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They have Max’s throne moved into the ballroom for the occasion. A small stage sits in the back center of the room, and this is from where she will hold court tonight. They must have invited hundreds of people; emissaries from neighboring kingdoms, members of the upper class whose parties Max is fairly certain she crashed before the revolution, nearby royalty.
As she watches the servants set the throne down and scurry out, Max marvels at the way the sun shrouds it in light, halo-like. This room has been specially tailored to falsify divinity, even in the night. On a clear night, the moon acts as much a divine arbiter as the sun, casting the throne in light, and on a cloudy one, the light from the furnaces and various chandeliers do the job well enough.
The guests who attend tonight will not go home speaking of the distance between the king and her husband, her queen consort. They will not tell-all about the animosity thrown between the king and her advisor. They will instead tell their people about the way King Max floated through the crowd as if borne upon her own godhead. They will shout how she spoke her greetings like a blessing, how she shook hands like a benediction.
That is what they will say, she reassures herself.
A hand settles quietly onto her shoulder, and the scent of lavender and rosemary surrounds her. She closes her eyes, tilts her head back.
It’s a strange thing. To both dread seeing the man you love and to feel his absence like a missing rib. She glances over her shoulder. Emilio stands to her right, partly in shadow, but his pale face is illuminated by the morning sun. He offers her a small smile.
“Are you excited for tonight? All the shining things, the good food?”
Some small part of her wants to respond in kind. It’s been too long since they’ve had a content conversation. It’s been longer since they’ve held each other up in the face of frightening odds.
“This isn’t a party, Emilio,” she retorts instead. “It may seem like it, may sound like it, but don’t forget tonight’s true purpose.” She turns to face the throne again. Clouds have shifted over the sun, and the lack of a fire in the furnace leaves the gilded wood and red velvet in deep shadow. It makes her uneasy.
“We arranged this ball so that our esteemed guests would remember our power, our might. It’s been too long since the war; we don’t want them to go forgetting.”
The words burn on her tongue, like gas, like hot blood. The war had been necessary, a long-awaited action against a tyrannical king, against the whole Lavenz dynasty. Max remembers the weight of him, the bloody strands of hair clutched in her fists as she threw his head at the feet of his generals, the sound of her blood hitting the ground as she spat at the ground.
“ I am your king now!” She’d shouted, voice cracking, ice in her chest and heat in her tone. And those men laughed and laughed and laughed, their eyes brimming with fear and their mouths sewn shut.
She hears Emilio’s sigh behind her. He’s resigned; they’ve done this dance a thousand times before. “Of course, my love. I only meant to inspire good will for the evening.”
If she were to look around right now, she knows exactly the sight that would present itself to her. He’ll be standing up straight, his hands behind his back. His face will be set, not angry, not elated, just set. A soldier, awaiting orders. A little boy, attempting respect.
He’d told her about this technique, one night in the creaky bedroom they shared when he could sneak out of the palace.
Emilio Lavenz is not a stupid boy. Years of living under the thumb of the old king his father left him clever, good at manipulating conversations to make it out alive. He’s only trying to please, to placate.
It fills Max with a fury she finds has become more and more constant, like a pet, always toddling beside her, always rising to meet her hand when she extends it.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Emilio,” she says, whirling around. Her skirts twist with her and she can feel their weight, swinging her body this way and that.
Emilio takes a small step back. “I wasn’t–”
“The evening will go fine, okay? Over without a hitch. No questions asked. No peeping behind closed doors, no candles tipped over, nothing. They will respect me, they will fear me.” Her voice goes quiet toward the end, gravelly. She feels like the stained glass depictions of warrior goddesses in the chapel when she was a girl.
Emilio squeezes his eyes shut, and Max sees his hands shaking.
“I understand, my king. Is there anything I can do for you?”
When he opens his eyes again to meet hers, she finds herself thrown back in time. It’s happening too often. She’s at a party. She’s wearing a red dress. A champagne flute is in her hand, and the bubbles fizz on her tongue. A boy with brown eyes looks her over and says, “did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?”
Emilio had been so earnest. It’s as if she’s seeing him cracked down the middle, now. Her saint and her broken thing.
Back in the present, she shakes her head. “What?”
Emilio shuffles. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Tell me how to survive without all this grandeur. Tell me how to make them all love me.
“No.”
She turns back to the throne, takes three intentional steps forward. She does not turn back, not when she hears Emilio’s steps move forward, not when she hears them recede.
She’s sat on her throne now, Joseph circling her like a hawk, correcting posture, snipping loose threads the tailors didn’t catch. Her advisor misses nothing.
