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heat to blaze at its tip, to blacken the wick, to burst into flame. I imagine the waft of warmth against my cheeks and the cheers of my new subjects. My arms begin to tremble with the strain. I clench my teeth.
    Please.
    Please catch fire.
    Please burn.
    It doesn’t.

CHAPTER 5
    I don’t know how long I stand there before Kauko takes pity on me. He takes the candle from my stiff fingers. “My deepest apologies, Valtia,” he says, bowing his head. “You have been through so much tonight. It was selfish of us to ask you for anything before you’ve had a chance to rest.”
    His hands shake a little as he removes the cuff of Astia from my wrist and places it in the wooden box. While he gives it to his apprentice, I blink down at my empty hands, at the tiny, faint smear of lip paint on my palm. Hesitantly, I raise my head. No one speaks, no one smiles, but all of them stare.
    Aleksi’s eyes meet mine. “Clear the room!” he barks, his jowls quivering. “Our Valtia must have quiet and rest.”
    Leevi, his slender shoulders tense beneath his robe, ushers out all the apprentices and acolytes. As the last apprentice steps into the rocky corridor, I hear him whisper to a female acolyte next to him, “I can light a candle without even thinking about it.”
    The words hit like stones in a pool, sending ripples of misgiving along my limbs. “Elder,” I say in a hoarse voice. “What’s wrong with me?”
    Kauko takes my arm and helps me step off the stone slab. My stockinged feet are soaked and aching, no longer numb. In fact, my whole self hurts. I feel like I’ve been trampled by a horse. My red gown is damp and stained with sweat. Surely I’m the most bedraggled Valtia that ever was.
    â€œI’m sure nothing is wrong with you, my queen,” Kauko says quietly as he guides me out of the chamber and toward the steps. Aleksi mounts them ahead of us, and I wonder if he’s going up to make sure I don’t have an audience as I’m led to my bedchamber. “I think the strain of witnessing Sofia’s final moments has jarred you. It was a mistake to allow you to see her that way.” His grip on my elbow is steady and comforting as he takes me up the stairs.
    â€œI insisted,” I say, rubbing at my throat, raw from my cries of grief. “It wasn’t Leevi’s fault.”
    â€œYou are generous, Valtia.” His frown is so deep that it looks like someone’s carved a divot from the corner of his nose to the edge of his jaw.
    I pull my gaze away from it, because it stirs up uneasiness within me. “I’ll rest,” I tell him. “I’m sure that in the morning, I’ll have recovered.”
    â€œI have no doubt.” He puts his arm around my back as we stride through the domed chamber and into the Saadella’s wing. “You’ll stay in your old bedchamber tonight while we ready the Valtia’s quarters for you.”
    While they scrub scorch marks from the ceiling and floor, while they scour her blood from the stones, while they mop up the icy water and toss the burned mattress in the refuse pile. Bile rises from my stomach. I’m not sure I could ever sleep in that room. “Will we have a funeral?”
    One of the few memories I have outside this temple is of the last Valtia’s funeral, her white body covered over with coppery gauze and bedecked with spring blooms. It was the day before I was found. My mother took me to the docks, where she lifted me in her arms so I could see between the shoulders of the other citizens who’d come to bid the queen farewell. The dead Valtia had looked perfect and unmarred. I remember thinking she would sit up and wave as they slid her boat into the waters of the Motherlake, as it silently carried her from our shore. I remember being horrified when tongues of fire raced up the sides of the pyre to devour her.
    I remember screaming.
    I also remember