Chapter 24: Queen of the Keep

At dusk the throne hall was lit with a thousand candles, and nobody was kneeling out of fear.

The nine houses stood in their colors.

The gray woman had brought her notebook.

Hester stood at the foot of the dais with her keys at her belt.

She wore a small, grim, satisfied look.

I walked up the long red carpet in the deep red dress, with my husband at my side.

"You are nervous," Edmund murmured.

"I'm being looked at by two hundred vampires."

"They are looking at you with respect."

"They're looking at me like they've been warned."

"That too," he said.

At the top of the steps there were two thrones now, side by side.

Hester had had the second one carried up from the cellars that morning and polished until it shone.

I stopped in front of it.

"One thing first," I said, and my voice rang in the high hall.

Every head turned.

"There is a clause Duke Rooke wrote into my husband's interment order, and today I strike it out of the charter."

A murmur went through the crowd.

"I'm not going to marry anyone," I said. "I'm already married."

Somebody laughed, and the sound went round the room and warmed it.

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