He doesn’t hum when he does this anymore, the way they used to. She used to tell Max stories while they got ready together, Max’s favourite fairy tales, sing old folk songs that had fallen out of favour at church.
Joseph had always been the odd one of the three of them. She always knew who he was, right from the beginning. They used to get ready for parties with Max, and while Bea stood outside, tapping her foot and glancing at her watch, Max and Joseph threw eyeshadow and earrings at each other.
But that was before the revolution, before everything changed, before it all went to shit.
It doesn’t feel good. To leave it behind. But it was necessary. After all, a god cannot be seen as childish. She must be unreal. Flawless.
The sun has risen in the sky, and Max is illuminated on all sides. She settles into the weight of divinity the way she settles into a satin gown. Uncomfortably, but as a necessity. Her back, held straight, is beginning to ache as Joseph does his rounds.
Technically, this is a time in which the captain of the king’s guard should be standing at the door to the ballroom, should be at attention, awaiting her king’s orders, but the captain of Max’s guard is a ghost now. A wisp in the air, a scent on the wind. She lives in the not-so-gentle press of Joseph’s fingers, in the strategy meetings Max holds with Joseph and no one else.
Looking back, it wasn’t Bea’s fault. She was a heretic, is all. Going against the divine word. Such an odd decision, for such a pious woman. Max had no choice. And she did show mercy. Banishment over execution.
She thunks her head back against the throne. Bea Kotova was not a horrible person. She wasn’t even a bad person. She was Max’s oldest friend. She pulled at Max like taffy. She yanked Max’s hair in Sunday school and cursed her name at confession. Two things can coexist.
Max doesn’t understand how, trapped in her mortal body, her ribs keep making room for more mourning. She doesn’t know why the human condition is to lose, and to never forget.
“Do you miss her?” She asks. Joseph’s hands, pulling dust from her hair, still.
“Excuse me?” His voice is cold. The Kotov family has always been strong in their convictions. It made them perfect matches for Max, who is possibly the most stubborn person she knows.
Max turns her head and looks Joseph in the eye. “Bea. Do you. Miss her?”
When Max was a girl, when her mother still read her bedtime stories, still took her hand and traced the outline of the people in the stars, she told her once, don’t poke the bear. Don’t get yourself into situations where you know you’re going to lose.
Every now and then Max wonders if her mother knows she was poking the bear from the time Max was twelve.
Joseph turns away, starts packing up his kit. “I don’t think you want to hear my answer on that. Your highness.”
“Oh, come on, Joseph. She was your cousin. I know there must be something there.” Max doesn’t rise from her throne, but she slumps down, relaxing her back. The key to getting a rise out of someone is making them think you don’t care.
And–
“Of course, there’s something there,” Joseph says, whirling around. “Of course there is. The same way there’s something there for you, something there for Emilio, something there for everyone who came into contact with her. You can’t just take a person away from everyone who has ever known her and expect people to be okay with it. Even you must understand that.”
Well, she poked the bear.
“I don’t miss her.” Max is a very good–
“Liar.” Joseph stalks up to the throne. “Liar, liar, liar. Liar, you miss her when you sit alone in the chapel, wanting someone else to be god. Liar, you miss her in strategy meetings when it’s just me, and I always want you to take the pacifist route. Liar, you miss her when the orange trees are in bloom. Liar.”
As she advances on Max, clouds shift outside, and the sun lights him up like gold. “I get it, ok? I do. You think you’re a god, and you have to do things to reinforce that line of thought, or you’ll break, right? That’s how you tick.”
Max seizes Joseph’s wrist from where it reaches to lie on her armrest. She stands up, meeting Joseph’s eyes. “ I am a god ,” she hisses, squeezing Joseph’s wrist. “Don’t you dare presume to tell me I am not. I killed Kasimir Lavenz. I led our people to victory. They marched under my banner, killed under my name. They hang portraits of me on their altars, pray to me in the chapel. I am divinity incarnate.”
A small smile plays over Joseph’s lips. “Who, then, do you pray to, oh Lord my god?”
Max jerks away. She takes solace in the hymns, is all. Likes to twist her fingers in the coloured light shining through the stained glass. She finds familiarity there, nothing else. Kneels at the cushions, asks questions to empty air. Wishes she could drag herself kicking and screaming back to childhood.
As Max opens her mouth to reply – to beg, to scream, to sing – three servants scurry through the doors of the ballroom. They come to a stop a few feet away from her throne. Joseph pulls away, assumes Bea’s old position, standing behind and to her left.
