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The next day, mid-morning, I was seated in a hard-backed chair against the stone wall of a narrow corridor. The ceilings were high, and the stained-glass windows were thankfully uncovered, letting sunlight sluice into the room. It was gorgeous, but so, so quiet, and neither I nor the two other contestants seated next to me were looking forward to what was behind that ornately carved wooden door.
It slammed open. Rona strode out, her hands balled into fists at her side. She swore colorfully as she passed us, eyes blazing with fury.
“Guess it didn’t go well,” Fina murmured next me.
Rona left the hallway and Lady Glennis stepped out of the room with her trademark notebook in the crook of her arm. “Lady Reyna? The council will see you now.”
The council.
The first official trial of the Choice. It was all finally beginning to seem real.
“Good luck,” Fina whispered, and nudged me.
The King’s Choice wasn’t just a method for the king alone to choose between potential suitors. The point of the Choice was to prove to the rest of Frasia that the Bloody King could be trusted to lead diplomatically—that he wouldn’t just rule through violence, despite the way he’d taken the crown. He wanted to ensure his reign was long and well-regarded, lest another pack rush in and try to take the crown for themselves. The council would help him make his decision—or at least, that’s how Barion had explained it to me. Whoever the king chose had to have the approval of the council in order to become the next Queen of Frasia.
I stepped into the trial room.
I was nervous, but confident. This I could do—be perfectly ladylike, and perfectly dull. All I had to do was be pleasant and nice to look at, like a decoration, so one of the other women would outshine me. I took the seat in the center of the room, smoothing my deep blue gown over my knees. I smiled demurely up at the low dais, where four carved wooden chairs seated four severe-looking council members.
Over dinner last night, Lady Glennis had given us names and statuses of the council members. The Duchess Alana was not on the council, though I was certain she held sway. The council members were court members, chosen for their knowledge of the skills a queen should have. Lady Marin, the main judge of this trial, sat on the far left. Her face was lined, and her long dark hair was streaked with silver, hanging loose around her deep purple cloak, the same one all four council members wore. At her side was Lady Oleta, with her sharp, birdlike gaze and gnarled hands. Then there was Lord Nylander, so short his bare feet barely touched the ground beneath the chair, and his head shaved bald. And finally, Lord Elfriede, who looked strikingly young compared to the other three, with dark curly hair cropped close to his skull.
I’d reviewed their names, and what specialties they held in the court of Nightfall, and why they represented the best of the pack. And yet, seated in front of them, all of that information flew from my mind. I felt like a criminal walking to the gallows. All four of them stared at me like they were trying to see all the way to my wolf, locked deep in my soul.
“Good morning, Lady Reyna of Daybreak,” Lady Marin said curtly. “Are you ready to begin?”
“Thank you for having me, Lady Marin,” I said. “Yes, I’m ready.”
She opened a small notebook. “Here is your first question. For the winter solstice celebratory feast, what are the traditional courses?”
“For what region, milady?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow, impressed.
Yeah. I could do this.
The trial went by in a blur, rapid-fire questions of pack norms and place settings and hypothetical social situations and diplomacy and merchant contracts. By the time Lady Marin dismissed me, I was dizzy with the questioning, but pleased with how I’d done.
I left council with my head held high, and Lady Glennis sent in Fina after me. She grinned at me as she strode in, confident as ever.
I met Adora in the Solarium, where she was having coffee and a light lunch. She still looked a bit pale, having been the first of us to face the council, but the biscuits she was nibbling on seemed to be reviving her. She perked up as I walked in.
“Reyna!” she chirped. “How did it go?”
“I think it went well,” I said with a nod. I’d answered the questions correctly, for the most part, but without too much detail—I’d been polite, but not overly engaging. Effective. Boring. The perfect candidate to be cut from the lineup.
“Rona rushed in here, took a coffee, and left,” Adora said. “I tried to talk to her about the interview, but she just blew me off.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I said with a sigh. “She didn’t look happy when she left the council room.”
“Well, it’s not fair to ask a commoner questions of that detail,” Adora said. “These are things we’ve been learning since we were little girls.”
“True,” I said. “What did you think about the question about managing the late payment between the Askon merchant shipper and the distributor? I found it to be a bit convoluted.”
“Oh, a nightmare,” Adora said. “But we’ve actually dealt with that in Starcrest a bit, so here’s what I suggested…”
Over coffee, Adora and I compared notes about the more complicated questions of the trial. By the time we’d finished our coffees, Fina rushed in, her bright eyes a little wild. But her smile was still huge.
“Wow,” she said as she poured a coffee for herself. “They don’t mess around in there.”
