“Are you ready?”
If there was ever a pair of eyes she could face with the truth, they’d be his. Ivy searched them for a moment, sifting through the memories in those soft blue irises. Then she reached for Kaiden’s hands, drawing on the warmth that closed around her fingers.
A small smile twitched her lips. “No.”
A mirror of the expression bloomed across her friend’s face. “Good. Then we know you are.”
Ivy’s stomach clenched with a queasiness. No, really—I can’t do this. This is a terrible idea. Why do you trust me with this again?
Kaiden turned to grasp at an object resting on the table behind him. When he spun back around, he cradled a slender silver curve in his hands.
Reverently, he lowered it into Ivy’s grip.
Tiny blue and white gems tucked among the crown’s curls. They winked hypnotizingly in the light.
The weight of it was surprising in Ivy’s hands. Her mother had always carried it upon her head as if it were an extension of her body. The elegant twists and turns appeared too airy for this much heft.
The girl lifted it out of sight, settling it onto her head. The crown glided through her carefully plaited hair, lodging snugly into place.
Ivy was five years old all over again, playing dress-up with her mother’s old clothes. Racing out of the closet as she shrieked for Mommy to come look at her.
Five-year-olds shouldn’t be running planets, she admonished to herself.
Though it wasn’t like she was five years old anymore.
Ivy dabbled her fingertips along the crown’s smooth, cold contours before lowering her hands.
I might as well be.
The door between the antechamber and the auditorium briefly whooshed aside, allowing a flood of chatter to pour into the room. Beyond, rows of seats bristled with hundreds of attendees. Drones swirled towards the arched ceiling, ready to record the press conference for a horde of remote reporters.
A tall woman slipped through the doorway before the slab of metal slid back into place, sealing out the cacophony with a gentle hiss.
Maria cocked her head as she consulted the clipboard nestled in the crook of her arm. “All right…you’ve already been over all the expected questions; then all the questions anyone could possibly ask you. You know how to greet the interviewer, and when you’ll be expected to speak.” She glanced up. “Are you ready?”
The nausea in the pit of Ivy’s stomach only bubbled harder. She clenched her fists. “Why does everybody keep asking me that?” she grumbled.
Maria tugged on her glasses, the smallest smile teasing at her smooth composure. She stepped closer to pat the girl’s shoulder with her free hand. “Let’s just get through this; then we’ll focus on the next hurdle. Okay?”
Somehow, Ivy managed a nod. She met the woman’s gaze with every ounce of excitement, confidence, and fear jittering inside of her.
Maria arched a brow above the thin black frame of her glasses. “You’re not going to look that petrified in the interview, are you?”
Ivy bit down on her lip to trap a snort. Then she smoothed her expression out and hardened her gaze. “No.”
Maria smiled wider. “That’s my girl.”
A warmth swelled in Ivy’s chest—and for the most fleeting of seconds, her anxiety dissolved.
She glanced back to Kaiden; a friend since the soupy days of childhood memories. With him, she always disappeared into a quiet corner of the galaxy where no one could bother her. Where she knew she could find a hand reaching out to her in the darkness.
Then she looked back to Maria.
She could still remember the first thing the woman had said to her when they’d met.
“If you want to survive in this line of work, always follow one rule—never let anyone else know what you’re feeling.”
Ironic that she was one of the two people Ivy could always turn to. When the sobs wouldn’t stay clamped down; when the responsibilities crushed just a little too tight around her shoulders. When she remembered just how much she’d lost in life.
For some reason, Ivy had always assumed she’d have to face her fate all by herself.
But the weight of this crown wouldn’t be borne by her alone.
Kaiden grasped the girl’s hand in one last reassuring squeeze, while Maria sidled up on her other side with a nod.
Ivy lifted her chin, then strode towards the door.
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