“Pardon us, my king,” says one, standing very close to the other two. “We know your highness wished not to be disturbed,” continues the next, ducking their head. “But we were sent to inform you that a guest has arrived early, and is wishing to greet the king before he is escorted to his quarters,” finishes the third, sweeping a low bow.
Behind her, Max hears Joseph take in a deep breath. Resetting. As Max does the same, she calms the fire raging within her to a mild burn. Clears her throat.
“Of course,” she says. “Show him in.”
As the servants hurry back out, Joseph leans forward. “Enjoy your posturing tonight, my lord,” is all she says, and lightly touches her shoulder.
She’d entered on Emilio’s arm, to the crowd’s applause. As she sweeps her gaze around the room from her throne, she takes in everything. The servants standing at attention along the wall. The minor orchestra, playing a slow melody that couples dance to in front of her eyes. Joseph, impeccably dressed as always and showing no hint of their earlier altercation on her face, stands in his usual place, behind Max.
The guests had been led the long way through the palace, and will stay at least a week. It’s the proper thing to do, and it gives Max time to instill faith in them. Preach to the masses.
Emilio had disappeared into the crowd once Max had been seated, likely off to curry favour from some minor noblewoman. She sees flashes of him in the throng every now and then. Always his hand on the waist of a sparkling gown, always a smile fixed on his face. Max wonders if he takes as much pleasure in it as she finds rage.
He looks handsome as ever tonight, Max notes as she catches another flash of him. His suit is his signature black, and rouge has been applied to his cheeks, giving him an innocent, flushed look. But it’s his earrings that give Max pause, as they gave her pause in the entryway, perhaps an hour before.
“When did you do that?” She had asked, catching Emilio by the chin and turning his head toward her so she could examine his earrings. He had swapped out his usual obsidian gauges for those of solid gold. It pleased her.
Emilio looked down. “Joseph’s idea,” he said. “Said it would make a statement, mark me as elite.”
Max knew better than that. She knew what Joseph was doing. She was proving a point. He was taking the last bit of Emilio’s agency and parading it in front of Max like a sick man asking for money.
It destroyed her. What had she become?
But God, Max thinks as Emilio dances with a young woman with black hair. He looks incredible. Striking.
It isn’t custom for the king and queen to be so separate at balls. But King Maxine Novikov has never been one for custom. After all, if Emilio were here, who would be left to deal with the men lining up before her throne, begging for a dance?
She scans them, looking for the perfect match. All are dressed in some form of military regalia, sashes and medals in red and gold that will compliment her gown nicely. Her eyes light on a tall young fellow – stockier than what she wants, but none of them will be what she really wants – and as she makes eye contact with him, she sees a smile spread across his face. He’ll go home and tell his sister that he danced with the king tonight. My god, it was like a consecration.
She rises from her throne, ascends the steps. Her heels click against the marble floor as she approaches the young man, holding out her hand. “Come and dance with me, won’t you?” She asks, fluttering her eyelashes and painting on a mask.
He beams. “It would be my honor, your highness.” He bows and kisses her hand. They sweep off onto the dancefloor, under the eyes of everyone around them. Max is already making plans, formulating a strategy.
“Tell me your name,” she says. Her partner draws in a breath.
“I am the Lord Pyotr Generov, son of Marya and Jakob,” he says. Clearly, he’s proud of his title. Max hums.
“And does your family tithe to me, Lord Pyotr Generov, son of Marya and Jakob?” She asks, smooth as butter. She smiles, sweet and easy. She hates this.
Pyotr nearly trips over himself to answer. “Of course, your highness! We attend services every Sunday, and we keep you in our prayers always.”
This is what she loves. She comes alive under the praise of her followers, her faithful.
“That’s good, Pyotr,” she says. “That’s wonderful. Be sure you continue, and may you be blessed in the next life.”
Gods shouldn’t have to train for this kind of thing. But Max is a god inside a mortal vessel. She cannot be blamed for fragile human inability. She’d trained for hours to speak her words like blessings, to choose the right terms to set her people alight with holy fire.
As Pyotr chatters about how gorgeous the palace is and how he’s always wanted to visit, Max again scans the crowd. She’s not looking for Emilio, but she’s not not looking for him. Some part of her, she thinks, will look for him until the day she ceases to exist.
Instead of her husband, her queen, she sees a portly fellow with a thinning hairline marching toward her with determination in his eyes. Max sighs.
She silences Pyotr with a hand lifted from his shoulder, palm facing out. “I apologise, Pyotr,” she says. “But I think my presence may be required elsewhere.” She indicates the man walking across the dance floor. Pyotr looks like a kicked puppy. Perhaps she’ll take him to bed later, show him what it really means to be holy.
