Page 20 of Threaded

So much of herself and yet … so little, all at the same time.

Ryenne returned her attention to the throne room and the masses gathered before them. The air was heavy and viscous as the crowd stood frozen, their expectant gazes written with shock as they beheld the two women on the dais. The queen flashed a brilliant smile, her own presence slogging through the weight of the room.

She suddenly felt so weighted, so tired. She forced it away, forced herself to be their queen, pushed every scrap of royal exuberance she had left out into that cavernous room.

“And so it is done. Qhohena, in her brilliant wisdom, has made her choice known.”

She turned her gaze and her smile to the woman beside her. Mariah’s face was still a mask of pure indifference, but there was something else there, hidden deep in her green eyes.

It looked a lot like shock and a little like fear.

With a sudden, wild desperation, Ryenne shot a brief, pleading prayer to her goddess.

Guide her, Qhohena. She will need it.

Looking back out at the throne room, Ryenne finished her address.

“I present to you all, for the very first time, the new Queen Apparent of Onita: Mariah Salis.”

CHAPTER9

Mariah sat at a great, wooden counsel table, its surface polished and gleaming, the sound of a great fire crackling and popping in the magnificent hearth, and had no idea how she’d gotten there.

She remembered Queen Ryenne’s words: “I present to you all, for the very first time, the new Queen Apparent of Onita: Mariah Salis.” After that, nothing. She must’ve moved, gone through the motions to lead her to where she now sat, but she remembered none of it. Her mind was swarmed by the sound of buzzing bees, all threatening to burst out of her and drown out the room in a tidal wave of confusion and fear andanger.

So much anger.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Slowly, she became aware of the weight of eyes on her. She turned her head slightly and found the blonde-haired queen seated to her right, staring at her, a guarded expression on her ageless face. Around the rest of the room—which was a sort of office—lounged Queen Ryenne’s Armature, the warriors intimidating yet graceful as they, too, watched her closely. The high priestess, Ksee, was also there, hanging back against a far wall, her posture poised and practiced.

“Leave us.” The queen’s command was quiet yet full of authority. Mariah couldn’t help but sit up straighter.

Even that small movement sent a wave of nausea rolling through her gut.

Ryenne’s Armature rose at once, quietly filing out of the oak office doors without hesitation. Ksee lingered momentarily, her piercing gaze darting between Ryenne and Mariah. Ryenne leveled a pointed look at the priestess, a look that had Ksee pursing her lips slightly, casting a final, veiled look at Mariah, and stepping quietly from the room.

It only took a few heartbeats for the room to empty, leaving only Mariah, Ryenne, and a third figure: Kalen, Ryenne’s Consort. Curiosity pushed just barely through the haze of her anger and confusion, taking note of his light brown, slightly unkempt hair, his warm brown eyes flicking between his queen and Mariah, the gentle and reassuring smile touching his lips. She watched him place a hand on Ryenne’s shoulder, tilting her head just slightly as she watched the Queen and her Consort share a moment.

That sort of love … it was curious to her. She’d only seen the love her parents shared, but they had the lives of mortals, such fleeting existences compared to the two people who now stood before her.

Kalen and Ryenne had been together for over threecenturies. That length of time, that sort of commitment, was unfathomable to Mariah. The thought of sharing so much life with anyone sent a shiver crawling up her spine, slimy disgust resting in her chest.

That sort of love could only be a weakness.

“I’ll be outside,” Kalen said, his soft voice tugging Mariah from her distaste and curiosity and back into her resting state of confused, panicked rage. Her pulse again began to race in her ears as she watched Ryenne nod once, her ocean-blue stare never leaving Mariah. With a soft smile directed at Mariah, a smile that she aptly ignored, Kalen walked out through the same office doors the rest had stepped through, clicking them closed behind him.

The two women sat in silence for several moments that felt like a lifetime. Mariah was swirling, spiraling, her racing heart only picking up speed the longer she held the queen’s stare. The walls of the room felt like they were beginning to close in, pushing and pushing until they were squeezing the air from her lungs and crushing the bones of her body and—

“So. Mariah Salis. Where are you from?”

The queen’s question was a jolt, a gentle slap that snapped Mariah back to reality. Her panic and rage suddenly withdrew to rest just below her skin, coiled in her veins, but for the moment contained.

“Andburgh.” She didn’t even know she was answering until the word left her lips. Her voice sounded strange in her ears, as if she were trapped underwater, clawing desperately for the surface.

Ryenne tensed slightly, and Mariah zeroed her attention on the movement. That curiosity twisted again, and she latched onto it like a lifeline; anything was better than these foreign, suffocating feelings holding her captive. “Andburgh,” the queen said. “Interesting. The Crossroad City.”

Mariah nodded, watching Ryenne warily and holding back her instinctive scoff that begged to be released. Andburgh was hardly a city; more like a useless, tired piece of dirt that happened to sit where two main roads collided.

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