Page 41 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Chapter fifteen

Keera

I rounded the corner and nearly jumped out of my skin when I ran headlong into Calix.

I hadn’t realized he had followed me when I stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence and dashed from the room, the metallic taste of magic thick on my tongue and panic that wasn’t my own making it difficult to breathe.

Now he wore an expression of confused curiosity.

“Oh… ah—” I hedged, trying to find an explanation for my strange behavior.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

My stuttering stopped, and I cocked my head. I had expected admonishment for abandoning a conversation with an ambassador, especially one I had been asking for aid. Or for him to be sniffing around Erix for a weakness he could exploit against Kelvadan. Instead, he only looked at me with concern.

“I’m completely fine,” I said truthfully.

“Good. I was worried I had done something to offend you.” He chuckled, running his fingers through his already tousled hair. “I know my manner isn’t particularly princely, but I had never thought it was quite that bad.”

I let out a huff of amusement through my own nose, and the corners of my mouth quirked up despite themselves .

“Your manner is no more improper than mine,” I admitted, finding myself grateful for his presence.

While at first I had been wary of everybody around me as I navigated the politics that seemed to shift even faster than the sands of the desert, I found myself coming to rely on Calix—on the way he didn’t treat me any differently now that I was queen.

During our first ride together, a whisper in my mind had said that he was just like Hadeon, wielding practiced charm as a weapon to wheedle under my skin and find a weakness.

But his friendly manner was far from polished, and after he had helped pull me back to myself after the avalanche and catching me by surprise with off-color jokes in official meetings, I found him having broken through the first layer of my armor despite myself.

Now I cocked my head at him consideringly. A queen couldn’t really afford trust, and I was loath to give it after so many betrayals, but I hadn’t been lying when I told Erix I needed friends. Prince Calix might not be the worst choice of a friend for Kelvadan.

“Thank you for checking on me,” I said earnestly. “I appreciate it.”

“Of course. If something happened to you, I wouldn’t have the pleasure of watching General Warrick turn purple with rage every time he tries to negotiate with you.”

I made another snort of amusement. “Then let’s get back to the archons and the aforementioned general.”

“I thought I might find you here.”

I sighed at the sound of Aderyn’s voice, but did not turn around, continuing to run a brush over Daiti’s golden flank.

The soft scrape of the fibers and the warm smell of animals settled the roiling in my stomach.

I had been so nauseous with nerves when I woke that I had barely managed to choke down my breakfast, although I had done so out of principle.

I refused to leave a single crumb on my plate, so familiar with hunger that it had carved its way into my bones .

“I needed to clear my head,” I admitted, resting my forehead on Daiti’s side. He was warm and quiet, unlike the day ahead of me.

“Daiti is going to look better than you if you don’t get upstairs and bathe soon,” Aderyn pointed out. “And Neven would be disappointed after he was up nearly all night putting the finishing touches on your dress.”

At that, my heart did warm, and I finally turned away, laying my brush on the ledge by the door of Daiti’s stall. “He didn’t have to. I’m sure I could have made do with something already in his collection.”

“Excuse me, have you met my husband?” Aderyn folded her arms over her chest, her bare biceps bulging at the motion. “You know he wouldn’t let you wear any old thing for an occasion like this.”

A smile tugged at my lips, despite the nerves still fluttering in my belly. The corners of Aderyn’s eyes softened in response.

“Then I better not keep him waiting.” I stepped past Aderyn, and she squeezed my shoulder as I passed.

It was still early as I entered the palace proper and began the long climb to my rooms, but already it bustled with life.

Attendants and riders brushed past each other in complex choreography, getting the palace ready to accommodate as many people as could fit in the courtyard, with the rest of the city likely to be packed in the streets just outside the gate.

Lots of preparations went into a coronation.

When I had first arrived in the city, I had found it difficult to interpret where people were going to move as they weaved between each other in indiscernible patterns.

It led to me bumping into strangers as I passed, the touch of their skin setting my nerves alight.

