When the tapestries stilled and light flared in the room, the applause that followed seemed earnest. But the tapestries hung in tatters, with bits of silk torn loose from one spot and tangled in another—a permanent effect of my temporary display.
I motioned for the crowd to rise. Before we could begin milling about, a loud tapping silenced the hall again.
The tapping came from an iron staff striking the floor. The bearer of the staff was an old woman who leaned on it aggressively as she approached. Her robe was white and silver, spun from silk, and electrum chains wound about her neck, dotted with sapphires as pale as the ice of the city streets. The top of her staff glittered with pearls, and rings adorned her white gloves, two to each finger.
Her eyes were as fierce as a hawk’s and as cold as the snow, and they focused on me. Whatever she thought, I couldn’t decipher, for her face was as cragged as the mountains around us, her skin weathered by snow and salt and wind.
She was the archimandrite, and she was, in theory, my equal.
While she looked as though her voice ought to come wheezing out of her, she spoke clearly, with a strength that made every spine straighten. “The tribute to your father is appreciated,” she said, and I doubted I imagined her icy tone. “However, magic does not make a grand duke. The coronation trials do.” She raised her voice so that no one in the hall could mistake her. “As is my duty as archimandrite, I officially declare that the coronation trials have begun.”
The delegates began to murmur. I forced myself not to look at Eirhan. We’d known this was coming. All the same, sweat prickled my palms.
“Every grand duke must prove her mettle and willingness to serve. The coronation trials are the chance to prove her ability beyond all other contestants and give us the ruler we need. The coronation trials will conclude when the grand duke has won the will of her wife, the will of the gods, the will of Below, and the will of her own people. Who stands against her?”
I was oddly glad that none of my siblings were here. They’d try to win through elimination, after all. Father had killed all his siblings before his trial, so he’d gotten a minister to stand in—none other than Minister Reko.
But I wasn’t so lucky. With the clicking of iron-clawed shoes on ice, Sigis came forward. And even though I’d known he would, my stomach twisted until I was sure it sat upside down. He smiled a smile of cold hate. Don’t throw up.
“I will stand,” he said.
Delegates turned to one another. Their muttering took on angry undertones. Sigis was already too powerful a force in the North. If he won the coronation trials, his gains might make him unstoppable. My ministers regarded this shifting landscape, but no one interfered—not even Reko, who looked as though he wanted to proclaim revolution the moment the trials were declared. They had to support my bid for the trials. I was the throne, and the throne was mine.
“By what right do you stand?” the archimandrite said.
“By the right of ancestry. My great-great-grandmother was grand duke of Kylma Above.”
The muttering grew. The archimandrite spoke over it. “Can you prove your bloodline?”
“I can,” Sigis called back.
Eirhan motioned to the guards. Their halberds came down with a crack. Silence rippled over the crowd.
The archimandrite waited a moment longer, then said, “You will submit it to me tomorrow. And tomorrow you both shall be judged by the gods.”
Her iron staff tapped three times on the ground, and she walked back to the edge of the room. The court surged to its feet, and the muttering began anew. They clustered together—normal, I knew, but more sinister now that I also knew they were all talking about me.
“Well, that’s a start to my reign,” I said.
Inkar looked at me. “What did she mean, you must win the will of your wife?”
Eirhan appeared before I had to spin a reply. He’d found the time to wash his hair and put on a royal-blue coat that bulked up his weaselly arms. “Your Grace,” he said with a blank expression that might as well have said he dealt with coronation trials all the time. He nodded to Inkar. “Your Grace. Have you everything you need?”
Inkar inclined her head. “I dislike my rooms,” she said.
It was the first she’d said to me about it. I shrugged. Eirhan’s expression did not waver. “I’ll send a maid directly. May I present the minister of the hunt?”
Minister Itilya approached. She reminded me more of a tree than a person—taller than anyone else on my father’s council. Her thin face and ice-white hair made her seem less human than the rest of us. She eschewed fashionably long coats for garb that left her legs free in leather trousers and scuffed brown boots, and she wore a black tunic with a sapphire-and-diamond pin in the shape of a rose. I’d met Itilya a handful of times, mainly when she’d negotiated for the delivery of certain animals to Farhod’s laboratory for study.
“Minister,” I said, and she bowed.
Eirhan coughed. I shrugged at him before remembering that grand dukes didn’t do that. Eirhan jerked his chin in clear irritation. “Minister, may I present, on behalf of Her Grace, Her Grace the Grand Consort of Kylma Above, Inkar Bardursdatre.”
I blushed. I should have known to introduce her.
“My felicitations, Your Graces,” Itilya said, “and my highest hopes for the success of the coronation trials.” She didn’t sound as though she meant it. Then again, she was often calm to the point of being inscrutable.
“What lives up here in the North that you can hunt?” Inkar asked.
Itilya leaned forward a little. Was it a trick of the light or was she actually twice the size of Inkar? “Many things. I am a vital part of providing sustenance to the city. Does hunting interest you?”
Inkar’s hand went to the axes at her belt. “More men than anything. But I would be intrigued to see how you do it.”
“I would be honored to show Your Grace the kennels,” Itilya said. At a nod from Eirhan, she bowed again and excused herself.
Inkar frowned. “Kennels? Does she mean stables?”
“No, kennels. For dogs,” I explained.
The frown deepened. “I did not express an interest in dogs.”
“Did you think we hunt from horseback? Horses can’t survive this place.” I pointed to the ice walls, the arching ice ceiling carved in deep relief, and tried not to laugh at the look of panic that cracked Inkar’s confident mask.
“No horses?” she said in a voice that bordered on outrage.
“I’m afraid not.” Let’s see how the girl with the army on horseback likes this.
Eirhan introduced Althari, Prince of Palaskia, next. She wore blue and orange and so much fur that she resembled a rabbit. Was she a second or third prince? Trying to remember felt like grabbing for snow as it fell.
“It was a true shock to hear about your father,” she said.
“For you and me both,” I replied, and she gave a short bow.
I was supposed to say something. Something clever? Eirhan would be furious if I tried to be clever. Grand dukes were imposing and correct. But all I could think of was the blue and orange of her suit, like polar poppies that stuck stubbornly out of the snow, like the orange of the seathorn berries that we turned into jam and ate on seaweed bread to combat scurvy.