Page 87 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

I ran my hands through the coins, listening to the musical tinkling they made striking against each other. And then my hand caught on the edge of something. I reached down to find the edge of a pale gray box made of polished driftwood.

Io helped me dig it out of the coins, and when I had it sitting on top, I knew what was inside. I knew it in my bones—what Vulcan had made for me.

I opened the lid, undoing the little silver clasp. Nestled in the same pristine white velvet, was a crown of stars. It was wrought from crystals set into a silver so pale it was nearly white.

It was not the crown I was expecting. I was expecting gold—perhaps godsgrass. Something fitting for the Queen of Windemere.

Sudden fear seized me at the weight of what was represented in that box. I let the lid fall closed again with a thud that echoed through the chamber.

"What is it?" Io asked. He had not yet seen the crown. I cowardly shoved the box to him so that he could look for himself.

"Holy shit," he said. He met my gaze and saw the dread represented there. He chuckled. "I don't think it's the crown of stars, Sera. I think Vulcan meant to honor you with a representation of Danu's crown. I doubt he's trying to place you on the crystal throne."

"But what if it is?" I asked in a pained whisper.

"Are you forgetting Danu's crown was burned with her? The melted silver was used to forge the first of the Elderwood Guardian's chains?"

I hadn’t forgotten that since I had never known it at all.

He reached down to lift the chain around my neck. "You might just be wearing part of that crown now."

I flinched, having never considered that. But I was doubtful that after thousands of years of Artaxian Guardians, the necklace would have been one of the originals. Besides, it looked brand new. It hadn’t had a single scratch or scuff in the metal when Adrio gave it to me.

"Vulcan's siren called you star-born. Have you heard that before?" he asked, studying the little star-crowned heart on the pendant.

It was made like Danu's symbol with the crown perched atop the human heart-shaped cage, but where her crown was always silver, this one was gold.

The details were nearly too small to make out, but what I had thought were messy stars, I realized then may have been stalks of godsgrass woven in among them.

"Adrio also called me star-born," I admitted.

"Star-born was a term people used when a woman became pregnant while her husband was away from home,” he explained. “It was a way to explain away infidelity. You know, don't be angry, dear. This child is born of the stars—a blessing from the gods."

I grimaced. "Well perhaps they all know something I don't about my mother's extracurricular activities." I still disliked voicing the suspicions that had been nagging me since I first allowed myself to admit to the magic in my blood.

My heart thundered, though, as I considered my father's suicide, so soon after my mother's death—and my birth—in a whole new light. Had he known I was not right—that I was not his? Could he not bear to stay there with me...to stay alive for me?

Io looked at me thoughtfully. "I feel like they all know something we don't."

I inwardly shook away the thoughts about my father.

They would do nothing to help me in the moment.

"I feel like they all have a very misplaced faith in my significance in the grand scheme of the world. It’s very daunting when people pop up from the shadows calling me protector of the eleven realms. What in the hell are the eleven realms, anyway? "

He looked thoughtful again as he counted on his fingers, "Humans, Fae, Dwarves, Elves, Faeries..."

"Elysiuns," I added. "That's five."

"Wyllans, Obeliskana, Moribundan..." Io and I kept naming races of people who lived across the world, but we ended up nearer to thirty than eleven.

We counted the continents—of which there were seven main continents and countless smaller islands. We counted kingdoms, territories, and more, but we never found anything that fit eleven.

The only thing I knew regarding the number eleven was the Presarion's preoccupation with it. It was the reason there were eleven great Windemerian noble houses.

The Presarion often held their services with eleven priests or priestesses.

They had special birthday ceremonies for noble children where they blessed them on their eleventh birthday.

They even had a system for assigning a number to the alphabet so that certain words held more significance if their numbers added up to eleven.

Neither of us had any idea what significance the number held to them, though. "I'll send a bird to the Presarion when we reach Darkwatch and see if they can shine some light on it," I said. "If that's okay with you."

He drew his brows together. "Why would you think you need to ask if it's okay to send a bird, Sera?"

