“Calm down,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to be queen.”
“I’m just glad you listened to my advice,” Raad said. “Queen or not, you agreed to marry Zawne for the sake of the Ava-Gaard and Geniverd as a whole. That really says something about you, Kaelyn. You’re growing up.” Then he paused. “Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you only agreed because he’s smoking hot.”
Raad doubled over laughing, and that was when Tissa shoved herself into the frame of his visin. “Kaelyn, congratulations! Now we just have to find a man for Nnati! All three of us are going to reach such fabulous heights, Kaelyn. It will be like nothing we have ever imagined.”
“Maybe,” I told her. “Oh, and speaking of Nnati, he’s calling me. Sorry, guys, got to go.”
I ended the call and answered Nnati. Beside me, Zawne was being congratulated by noble after noble. His visin was ringing nonstop.
“You did it!” Nnati screamed. He sat in the darkness of his apartment, wearing pajamas. “How does it feel? What happened? Was he sweet? Was he gentle? Did you like it?”
Beside me, Zawne’s laughter was insatiable. “Is that your friend?” Zawne asked. “He’s funny! We’ll have to invite him for dinner.” Then he got up and began to pace the room. His features darkened, and I thought whatever call he had picked up on his visin was business related.
“We just talked,” I told Nnati. “It was nice. I think I can do this. I really think I can. I feel like I’m evolving, Nnati. I feel like I’ve transformed from the bored, unruly girl sulking around NordHaven as a teenager into a woman who has a chance to make change in the world. I feel like I’m truly becoming a woman for our people.”
“I’m happy for you, Kaelyn. This is great. Uh … but your picture is all over the news. It’s not a good one either. You look surprised and a little scared. They are playing Zawne’s live feed on a loop. Questions are already being raised, comparisons between you and a certain dead fiancée. Brace yourself.”
“I will,” I said. I had already thought this might happen. The people still loved Lordin, and to some, I would seem like a shoddy replacement.
“Anyway.” Nnati eased back into the shadows of his room and yawned. “I should go to bed. I’m sure you’re not done answering calls. I’m happy for you. I hope you made the right decision.”
I glanced at Zawne, pacing before the fireplace and yammering into his visin.
I said to Nnati, “I hope so too.”
I let Zawne sleep in my bed. It felt right, and it was worth every second. I felt complete when I nestled into his arms and drifted to sleep. I felt content.
And this was where things took a strange turn. I was sinking into slumber, head full of fluff, body heavy, when everything changed. My limbs started to tingle, but I couldn’t open my eyes to look. I couldn’t move a single muscle. I felt electrified, fuzzy with little vibrations like a thousand electric raindrops.
Then I was floating out of my body. I could see again—see myself, Zawne snoring gently beside me. I passed right through my ceiling and caught a glimpse of the capital, with all its bright lights and the flyrarcs zipping between skyscrapers. Still I ascended, pulled upward by some supreme force into the clouds, into the atmosphere. I could see the whole continent of Gaard like a pancake on the water. But I rose higher still. I rocketed into space at a thousand miles a second, through plumes of pink and purple space dust, galaxies of a billion twinkling stars. I zoomed through the cosmos faster and faster until it all became a blur and …
I was in a void. My soul had been sucked right through the endlessness of space and into a place of nothingness. The floor was white and solid, but it looked like mist. All around me was endless and blank, yet above flowed a sky of peach clouds. It was tranquil and oddly euphoric. I wasn’t even panicked. In the back of my head, I thought, This is a dream … yet it’s not.
“Queen Kaelyn, so nice of you to come.”
“Who said that?” I whirled around. There was no one there.
“I did,” the voice said. It seemed to boom from all around me. “You can call me Riedel.”
Then another voice, a woman’s, soft and sublime. “And you can call me Hanchell.”
I gawked in every direction, but no one was there. “Where are you?” I said. “I can’t see anyone.”
“Settle down,” Riedel said with great authority in his voice. “Be still and concentrate. You won’t be able to see us with your human eyes. You’ll have to use your other senses.”
“Okay …”
I closed my eyes and strained every muscle in my body, but nothing happened. Then I focused on listening. I listened, and when I did, I could hear the leagues of silence like subtle vibrations. It occurred to me my senses were enhanced in this spectral void. I took a deep breath and felt the air beyond my fingers. Every particle spoke to me, showed its existence. When I opened my eyes again, the air before me was shimmering. There were two shapes of light and motion. They were constructs of sound and spectral energy. Riedel was on the left—I could smell his manly, cedarwood scent—and Hanchell was on the right. I could also smell Hanchell’s rosy odor, sweet and relaxing. Both were distinct to me now that I had focused my mind.
“Good,” Riedel said.
“Very good,” Hanchell echoed. “You can see that we are here, but you cannot see our true forms. No human can see the true forms of the Crown of Crowns. Only the Min can do that.”
“I …Who? What? Huh?” I blinked, confused and thrown off guard. The Crown of Crowns was a bird. That was what Papa had always told
