30. The Weight of a Crown
CHAPTER 30
The Weight of a Crown
ALIA
D raped from my shoulders was a pure red dress with Ambrose flowers embroidered on the sheer sleeves. It fell down in tiered waves, ending in a bell shape before falling to the ground. It took Mom and three maids to stuff me into this thing. The corset alone was enough of a torture device to make a rock sing.
Shen stared. His eyes trailed from my hair falling in easy waves—completely unbound and driving me nearly as insane as the dress I couldn’t even kick a bear in—down to my slippered feet and back up.
His lips quirked in a tiny grin. “You look… like a woman,” he said.
My nose scrunched. “Just what every girl wants to hear.”
He tapped my nose. I straightened it. “Do you wish to hear you are beautiful?”
I stared at him, opening and closing my mouth. Doesn’t every girl wish to be told they’re beautiful?
He smiled. It was gentle and completely at odds with his sharp cheekbones, scars, and crooked nose. “Alia, you do not need another to speak to your beauty. You are beautiful from here”—he pointed to my heart—“to here”—he tapped my head. “And here.”
“You just gestured to all of me,” I said.
His eyes gleamed with a hint of mischief. “I know.”
I huffed out a breath, but a smile crossed my lips.
“The most important opinion is not my own, but yours, Alia. So what do you think of what you see?” He turned me to a mirror.
I stared at my reflection. In it, I saw a girl who had gone through Sixth to be here today. I saw someone who had fought through her own fears, worries, doubts, and pains to confront her past and try to change instead of letting the past define her or remaining in a mire of what she knew to be untrue. She was someone who wasn’t perfect, but was doing her best with what she had.
“I see someone I’m beginning to like,” I whispered at long last.
He squeezed my shoulder. “Would you like a hug?”
I nodded, turning and plunking my face into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me.
“I haven’t forgotten, ya know. We still have to speak about what happened with my grandpa,” I said.
He stiffened just a hair before he sighed, squeezing me harder. “I know, Carissimus. I know.”
But for right then, all I wanted was to feel safe.
And in his arms… I felt safe.
The three elders waited on the far end of the sandy pit. Elder Timone, Elder Pulma, and Elder Vera. They wore their ceremonial red robes trimmed in gold. The two male elders, Timone and Pulma, were respectively tall and stocky. Elder Timone had a wiry build with a long beard, while Pulma was short and stocky with a head of gray hair. Elder Vera had long blonde hair and was the youngest of the elders. She had smile lines and dark eyes that could pierce metal.
My dress tried to trip me every other step as I walked through the sand to the other end. I think my grandma paid it to misbehave and make my crowning a disastrous failure. I refused to let something so small as a dress make this day any worse than it needed to be.
On the benches ringing the edges of the pit—more arena-style seating were brought in for this occasion—were my people. From Lead Enforcer Markus to the youngest orphans, they had gathered to see this. I just hoped I didn’t make a fool of myself.
If you do, I ’ ll flame anyone who laughs, Ran said, flying overhead and making a few people duck or scream in fear.
A grin teased at my lips. She’d be the first to laugh. Will you flame yourself, then?
Ha-ha. Very funny, she retorted, though I felt her humor over the bond.
I stopped before the elders. There was no fanfare this day. No massive bonfires, no stomping feet. It was as silent as death itself.
“Today, we see a new matriarch crowned,” Elder Pulma said. I always wondered if he spoke at public events because he had such a loud voice or liked to hear himself talk. Most times, I supposed the latter. “Today, we see a new matriarch to power.”
Elder Timone stepped forward. “Do you, Aurelia of the lineage Conscientia from father Liam and mother Annikia, accept to keep to the Red Code of Honour as labeled within these pages and lead your people to follow in the Source’s Light?”
“I do,” I said, placing my hand on the Book of Codes—the original one, not the one we had faux plead on in previous generations.
“ Power ab intus, tutela omnium,” he said. He bowed and gave me the book to hold in my left hand.
Elder Vera stepped forward. “Do you, Aurelia of the lineage Conscientia from father Liam and mother Annikia, swear to do good by your people and to lead them in the ways of honor and virtue and courage?”