I shrugged. I didn't want to answer that it was because I was accustomed to asking permission for nearly everything I did. It was somehow embarrassing to me that he would know how little I had tried to take control of my own life.

He let it go, likely sensing the ensuing mix of emotions from me. It made me unwillingly cross suddenly, that I could never hide how I felt from him.

He reached to take the crown from inside the box. It did indeed look brand new—as pristine as my necklace had been.

It was a ring of dwarvish silver. Some process their smiths used made it lighter in color than normal silver, washed to nearly white so that it looked almost frozen.

It was intricately worked with clear crystals that reflected even the dim light around us, and milkier ones that shone with a more muted radiance.

There was a slightly taller central star with ten points picked out in tiny crystals perched over a thin crescent moon that connected it to the band by a single point at the bottom.

The rest of the crown was made with smaller identical stars going around it, descending in size and then ascending, by turns, all the way around the band.

"We'll consult the master scholars of the Citadel in Meroway.

Once you officially become Lady of Darkwatch, you'll have the right to know all their ancient secrets.

" His smile of delight at the prospect surprised me.

I wasn't sure whether he was delighted at the prospect of me becoming his Lady, or whether he was truly that excited that I would learn the ancient secrets guarded by Darkwatch.

"What kind of secrets?" I said, slyly.

"If I told you before you took the oath to Darkwatch, well then, I would just have to kill you."

I shoved his shoulder playfully, but he leaned back and surveyed me again.

His eyes burned with some emotion I couldn't name.

"I do look forward to sharing that with you, Sera.

Maybe it's selfish of me. It can be a burden.

The knowledge and the responsibility of the seat itself.

There are forces in this world that defy explanation—things people can use and do that can tear the fabric of the realm apart. Darkwatch guards that and more."

He looked down, as though he was suddenly unsure of himself. He was always so confident, borderline cocky, that the motion made my heart ache as he continued. "I somehow know it will not be a burden for you to share that with me—that you will thrive in it, even as the ruler of two kingdoms."

I had a sudden, clear image in my mind of handing Arkadian the godsgrass crown and walking away from Windemere to be forever at his side in Darkwatch.

I would be placing the crown in the hands of the king the eldermen had wanted since the day I was born and they found I had no tiny, pink cock between my legs.

I forced the image away, shame and horror running through me at the way the idea of shirking my duty to my people made my heart soar. Aelia! Aelia! Traitor!

I forced a smile, knowing that my emotions might have been strong enough for him to pick up on, and not wanting him to believe the shame I had just felt was in any way related to what he said about sharing his burdens with me.

It was easy to let go of that shame when I saw his face, almost vulnerable as he waited for my response. "I would love that, Io. To share your burdens in any way I can."

The truth of my words was enough to wipe away that vulnerability in his expression.

He smiled, that devastating smile that showed his dimple in sweet relief. He trailed a hand along my jaw before kissing me lightly on the lips.

He replaced the crown in the box, and I reached for it, resigned to the gift and now certain it was only a replica.

Especially as my eyes found the delicately scrolled inscription inside the band.

Nefum Calu Aelia, oan alva catka Morgan.

Gods bless Aelia, our just and rightful Queen.

The words that had been spoken by the Presarion at my coronation.

Could it truly have only been a matter of days ago...at most a couple of weeks?

Regardless, it was long enough for Vulcan to receive word from the capital—by bird or fish, or however a siren king received a letter—and apply the inscription to the crown he made for me.

The gift honored me—humbled me truly, just as the elderwood seed had when I stopped being so dreadfully terrified of it.

The crown alone was likely worth enough gold to fill ten of the boxes.

And the armor…it was just as spectacular. It looked to be plated in real gold with accents of the same dwarvish silver as the crown. It also turned out to be impossibly light when we had it all laid out at the edge of the mineral pool.

The weight of the box had come almost entirely from the actual king's fortune in gold Vulcan had gifted to me. Perhaps he knew that I was exiled from my kingdom and wanted to help fund the war effort. Perhaps he was simply generous, as the Artaxians had been when they gifted me Etreyiu.

Either way, I would no longer need to rely on Io's gold, and that made me happier than it should have.