“By the Maker’s grace,” he said softly, studying Raisa’s face as if he were finally ready to be persuaded. “Is it really you, Your Highness?”

“It seems that I’ve managed to convince everyone in the queendom but you, Lord Bayar,” Raisa said dryly, looking out over the crowd.

Reignited, it roared, “Rai-sa!” and “Briar Rose!” and “Alister!” and what sounded like “Death to Bayar!” though it was comingled and hard to sort out.

And with that, the High Wizard sank gracefully to his knees. The bloody-handed, heartless bastard actually had tears in his eyes. “Forgive the cynic in me, Your Highness. We have already lost our beloved Marianna. Given this season of tragedy, I had convinced myself that you must be dead as well.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t bear to even hope that it was you.”

Which was likely true enough.

The crowd roared its approval, the sound breaking over them like waves on a beach.

Raisa stood in her stirrups as if to make herself as tall as possible. Because she was on horseback and slightly upslope from those on the stage, she could speak over their heads to the multitudes beyond. Her armor glittered in the sun, and her cloak fluttered and snapped in the wind.

She lifted both hands, palms up. “Rise!” she said in that carrying voice that was becoming familiar. “Please make yourselves comfortable. It is so good to be home. I have missed these mountains and the people who dwell here—uplanders and Valefolk, the Spirit clans and charmcasters.”

She paused for a long moment. “I came home because I wanted to see my mother’s face and hear her voice again. Now that will never happen.

“There are many difficult questions to be asked and answered in the coming days—many decisions to be made.” Raisa’s gaze rested on the assemblage on the dais. “But today I have come, and the ancient queens have come”—she waved at the circle of mammoth wolves—“to honor my mother, Queen Marianna. She is the link in an unbroken line that goes back to the warrior queen, Hanalea, who healed the Breaking and saved the world. Such links are not lightly broken. The deaths of queens stir the beasts that lie beneath the dirt. They stir questions in all of us, about what has been and what is to be.”

Han listened in amazement as Raisa spoke on. Does she carry those kinds of speeches around inside her all the time? he wondered. Just in case? Or do they just hatch out whenever they’re needed?

However she did it, it was something he needed to learn.