themselves fighting against the next in line as well. It only made sense that the claims came from within. So she had called them to Kaewold, to swear before the whole realm that they would not rebel, and interrogate them about who was plotting to rebel anyway.

The messengers she’d sent had told her that Elres had packed light, taken a complement of guards, and ridden off on horseback. Artis, however, had decided to ride south from Cadun with his wife, the Countess Eryel, three of their four children, and a small army of servants. The exact numbers seemed to increase with each scouting report. Ersi’s mother, Wena, was the Tower’s chamberlain, and had expressed more than once her displeasure at having to organize such a large feast for their arrival.

“What a nightmare,” Jasi told her. “What are the chances a hurricane sweeps them away before they arrive?”

Esri let out a short laugh. “Are they really so bad?”

“They’re…I don’t remember much. I haven’t seen any of them in years, and last I did neither Artis nor Eryel paid me much mind. I was a child, so I was sent to play with the children. And they’re all bad, the whole lot of them. The boys are practically animals. Robern used to pay the bondsmen to spar while he and Athyew watched. Nieles is younger, but would follow Robern around like a mockingbird. Equally as terrible, that one, if for an especially miserable reason.” She grimaced at the thought of seeing either of them again. “The girls aren’t much better. Jaine’s a raging bitch. I hear she’s been married off to the Tiergels, though, so thankfully I won’t have to see her ever again. And Ceci…once she asked me how the mills would work once the windmills used up all the wind.”

“Don’t you think you might be a little too harsh?” Esri finished with the brush and moved to the bed, peeling back the covers and preparing the pillows. “You were children. It’s been years. They might have changed.”

Jasi stayed seated, staring blankly at herself in the mirror. “I can only hope.”

“And what about the other one? Prince Elres? Is he as bad as your cousins?”

Memories of Elres fostered a smile. “No. No, Elres has always been wonderful. I saw him just last year, though still for the first time in a while.”

Esri finished with the bed and sat in a chair just off to Jasi’s right. “Any ideas as to which one is trying to screw you?”

For a moment, Jasi just looked at her, thinking. “Probably not Robern. He might be stupid enough to try something like this, but not with his father between him and the throne. And I don’t think he has the patience for intrigue. He’d sooner raise an army and fight a war over it. But, maybe. So long as my family wears the crown, Cadun wanes in Kaewold’s shadow. But that goes for Artis, too. I don’t remember much of what he’s like. He could very well be a snake. He is next in line, after all. I won’t know until he gets here and I can speak to him.

“Elres…I don’t know. He never married, never sired any heirs. It might be that he’s fine with letting Thetford return to crownlands once he passes, but it might be that he's not interested in watching his own legacy disappear. And Thetford’s suffered in recent years. House Faleress has played hard at controlling the ports down there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wronged him in some way, if he thinks he could exact a toll on them as king.” She sighed again and rubbed her eyes. “Othgan says he’s interrogated the merchants who came to town spreading rumors.

“They’re all poor. No extra goods, no extra bolts. They all came from the east, pockets just as empty as any other trader’s. Either the rumor’s especially popular among the commoners out that way, or someone paid them before they left home.”

“Word doesn't spread like that,” Esri told her. “How many have they arrested now? Five? Six? All with the same story? If it were spreading naturally, you’d have heard eight different tales from those six men. They’re being told what to say. And if they’re coming from the east—”

“Then that’s Cadun, Artis.” Jasi finished for her.

Esri leaned forward in her seat, surrounding herself with the thought experiment. “But only if Elres wouldn’t be smart enough to send his agents another way, maybe even from a direction that implicates his brother.”

Kaewold was crawling with spies. Such was the nature of a capital city. Foreign spies—from Somyard, from Pesoria, Arb, Bregelin—certainly, but even more from the houses of Erest, great, minor, and petty all alike. A word whispered in the Tower was certain to be heard in the Spike and the Crescent alike. Advisors and merchants made for good spies, but the best were always servants. The right bolts in the right pocket bought nobles ears that went everywhere and were seen by none. Lord Cemaer, the royal spymaster, had his own army of them, but a good monarch knew better than to rely on another lord for all their information. So the servants of the royal family scrubbed the floors and tended the fires and passed on sensitive information from one noble to another, as they had since the first castle was built.

As chamberlain, Wena was the royal family’s personal spymaster—not the realm’s—and her daughter Esri had learned to play her part wonderfully. It made her a good sounding board for such conversations, and in the years since she’d returned to Kaewold, Jasi had found her friend and servant a more than capable agent. “I need a favor,” she asked Esri.

A smile flickered across her face. “Anything.”

“When my uncles get here, I need to know everything. They’ll have their own servants, but I trust that won’t be too much of a problem.”

Esri shrugged. “It will slow things down. But I’ll speak to mother. If it's what the queen commands, it will be done.”

“Good.” The two sat silently for a moment, bathed in candlelight and moonlight alike. Owls called from outside her window, and murmurs of the retiring city below filled the quiet space. In the silence, Jasi’s mind began to wander. It didn’t get far—stopping just at the far wall of her chambers.

The lady’s chambers weren’t hers. They were, by right and by law, but she had not slept here until her father’s passing. It had instead been her mother’s room, left empty after her own death years earlier. When she ascended, Jasi claimed the room and found herself surrounded by the decor of her mother—untouched save for the cleaning staff. A great oil landscape of the Wolf’s Den, a valley far in the north, hung over the hearth, hung opposite the vanity. It had been a gift from Thomes to Lila.

“What do they say of him?” she finally asked, the words far weaker than she intended.

Compassion lines framed Esri’s face. She dropped her head for a moment, and Jasi knew she was searching for the right words. “They say very little, Jas. I’m sorry.”

Jasi chewed on that. Her eldest uncle, Wulfa, had died as a boy. It was how her father had come to be king—Wulfa had ascended at the age of five, and the crown fell to Thomes. The King that Would Have Been, they called him. The Boy King. Wulfa Brief. Sometimes the titles came in jest, in vicious mockery of a child who died before his time. Sometimes it was in reverence, in commiseration of an unfortunate boy. Thomes had grown furious when the names reached his ears, regardless of the intention.

But it was a title. It had kept Wulfa’s name in the mouths of the common folk, just as Helmond the Lily was, or Masym the Brave. Jasi felt relief and misery at the idea that her father’s name would slip into the histories like the dozens of other kings lost to the common people’s short memories. She took a deep breath. “I think I’d like to be alone now, Esri.”

Her servant, her spy, her friend looked at her for a moment before moving. Then, she stood, placing a hand on Jasi’s back. Comfort radiated from the touch. “Of course, my queen.”

And then she was gone. Jasi stood and blew out the candles before wandering slowly to the bed. She climbed in. She let her thoughts wrap around her, just as she wrapped herself with the covers. She thought of the father that loved her, of the brother that she hated, and of how they had both left her on the same day, left her alone and lost in a throne too big for her and a crown so heavy it threatened to crush her with its weight. She thought of how they would never come back, of how she had not been able to mourn them.

And then, as she had done for twenty-eight nights in a row, she cried herself to sleep.