Page 116 of Cursed Crowns

Wren stared at the queen. “The dresses in the room on the fourth floor... you designed them?”

The queen nodded.

“They’re beautiful,” said Wren.

“I was once very interested in beautiful things.” Valeska looked down at her nightgown, and laughed sadly. “Grief can make you feel like you’re drowning. All those fancy dresses and furs were my son’s attempt at a life raft.” A pause then. “One of many.”

The dresses hadn’t been for Alarik’s sweetheart, after all—they had been for Rose. Each one lovingly designed by his mother. This new information twisted Wren’s stomach. She didn’t like how it cast Alarik in a different light—not as a brutal king but a worried son. She didn’t want to think of him like that.

“Don’t look so upset. I’m happy to see them worn,” said the queen warmly. “My son tells me you were a friend of Ansel’s. That you come from Eana. My husband and I visited there many years ago. We spent a week in Norbrook before Alarik was born.”

“Yes,” said Wren, grasping for a shred of composure. “My name isWren. Ansel and I were friends.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry for what happened to him.”

“Thank you,” said the queen quietly.

Wren’s face fell. She suddenly felt too full, as though a sob was building inside her. There was a heaviness in the air. She had waded into it the moment she had greeted the queen, and as she dwelled in the nearness of Valeska’s grief, her own thoughts turned to Banba.

“Why do you look so forlorn?” Valeska’s voice interrupted her reverie. The queen smiled, and in the quirk of her lips, Wren saw Alarik. “You are young yet. The fullness of your life—all that you will love and cherish—is still ahead of you.”

Wren smiled ruefully. “I’m grieving someone who hasn’t even died yet.”

“Ah.” The queen was silent then, unsettled.

A shadow moved on the first floor. Another soldier peering down on them, no doubt. Wren wondered if it might be Tor.

“Perhaps this person can be saved?” said the queen hopefully.

Wren almost laughed. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing left to be done.”

“Then we must be hopeful.” Valeska tipped her head back, her silvery blond hair brushing the floor as she looked up at the snow-swept dome and the blizzard howling beyond it. “We must hope for a world beyond this one, where the love we spend in this life will be returned to us ten-fold, and the people we gave it to will be waiting for us, with their hearts full of it, when we die.”

Wren frowned. In her experience hoping was easier said than done, and, more often than not, it was dangerous. “Or we can sing sea shanties.And drink. And dance. And play music while we can.” She gestured at the glass piano. “Take all the luck we have been given and use it. Before it runs out, too.”

The queen cocked her head. “I’ve never thought of it like that before.”

“I find it helps. At least sometimes.” Wren rolled to her feet, conscious of the shadow moving above them. “It’s late. I should go. Thank you for keeping me company.”

“Thank you for the sea shanty,” said the queen. “And the rest.”

“You’re welcome.” Wren made her way up the staircase, smiling at the trill of piano music that wafted after her. She headed toward the hallway where Tor had been skulking, but he was stalking away from her now, trying not to be seen. Well, too late. Wren hurried to catch up with him.

“It’s not like you to run away from me,” she huffed, as she followed him into a room at the end of the hallway. “Especiallyin dark corridors.”

“I didn’t realize we had that kind of rapport,” came a voice Wren was not expecting. Then a pair of pale blue eyes too bright in the darkness.

“Alarik.” Wren took a step backward. “I thought you were—” She stopped abruptly, swallowing Tor’s name.

“A wise decision,” said the king. “I’d hate for you to incriminate yourself, or anyone else, any further.” He turned to light a sconce on the wall, the flickering candlelight bringing the room to life. It was full of easels, upon which oil-painted landscapes perched, waiting to be finished.

Wren drifted to one of the Fovarr Mountains. “The snow looks so real,” she said, raising a finger to touch it.

“Don’t.” Alarik flung his hand out to stop her. “It’s not dry.”

Wren turned back to him, fresh horror churning in her gut. “Please don’t tell me these are yours.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are they that bad?”

“No. You are not a painter,” said Wren. “You cannot be a painter.”

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