No good god would sanctify this.

“Montes,” I hiss. “No.” That’s all I’m willing to say in this place of silence.

“Yes,” he insists.

I’m still fighting him, even as he drags me forward.

“Do it for our child,” he whispers.

My heart pangs. I have a new weakness, and Montes just exploited it. If he thinks a crown will protect the baby, I’ll go along with it. After all, I was willing to do much worse when I didn’t know if Montes would survive the flight to Geneva. So I stop fighting him.

We’re halfway up the aisle when he leans into me. “Once we get to the altar, kneel,” he breathes, his voice barely a whisper. “When you rise again, you’ll be a crowned queen.”

Montes leaves me at the foot of the altar, where I do as he says and kneel.

The rites are read in Latin, and they go on and on and on. My eyelids are drooping by the time the holy man grabs the crown.

I blink several times as he approaches me with it. Lapis lazuli circles its base, and dozens of gold spikes branch off of it. I’ve never seen anything like it.

The holy man speaks more Latin as he places the crown on my head. He makes the sign of the cross before retrieving a robe made of velvet and ermine. The material settles over my shoulders, and he clasps it at the base of my throat. The weight of it all presses down on me; I’m sure the effect is intentional. This is very much a burden.

He gestures for me to stand. I do so, and the two of us lock eyes. I think for a moment we are wondering what kind of person the other one is. What kind of woman marries a tyrant ruler? What kind of religious man ordains a killer as queen? Staring at him, I realize we might both simply be decent people cornered into powerful roles. Everyone can be bought, but the price is not always power. I wonder what his was.

He speaks again in Latin, makes the sign of the cross again, and then indicates for me to face the crowd.

I swivel and find hundreds of faces staring back at me. But there’s one face my eyes seek out. He’s the only other person besides me and the man behind me who remains standing. His dark eyes gleam with approval.

For the first time since I entered the Cathedral, the man behind me speaks in English. “I present to you, Her Majesty Serenity Lazuli, High Consort of the King, Queen Regent of the East and the West.

“Long live the queen!”

CHAPTER 26

Serenity

I’M STARING OUT the window of my room at Geneva’s broken city. It presses up against the edge of the palace grounds and fans out to what I can see of the horizon.

I don’t like this place; it holds too many bad memories. I keep wanting to hunt down the suite my father and I stayed in. It’s macabre, but I feel like if I went there, I’d run into him—or at least see the stain his blood left on the carpet.

I touch my crown and prick myself on one of its points. They might as well be thorns. They look like thorns, they feel like thorns, the only difference is that these thorns are golden and shine in the light.

I pull the thing off and stare at it.

“It’s not going to bite you.”

I don’t turn around when I hear Montes’s voice. He’ll demand attention soon enough—he always does—but I won’t give him any immediate gratification. I’ve been whittled down to petty acts of rebellion.

“How long have you been planning that?” I ask.

“The coronation? Since we returned,” he answers.

“I’m actually impressed,” I say, running my thumb over the spires of my crown. “You coordinated an entire ceremony, a feat you managed to keep me in the dark about, and you executed it all without making me look like a fool.”

I think he recognizes what I’m not saying.

You deceived me.

You made me vulnerable in a room full of wolves.

You forced my hand.

“Our enemies already recognize your position as my wife; it’s time the people recognize it as well.”

I rotate to face him. His eyes glint as he watches me. He wears a crown of his own, and the sight of it brings back all those months and years when he was just an evil so unnatural that he defied the very laws of nature. He seems just as inhuman now—just as dark, just as beautiful, just as untouchable.

I should renew that old vow and kill the king where he stands. My gun is holstered against my inner thigh. It would take seconds to pull it out, aim, and fire a lethal shot. Hit that terrible mind of his and destroy all chances of him ever being revived.

I won’t act on the fantasy. This evil man has awoken my heart. I don’t understand why or how, but he has, and even my ironclad will doesn’t stand a chance against it.

Montes strides across the room and takes the crown out of my hand. He studies it.

“Whether you like it or not,” he says, “you were always a queen. You were this morning before you woke up, you were the day I slid my ring onto your finger. You were the first time I laid eyes on you. You were queen the first time you drew blood, and the first moment you drew breath.” Very deliberately, he places the crown on my head. “The coronation makes no difference because here,” he touches my temple, “and here,” he touches my heart, “you’ve always been this way.”

He has no idea that while he waxes on about queenship, I’ve been debating whether or not I could kill him.

“I’m calling bullshit,” I say.

He laughs and extends his arm. “Come, Queen Regent, you have a coronation banquet to attend, and our child needs to eat.”

And there it is, the final nail in the coffin: he has compassion, and now we share more than just bloody, deadly love between us. We share life.

WE HEAD DOWN the hall, towards the ballroom where I first met the king. The doors leading to it are closed, but muffled conversation and laughter still filter out. I’m hit with a powerful wave of déjà vu. Not so long ago I walked down this hall with my hand tucked into the crook of another man’s arm and together we faced the same pair of closed doors. But then it was my father, and the dreaded meeting was with the king.

Now the very monster I feared is the one lending support at my side. I breathe in deeply.

“All you have to do is eat a little and nod to people you don’t know,” Montes says, misreading me. “Oh, and don’t stab anyone in the eye with the utensils.”

“Montes, I’m not going to stab anyone with anything.” That’s what my gun’s for.