“I have another question,” I said.
But Riedel cut me off before I could ask it. “Yes, your mother is at peace. But no, we cannot tell you anything more than that. The ultimate knowledge of what happens after death could alter your purpose in life.”
“All right,” I said. It was enough just to know Mama was at peace. “How will I get back to this place tomorrow night to give you my decision?”
Riedel said, “Spell Shiol over your heart as you lie in bed. Your ethereal self will be pulled into our mirror dimension. For now, when you awaken, you are going to hear glass shattering. Zawne will then come into the room with blood on his finger. The current king and queen will have invited you both for lunch at one p.m.”
“This will prove to you that we are real,” Hanchell said in her soft voice. “Now go to sleep, Queen Kaelyn. Tomorrow will be a hard day for you.”
With that, the light of Hanchell and Riedel faded. The clouds above churned, and my vision got fuzzy. Everything went black.
I woke to the sound of shattering glass. My eyes burst open and I sat upright, the memory of my time in Shiol flooding my mind. “Zawne?” I called out. “Zawne, are you all right?”
He appeared in the doorway, blood trickling down his finger. “Sorry,” he said. “I cut myself on a wineglass. I’m trying not to get blood on my suit.”
He looked good despite the blood, and it made me smile. I was glad we had spent the night together. Still, I was exhausted. My body was heavy, and there was an itchy burning in my eyes.
“You look beat,” Zawne said, “which is weird, because you slept in quite late. It’s almost noon. The only people I’ve ever seen sleep so late are my parents.”
I wanted to say, Because they’ve been visiting Shiol throughout their reign! They were being given orders on how to run the kingdom by the Crown of Crowns! Instead, I said, “Do we have any plans today?”
“Yes,” Zawne said, a little surprised. He was bandaging his finger with a roll of gauze. “How did you know? We have a lunch date with the king and queen in an hour. We’re supposed to be there at one o’clock. I told them you were still asleep, and they both grinned at each other like they were in on some personal joke.”
They know, I thought. The same thing happened to them forty years ago. “Cancel it,” I said. “Your parents will understand, trust me. I have a lot of thinking to do.”
And that was exactly how I proceeded to spend my day. Zawne didn’t understand, and I didn’t expect him to. Before he left my apartment, I probed him a bit. “Would you make a good king? … What do you think of the current model of Decens-Lenitas? … Would you allow me to change the world for the better? … Could we reform the system of monarchy to better benefit the people, spreading the wealth throughout the entire population? … Would you be up for promoting some of the older forms of tradition and society, bringing purpose back to the world and taking some of the overwhelming power away from the royal bloodlines?”
All his answers came back positive. “Anything you want, my love.” His eagerness to help with my vision for Geniverd made me confident I could trust him as an ally. I was sure I would make a decision by the end of the day. I was getting more and more amped up at the thought of a new Geniverd, shaking the system to its very core!
I almost called Nnati to tell him the news, then remembered what the Crown of Crowns had said: No humans aside from the Geniverd rulers may know the Great Secret.
I couldn’t risk telling anyone. I sat curled on my sofa and deliberated alone. Could Lordin really have thought Zawne so worthless? The thought made me bitter toward her. How could she have thrown away her life and jeopardized Zawne’s chance at the throne? He had been so in love with her. Was Lordin not the woman she had seemed to be?
I forwarded all my calls from GMAF to Nnati, adding an apologetic message and informing him that we needed to double the staff immediately, but I refrained from telling him why. If I was to become queen in three weeks, the foundation would need a new boss. Someone would have to look after things while I busied myself with my royal duties and spent my nights in Shiol.
As I ate an early dinner and spun these ideas around in my head, that was when it hit me. Lordin had transferred her charitable works to me the day before she refused the Crown of Crowns. She had planned it all out. She had wanted her important work to go on but didn’t want to take on the responsibility of queen, because she had thought her future husband was unfit. Instead, Lordin had entrusted me to look after things, and now I was in the same position, only I was going to make Zawne my king.
Lordin must have been blind. Zawne was the perfect man for the job. As I lay down for the night and spelled Shiol over my heart, I knew exactly what I was going to tell the Crown of Crowns.
“Hello, Queen Kaelyn,” Riedel’s powerful voice boomed. “We sense you have made your decision.”
“I only have one question,” I said. I was apprehensive. I needed to hear that the Crown of Crowns believed in me as much as I believed in Zawne. “How do you know I will be a good queen?”
“It won’t be hard,” Hanchell said. “We do most of the heavy lifting. Before we intervened hundreds of years ago in the choosing of Geniverd’s rulers, men warred with each other, were killed constantly
