The Crown Eats First

How it begins

The crown bit the pear before the queen could reach it.

Mara heard enamel strike skin.

She had spent nine years tasting poison for the royal household. She knew the soft crack of a sugared shell, the snap of a concealed capsule, the delicate sound a person made when fear interrupted swallowing.

This was hunger.

The queen withdrew her hand.

Nobody else at the breakfast table moved.

"Too ripe," said the chamberlain.

Mara looked at the pear. A crescent was missing from its golden flank. Juice ran between the crown's lowest points and soaked the velvet cushion.

Crowns did not have teeth.

She reminded herself of this twice.

"Shall I taste it?" she asked.

"No," the queen said, too quickly.

Beyond the open windows, servants were cutting black fruit from the orchard trees. The harvest had failed again. At breakfast, however, there were peaches from the southern provinces, white grapes, honey cakes and enough cream to float a spoon.

The crown shifted.

Only a little.

Mara stepped backward.

A hand caught her elbow before she struck the sideboard.

The man behind her wore a traveler's coat instead of court colors. His face had been removed from the portrait gallery three winters ago, but paint could not make people forget a mouth like that.

Tomas.

The prince who had refused the throne.

"Don't let it know you're frightened," he murmured.

"Of what?"

He turned his wrist.

Above his glove, four pale scars curved around the bone.

The crown clicked against its cushion.

The queen rose. Her chair scraped the floor with a violence that made every servant lower their eyes.

"Leave us."

Mara should have obeyed.

Instead, she watched a drop of pear juice climb upward along the gold.

Toward the queen.

Tomas tightened his hand around her elbow.

"It doesn't want breakfast," he said.

The crown opened.