At last they came to the great hall, which glowed in candlelight; a vast black iron chandelier hung above the expansive wooden table, bare except for candles.
The candles above and below dipped and swayed, throwing shadows on the walls around. Sitting at the table, just to the right of its head, was the queen mother. Like Ama, she was dressed in red, though her hair was perhaps more suited for the color, jet-black as it was, with streaks of white at the temples.
And at her elbow stood Emory, clean now, and dressed in finery, but with the same easy white smile, the same dark curls, washed and worn loose. He was tall and fine and cut a handsome figure standing there, waiting for Ama. At the sight of him, Ama felt her mouth part into a smile, for it was a relief to see his familiar face in this strange place, and the way his eyes lit up with pleasure upon seeing her made Ama feel glad for the care Tillie had taken with her gown and hair.
“Ama,” he said upon her entrance. “What a sight you are!”
He strode across the hall and took up Ama’s hands, kissing them both, one and then the other.
He smelled better, too, Ama noticed.
“Hello,” she said, and dropped a curtsy, one quite better than her earlier attempts. She seemed to be a quick study, Ama thought about herself.
“And you’ve put aside your cat,” Emory said, sounding particularly pleased.
“Only just for dinner,” Ama corrected. “Tillie—one of the girls who tended to me—is with her.”
Emory laughed loud at this. “Did you hear that, Mother?” he said. “A nursemaid for her cat!”
“I would do the same for my favorite pets,” the queen mother said. “It is no surprise at all, to me.”
Still holding Ama by a hand, Emory led her across the hall and to the table. There, he presented her to his mother. “May I present the lady Ama,” he said formally, “the damsel I have rescued from the dragon I conquered, in a land far away and gray as dusk.”
But dusk wasn’t gray, Ama thought. Dusk was the most colorful hour, with the horizon set on fire by the breath of the yawning sun. She did not say this, however. She had better sense than that, and instead dropped another curtsy, this time bowing deep and lowering her gaze, as well. “Queen Mother,” she said. “Thank you for the lovely gown. I hope you are pleased by how it looks on its grateful recipient.”
“Come closer, girl,” the queen mother said, and Ama obeyed. Emory dropped her hand and she walked alone to the queen mother’s side.
“Look at me,” the queen mother said, and Ama did. The queen mother looked back, and each studied the other.
Ama did not know what the queen mother saw, but in the queen mother’s face, Ama saw gray cliffs and bright clusters of jewels and steamed-over rose-gold mirrors.
Then she blinked hard, and looked again, and she saw an elegant matron, still beautiful, with black eyes and thin pale lips, her face all eye and eyebrow and forehead and hair.
Ama curtsied again.
“Enough of that,” the queen mother said, and gestured to the chair across from her, at Emory’s left hand. “Sit,” she said, and Ama sat.
The queen mother snapped her fingers, and the servants, whom Ama had not noticed, came alive, pouring wine into goblets, trimming the candle wicks along the table’s spine. Another servant, this one a girl no older than Ama, uncovered the dishes lining a side table, and a tall, dour-faced man, candle-like both in the waxiness of his features and the long, thin shape of him, brought the first dish to the table.
“May I serve their majesties?” he asked.
“Serve the ladies first,” Emory told him.
The candle man bowed his head and did as he was ordered, laying a slice of meat first on the queen mother’s silver plate and then another slice on Ama’s.
A parade of servants came to the table, each adding a portion of another dish to Ama’s plate. She watched the food pile in front of her until, at last, they stopped.
There was so much food on the plate that Ama felt slightly ill just looking at it, so instead of eating, she raised her goblet and sipped the wine, which warmed her throat and then her chest with each swallow.
“Slowly,” Emory warned kindly, “or you will regret it on the morrow.”
They ate. It was a long, wide table for just the three of them to sit, and as Ama gazed at all the vast, empty space, all the unseated chairs, Emory said, “Tomorrow the hall will be full, as it usually is, but this is your first night in the castle, and Mother desired to have you all to ourselves.”
“When the rest of the court gets their claws into you,” the queen mother said, a piece of meat on her fork, “they may never let go. Better we speak first and learn what you know of yourself, before they try to wrest it from you.”
“I told you, Mother,” Emory said, with an air of exasperation, as if he’d already explained this to her several times, “Ama knows nothing of her time before her rescue.”
“Do not begrudge me the chance to hear from the girl herself,” the queen mother said to Emory, and then, to Ama, “Well?”
Ama swallowed. “Well, what?” she said loudly.
It was impertinent, and unexpected, and perhaps brought on by the quick draught of wine, but as soon as the words were out, Ama wished she could call them back.
It was as if a window had blown open and brought inside a freezing draft, icing everyone into stillness. The servants stopped where they stood, Emory paused midbite. Even the candles seemed to cease their flicker.
And then the queen mother laughed—a loud, triumphant sound, warmer than Ama would have guessed her capable of.
“Cheeky!” she said, and lifted her goblet, raised it in Ama’s direction. “I like that.” She drank deeply and set her cup back down with a clatter. “Well,” she started again. “What do you remember of your time in the dragon’s possession, and the time before that, child?”
Ama cast herself back, back, back. There were colors. And there was light. And warmth—oh, such lovely warmth.
But that was all there was.
Now, there was this—this man who had rescued her, who looked after her with such gentle attentiveness, this queen mother with the audacious, wonderful laugh. Here, food, more than enough food, and pleasant drink. Warm clothes. Upstairs, her lynx. A warm bed, waiting for her. A fire, all her own, in a room, all her own.
It was enough, Ama thought. It would have to be.
“I remember nothing,” she told the queen mother. “I will need new stories, I suppose.”
“Then, my dear,” the queen mother said, “we shall help you to make them.”
And she raised her goblet once more, and Ama raised hers, and Emory, too, raised his. The queen mother said, “To new stories,” and their three goblets met with a clang, and together, they drank to the future.
When the dinner dishes were removed and a spread of sweets was set before them, the queen mother addressed the question Ama had been silently harboring, as if she intuited that a bit of sugar would help Ama swallow what was to come.
“Now,” the queen mother said, spearing a sugared berry as she spoke, “we have a wedding to plan.”
Ama too had a selection of delicacies on her gilded plate, but she set her fork quietly down and folded her hands in her lap.
“And before the wedding, the coronation,” Emory said. “I have, after all, returned home with a damsel, having felled a dragon.”
“Indeed, my son,” the queen mother said. “You are a king, that is certain, and we must waste no time in announcing it. After all, it has been more than a month since the last king has left this world, and the people deserve to know that Harding is under the protection of a new one. The arrangements have been made already, Emory, for the morrow.”