For now, though, she turns and faces her next battle. This is an old man she knows well, has sat in all too many incredibly boring meetings with. No one told her ninety per cent of being king was running the damn country. She had thought she could pay people to do that.
No matter. She smiles, extends her hand for him to kiss. Paints on a different mask. “Aleksandr,” she says. “How good of you to come tonight.”
When he reaches her, Max’s chief economist sweeps a low bow, pressing wet lips to her hand. Max fights the urge not to recoil. A god does as she pleases, and is pleased by all her followers, even the not-so-devout.
“Your highness,” Aleksandr bites out as he leads her away from the central knot of the crowd, in that voice of his that always sounds as if he’s speaking around a large gulp of whiskey. “We have much to discuss. The rising price of hibiscus in the outer counties is becoming something of a problem–”
Max cuts him off. “Is now truly the best time to speak on this? We’re celebrating! Be merry. We can speak on this tomorrow.”
Aleksandr narrows his eyes. “Of course, my queen, but I–”
She turns her head. “I’m sorry?”
Aleksandr’s eyes grow wide as he realises his mistake. “I didn’t mean–”
Max leans in close. “I am your king, don’t you remember, silly? I deposed the old man, don’t you recall? I am your king, your god. Don’t call me otherwise. You don’t want to end up the same way as the good king Kasimir, do you?”
She relishes this, this curse, this whispered thing with talons. Aleksandr pales under her gaze, shakes his head. “Of course, my king. My mistake.”
Max sighs. “Off with you, then. We’ll speak on this tomorrow.”
Aleksandr executes another bow, stiff and frozen, then performs a sharp turn and disappears into the crowd. As she watches, he catches Emilio in the middle of a dance with a dark-skinned girl in a pink gown, whispers in his ear. Well, now she knows where she’s going next.
The crowd parts around her as she walks, their hands reaching out to brush her dress, their whispered prayers. A few devoted are clutching prayer beads.
She approaches Emilio where he sways, attached to the young woman as if he would kill for her. Max finds herself simultaneously scoffing at the thought and freezing with jealousy at the young woman, so beautiful and able to steal her husband’s gaze.
“I wonder if I might steal my husband for a dance,” Max says, lacing her smile with venom. This girl has no choice. Her eyes widen, but she steps away. “Of course, my lord. It was nice to meet you, Emilio.” As she disappears into the crowd, Max takes her place.
Emilio looks particularly upset at this advance, but Max speaks before he can voice his complaints.
“Interesting that she called you by your name, not your title. Shall I have her tried for disrespect to the crown?” She’s joking. A little. Emilio closes his eyes.
“No, my love. I took no offence, and in fact invited her to do so.”
Max sighs, spinning Emilio in a slow circle. “We’ll come back to that. But what did my darling chief economist whisper in your ear a few moments ago?”
As she spins, Max laughs, loud and bright. Just a reinforcement, in case anyone was getting any doubts. Emilio frowns. “Nothing important. Just a comment about the hibiscus crop in the outer counties.”
Max hums. “And why do you think he said such a thing to you? He doesn’t have meetings with you about that, does he?”
Emilio shakes his head. “No, of course not, my love. Perhaps he was just meaning to express worry about your perceived disinterest. I know how tedious you find those meetings.”
Max laughs again, but this time it’s real. “Of course you do. Well, all right, if that was all he said. Anyway,” she says, pulling Emilio close, “let’s go back to that young lady, shall we?”
Her husband sighs. “I’d rather not.”
“Silly boy,” Max says. “I rather would. How do you know her?”
“I don’t,” Emilio says, and his cheeks turn redder under the rouge. For this moment, it’s as if the world has faded to the background, and Max hears only his heartbeat, his inhales and exhales.
Max shrugs. “We can do this all day, my love. What’s her name? You gave her yours.”
“Gaia,” Emilio says. “She’s just a guest. We just met tonight. She doesn’t mean anything, I swear.” There’s a fearful note in his voice, but that could just be Max’s general presence.
“I hope you’re telling the truth,” is all she says in return, and she finds that it isn’t a lie.
In this moment of vulnerability, Max finds herself questioning everything. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die. Max, ichor flowing through her veins, will never die, of course, but in this moment, she’s sure she’s seeing it all. Her first birthday, the day she bought oranges for herself, Bea, and Joseph, the day she met Emilio, her rallying cry of revolution, her wedding day. She’s suddenly very very afraid, and she doesn’t know why.
She seizes Emilio’s chin, sudden and gripping hard. “Tell me you know I love you,” she grits out, desperate and pleading.
