“It is customary that no man cross the bridge to the tower of the betrothed, except your betrothed himself,” Christian explained.
Sig coughed, a few words escaping that sounded suspiciously like “which one?”
“You can’t expect me—an almost Queen—” I faked an outraged tone. “To go anywhere without my guards and attendants.”
Bjern snorted. “Which of us are the attendants?”
“That would be you and Sig,” Frey returned quickly.
“We’re walking away.” Christian held up his hands. “What you do when we’re not looking isn’t our business. But just so you know…” He stopped by the door we had come through, tossing me the key. “If you’re caught with anyone in your bed, you’ll be tossed into the sea with your arms and legs bound.”
“Another custom?” I asked, a brow shooting up.
“You know it.” Christian left, the other Sentinels following him. Some of them grinned at me.
Clearly, they didn’t put much stock in the medieval customs of the royal family.
“When was the last time anyone actually went through this whole … betrothal process?” I asked Frey, sure she would have the answer.
“No mention of it in the political books I’ve read covering the last century, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Maybe the royal family kept these customs private.”
“When was the last time there was a royal wedding? When was the King born?” I asked.
“I’ve never been permitted access to the King’s official records, but there are enough references of his birth to guess that it was almost two and a half decades ago.”
“His parents?” I stepped out onto the bridge, the wind threatening to toss me right off the side.
We were on the far northern side of the Keep, the edge off the cliff below us. If I fell, it would be at the discretion of the wind to toss me to the rocks, or the sea.
“His mother died during childbirth. There are few mentions of her. His father was just like him, for all intents and purposes. Looked just like him, acted just like him.”
“Isn’t that strange?” I yelled back, crossing the bridge quickly and entering the door on the other side.
Frey hurried after me, gripping the bridge railings with white knuckles. “No,” she breathed out, leaning up against the wall in the corridor we found ourselves in. “He had no mother. He wasn’t given private tutors, like most sectorians. He was shaped entirely by his father’s hand.”
I shook my head. “I meant that there’s no mention of his mother, even if she died. She was the Queen, after all.”
“The lack of information recorded during the previous king’s reign indicates that he controlled the flow of gossip as tightly as he controlled his son. He obviously didn’t want anyone talking about his wife.”
The others joined us, Herra closing the door behind her.
“It is a little weird,” she agreed with me. “There are songs about princesses and queens, and princes and kings. There are stories of how they fought and loved … but as far as I know, those stories haven’t been mapped onto historical timelines. They’re just stories.”
“The King doesn’t like people knowing his business.” Sig strode past us, eager to explore the tower. “If he’s cut from the same cloth as his father, it’s hardly surprising.”
“I just thought it might be a steward thing,” I explained. “We know about the previous kings, but there are no stories of their wives. I don’t even know their names, only that each king has been called the same Fated name, generation after generation.”
“Their true names would be in the private records,” Frey answered. “But it’s not just you, or the stewards. I don’t know their names either. Vidrol’s mother was always just referred to as ‘the queen’.”
“Where are those records?” I asked, as we walked down the hallway.
The wall to our right was covered from floor to ceiling in tiled patterns of precious stones. There were no candles or lanterns, but the wall to our left was made entirely of thick, clear glass bricks. The sun streamed through, glittering across the other wall.
“The Obelisk,” Frey answered, her fingers tracing against the stone patterns swirling along the wall. “Level thirty-eight. Row seven. The whole level is off-limits. There are guards stationed in front of the cages night and day.”
“What time do they switch shifts?” I reached the end of the hallway, which stepped down into a room overlooking the eastern section of the Sky Keep.
Colourful, glass domes bobbed between the roofs of great big halls and open spaces where courtyards and gardens waited below—and at the far eastern point, I could see the side of the driftwood woman’s crown, and the final dome of the driftwood room.
Were the great masters in there right now?
“The guards switch at midnight.” Frey walked along the glass wall overlooking the Keep, but her eyes were on me. “Are you actually planning on breaking in there?”
“Well, I could ask Andel for the records, or ask Vidrol to tell me about his parents, but who knows what they’ll want in return. It’s actually easier to break into the Citadel.”
Frey winced, but Sig chuckled, knocking me on the shoulder as he passed by. He let out a low whistle when he descended the three steps to the sitting room, picking up a velvet cushion from one of the dark blue chaises. He ran his hand over it and tossed it back down. He picked up another from one of the armchairs and repeated the process. The room was furnished in shades of blue—from the lightest white-blue drapes pulled to the sides of the glass walls, to the gold-threaded, faded blue filigree carpets, to the deep blue velvet furnishings.
There was a gilded silver tray on top of a low table in the middle of the room, housing bowls of wrapped sweets, an arrangement of peaches, grapes, berries and sitbaer—tiny fruit encased in hard, spiked shells. I picked one up and tore into it with my nail, extracting the pea-sized fruit within.
“Is that what I think it is?” Herra asked, surprised.
I popped it into my mouth, blinking at the burst of honeyed citrus on my tongue. “Sure is.” I tossed the shell back to the tray. “My mother told me about those. They only grow in the deserts of Reken—one of her patrons gave her a handful of them.”
Herra hurried over to the tray, plucking one of the spiked balls up and rolling it onto her palm.
“Eat all of them,” I offered as she slid a sideways glance to me.
It was almost amusing, seeing these privileged sectorians so awed by the luxuries afforded by the King of Fyrio. It was all foreign to me. I had no real perspective on what level of opulence was enjoyed by which ranking of sectorian. As a steward, we weren’t even in the pyramid. We were a grounded people, admiring their colossal structure from below.
“So what’s our plan?” Bjern asked, flopping onto one of the chaises, his boots kicked up, his hands behind his head. Apparently, he was done exploring.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Frey gingerly pushed his boots off the chaise, sitting in the spot where they had been. I noticed that she neatly arranged a cushion between her and Bjern—one that Bjern immediately pulled into his lap, throwing his arm over the back of the chaise, his fingers close to her shoulder.