Now, people made an effort to move out of my way, some tapping their brow while others gave me sidelong looks, as if sizing me up.

I couldn’t decide if it made me feel more or less like an outsider than before.

The thought of how I would feel after the Champion’s circlet was placed on my head made me lightheaded.

A deep, dark part of me ached for physical proof of my belonging in this Great City—something that couldn’t be taken from me.

However, dread pooled in my gut in equal measure, that this would be the time where the people would truly see me and find me lacking.

Or worse… too much. I was an imposter of a queen with too much power and too many emotions to follow in Ginevra’s footsteps.

But I was the reason this city had been deprived of its last queen, and I could not run from the responsibility as much as I wished to turn away from this duty before Kelvadan turned away from me.

When I pushed through the doors to my chamber, Neven greeted me with a warm smile, and I decided it did feel welcoming after all. No sooner had I wished him good morning, than I spotted a golden puddle spread across the bed behind him.

My eyes widened. “Is that…”

“I’ve been saving this silk for something special. And if your coronation wasn’t a worthy occasion well… then I can’t think of what would qualify.” He smiled proudly, running his dexterous fingers over the ripples of molten fabric.

“You shouldn’t have,” I whispered, a lump rising in my throat, even as I drifted toward him to get a closer look.

“With everything going on, it feels… silly. And I’m not really that kind of queen.

I’m just—” I huffed in frustration as I looked for the right words.

“I’m just an exile who has been given magic she can barely control, trying her best to help, even though she’s never sure how. ”

Neven’s eyes narrowed as he took me in, as if deep in thought.

“I made Queen Ginevra’s dresses for years, and she always told me that what people believed mattered just as much as the actual truth of the matter.

Dressing like a queen is part of making people believe in you.

Even if the person you’re convincing is yourself. ”

My lips quirked, although the smile was a sad one as I remembered the queen telling me something very similar. “I’m not sure some silk is enough to make me a convincing queen, even if you made it. I’m more of a fighter than a negotiator.”

“There’s more than one way to be a queen, you know. That’s why I made this dress a little something special.”

I waited in the front hallway of the palace that would lead out the double doors to the top of the steps at the head of the courtyard.

I remembered a night not so long ago, but different enough that it might have been ages, where I ran into this stone passage, trying to escape the noise and crowd of the Kelvadan festival.

My magic had burst out of me, and my heart had shattered as I prepared to be thrown out of the city.

Now, I was being crowned her queen, although my magic still whirled and bubbled uncomfortably in my gut.

I looked down and tried to remind myself that power was why I stood here—the signs that the desert had chosen me to be her Champion.

Although some might argue that Erix was her chosen Champion.

I didn’t know such conflicting emotions could be expressed in a dress, but somehow Neven had done it.

While panels of golden silk flared out from my waist, parting to leave most of my legs visible when I walked, metal plates like armor covered my torso and my shoulders.

The polished brass had been burnished to a reflective shine, it’s unforgiving rigidity a sharp contrast to the gauzy strips of fabric that flowed from the top of the pauldrons at my shoulder.

Neven had even painted a line across my eyes, the same way he had to keep the sun out of my eyes when I fought to become the Champion of the Desert.

Today though, instead of black kohl, he had used glittering golden paint.

I had been transformed into a gilded warrior queen.

A creaking and booming signaled the doors before me opening, and I squared my shoulders.

I wished for the handle of my saber to grip but settled for clenching my hands into fists.

It was not enough to brace me for the overwhelming wave of life that poured over me, as hot and intense as the desert sun cutting into the formerly dim corridor.

The anxious beating of a hundred hearts waiting in the courtyard hit me like a tidal wave, and I nearly stumbled back.

This was not the quiet wash of hidden creatures scattered among the desert, and neither was this crowd entirely celebratory as they had been the night of the Kelvadan festival.

A current of tension and unease undercut the waves of magic pouring in from the desert.

I almost shrunk away from it, but one bright tendril stood out from the rest. The tether between Erix and I shivered with a bright golden light, and I grabbed on to it.