Emilio’s eyes are wide and shining and his voice is shaking as he says, “wh– what?”
“Tell me,” Max says. “Tell me you know I love you. Tell me you know I would kill for you. Tell me you know I would burn this whole place down if that's what it took to save your life. Tell me.”
Emilio leans down. “I know,” he says, kissing her cheek. “I know,” he says, lacing their fingers.
“I know,” he says, breaking apart from her.
As she watches him go, she swears her lungs go with him, and she turns around and marches to her throne.
“My people!” She screams, and the music stops. Even Emilio stops, feet from the door. “My people, you’ve come tonight to see me!” They have, they have, they have.
“My people, I love you. My people, my followers, my faithful, I live in you, I have been beneath you, and I have risen above you. How does that make you feel?”
The room is silent. Her people are shaking. Joseph is nowhere to be found. Emilio has a hand on the doorknob.
Max extends a hand to Pyotr Generov, son of Marya and Jakob. “Pyotr,” she croons. “How do you feel?”
Pyotr stumbles forward through the crowd, falls to his knees. “Alive, my king,” he breathes. “I am alive and you are so much more.”
There are mutters in the crowd, ripples of fear. Max has spent too long cultivating this to let it go so soon, though, so–
“I am more, Pyotr, you’re right. Do you remember when you were growing up,” she intones to the crowd. “And you were happy? And you were faithful, and you were holy?” Her voice is bright and her eyes are shining. “And the old good king marched his way into our kingdom, and took that away from you?”
This time, there are shouts and snaps, clapping. “I do, my king!” Says Pyotr.
“And do you remember who brought you through to the other side of it all? Who led you to a revolution, who placed her hands upon your shoulders and told you you could breathe again?”
“You, my king!” Pyotr shouts.
Max nods. She is terrified of herself, and she is so, so holy.
Emilio is gone.
“It was me,” she says. “It was me who saved you. Remember that when you leave tonight.” She makes eye contact with each member of the crowd close to her. “Remember that when you wonder who to send your prayers to, when you are divided. Remember I am your god.”
“You’re just a girl!” Comes the shout of an old man in the crowd, and the air is sucked from the room. Everyone turns to look. Max looks him up and down. He’s short and stout, grey-haired and dressed in blue. A relic from the time before Kasimir’s rule. As they make eye contact, he seems to gather a bit more confidence, and shouts, “a girl! A girl with nothing in her hands. She lies! She cannot give us anything but the gentle touch of a woman. Call her by name, Queen Max Novikova, heretic!”
Max’s blood boils, and she smiles, and she laughs. She signals at her guard, and the man is seized. She’s kind. She won’t have him shot here. But these people know what will happen to them if they exhibit agreement.
The room is silent as the man is dragged out, with only his garbled shouts to fill it.
She smells smoke. She’s riding high, a great cloud come to carry her far above her people. She spreads her arms, knows the chandeliers are bathing her in a divine light meant only for her. As she watches, each person in the crowd falls to their knees.
She is divine.
What happens next is a blur.
A howl coming from outside the ballroom, one of anguish and misery, one that rings in her ears and reminds her, unerringly, of Emilio.
A sudden boom to her left, the collapse of the wall. And then–
The whole room is screaming. It fills her ears and blocks her sight, and there’s gas in her lungs and blood on her uniform and no, no, that was another battle, another time, another leap, and she’s running, and a man’s intestines spill out in front of her.
Poor Pyotr, son of Marya and Jakob, frozen in time with a red smile painted on his face and his stomach split open. Max finds herself joining in the screams, and by god, it feels good.
Her world burns, and she feels, for once, like it finally fits her. Like looking into a mirror.
Her world burns, and she runs.
She runs, leaping over bodies and arms still outstretched for help and for benediction and she can’t help them, and she breaks through a window and it’s raining outside.
It’s raining outside, and it’s so horribly hot inside, and it’s so real. Max is alive, she is real, she is real.
Bea is exiled. Emilio is gone. Joseph has disappeared.
As she runs for the woods beyond the palace, Max thinks, wildly, I was never any more special than any of them.
She crashes through leaves and branches, and when she finally stops, the screams still ringing in her ears, she turns and looks.
Everything is on fire. She smiles, so horribly afraid. The night is lit in flame, ordinary and human, and it smells like meat on a spit. She hopes they got out. God, she hopes. She hopes Emilio and Joseph are safe. She’s a selfish thing, and she hopes they’re alive.
She’s left a trail straight from the palace through the mud; she’s left a trail of devastation straight from her birth to where she stands.
And Max burns.