Naming of the Queen

Table of Contents Title Page Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Epilogue About the Author Copyright © 2023 by JJ Makenzie This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Dedication To all those longing for love and freedom. May you have the courage and wisdom to choose them. “ROWAN, SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED.” I buried my head into his bare chest, breathing in the earthy smell of the hot springs. It filled me with memories of all we’d shared in that sacred place where I’d gladly given him my body and soul. I longed for him to offer himself to me again, to help me forget just for a moment all that I had witnessed. When I closed my eyes, all I could see were flashes of spilt blood pooling on the stone floors, swelling as if they would swallow me whole. I shuddered against him. Rowan pulled me closer to his hot flesh, trying to protect me. His hands roved the curve of my body as if he could not resist leaving a trail of raised skin. “Tell me, wife.” “Please call me by name,” I begged. “You must tell it to me first.” How could I have forgotten I had never spoken it? I opened my mouth, yet the name would not come. Why was that? I needed to tell him. I tried again and again and again. I curled my fingers into the hair of his chest, pleading with the Ancestors to open my mouth. Nothing came. “Tell him,” the Ancestors whispered as if it were my own breath, but there was no denying it was them. It was the same voice that had spoken my name just turns of the clock ago. I wanted to. Why couldn’t I? “Why didn’t you tell me?” Rowan pleaded to know. I’d wounded him. I knew he spoke of more than my name. He spoke of all that I had not told him. All I wished not to remember. I closed my eyes tighter, as if I could hide from the vile acts I’d witnessed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Rowan repeated. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?” I sat up straight and gasped, clutching my chest, my heart pounding wildly. I needed to go find Rowan and tell him not only my name, but what had happened in the chapel. That I knew. “Daughter, are you all right?” I blinked and blinked, realizing I wasn’t in the castle. My nightmares were true. My husband hated me. As my eyes adjusted to the low violet glow underground, I stared at the man in green—Amandla. My father. He perched on a stone that looked as if someone had fractured it, yet it was clear, like a crystal, emanating the light reflecting from the veins of violet in the rocks. This place to where he had taken me appeared to be not of Greatland, yet it lay beneath its surface as if in a world of its own. I had feared entering the fissure in the mountain last night, even more so than facing the angry mob calling for my life. Yet the man who watched over me throughout the night had promised there was nothing to fear. He was wrong. Perhaps this strange underworld with rocks like cylinders of ice growing out of the ceiling above, and smooth stone paths hovering above shimmering ethereal pools of water was safe to inhabit, but there was plenty to fear. Even the man who claimed to be my father. I pulled up the thick woolen blanket Amandla had given me the night before. This eerie underworld felt as cool as the drafty castle halls. Moreover, an unsettling feeling weighed heavily on my chest. Something deep inside me said I had made a grave mistake fleeing with Saloman. It didn’t help that I’d hardly slept, and my head hurt from all the silent tears that had poured down my cheeks throughout the night. My mind, though muddled, thought only of Rowan. A deep ache penetrated my soul to think of his betrayal. How I had given myself to him and let him make love to me—no, begged him to—all while he was bedding Svetlana. Worse, he was planning to kill our child and replace it with Svetlana’s. The child we had spoken often of in the dark of night as he’d held me tight. I grabbed my abdomen, knowing there was a possibility a child grew within me now. Despite all that had happened and my earlier plea to the Ancestors to not let Rowan’s baby grow inside of me, I wished it would, though it was foolish. How could I bring a child into such circumstances? How could Rowan lie