“I do,” I said, ensuring my voice was loud and clear.
“ Choices sunt potentiae quaeramus. Damnum potestate sui exitium honoris. Honor sui, honor arbitrium, honor Vita Fons, honor Auctorem, honor vita,” she whispered.
She took a crown and placed it about my forehead, tying it in the back. It was not a traditional crown as seen on the mighty kings and queens of the kingdoms. It was a crown made for a monarch who couldn’t afford to have something on her head that could easily be dislodged. It went around the forehead a bit like a diadem, under the hair, then tied in the back to keep it in place.
Last, Elder Pulma stepped forward. “Do you, Aurelia of the lineage Conscientia from father Liam and mother Annikia, vow to protect your people as yourself and love those who would not love you? To be leader is to be servant of all and to make peace with those who would try to make war. But for those who are without honor, there is no law to protect them. In fact, our vow is to protect the innocent. Do you vow to punish the guilty?”
“I do,” I said.
Elder Pulma nodded. “ Tutela omnium, fides tribui, vita magicis. ”
Elder Pulma kneeled, holding up the Sword of the Reds in his hands. I gently grasped the handle, watching as the golden light of the sun reflected off the surface as if flames moved along the edges. It was an ornate sword, not made for use but as a weight to enforce the burden of rule. This sword was too large to use as a weapon and much too heavy for a normal human to swing. Much like leadership, it was a heavy burden.
I held it and turned, driving it into the ground. I bowed my head and kneeled before my people.
“I, Aurelia of the lineage Conscientia from father Liam and mother Annikia, vow to keep the Code of the Reds and honor it by my actions as best I know how. I swear to do good by my people, to listen to them and give them the power of choice to live their lives as best they know how. I vow to love others as myself. I vow to be a servant to all and to become a leader who leads with justice, mercy, and strength to usher in a new period of peace where we honor what was, let go of the evils we have done, and bring forth a new era to protect those we have failed.”
As soon as the last word passed my lips, a surge of power erupted from the book and the sword. It zapped through me and to the crown on my forehead, which then drove down into where my soul met my heart.
Needs washed over me. I gasped as they drove into my chest like a thousand tiny needles, some just tickling my soul and others diving into the walls I’d placed around it, trying to penetrate and skewer me. Sweat beaded on my brow as I clenched my teeth and my hands shook on the sword and book.
Elder Pulma needed to know this time the pathway forward was correct or else his guilt might just kill him.
A few siblings in the crowd needed a kind, loving family. Another who had just lost her daughter needed to mother something. I stuck that away in the back of my mind for later.
Others were dealing with liver flukes and needed support for their detoxification systems. Others had blockages in their intestines and needed to flush those out. Others still needed love, acceptance, and healing—mostly of internal wounds no one could see.
I wanted to curl into a fetal position and die. So many needs. How could I even begin to meet them?
Easy, Two-Legs. I ’ m here. Let me bear this with you, Ran whispered into my mind.
I recoiled. I couldn’t ask that of her.
You stubborn, little idiot. You aren ’ t asking. I ’ m demanding. Give it. NOW!
I winced at the scream and realized what Ran meant about screaming giving headaches. No wonder she didn’t like it. I would make an effort not to scream in her mind from here on out.
My reply stuck in my mind, but I knew there was no way I’d survive this without her.
I reached for the bond. It was a gentle band of light coiled around my soul’s walls like a protective force, taking some of the needles without me even realizing it.
I invited her in.
Ran sunk into my soul. Immediately, she took half the load of the needs. My chest relaxed with relief and breath came into my lungs in desperate gasps as if they had been starving for air itself.
I realized then that I was feeling the overall needs of the Reds. If I didn’t focus on the individuals, I found an overarching need for stability and purpose.
The overwhelming need felt like a black beast much larger than little me. But as I stood before it in my soul, I realized it wasn’t too large for a team of people. Ran was at my back, and I somehow felt the connections to my family and even every single person in my tribe to varying degrees. I was not alone.
The crowd was silent as I stood.
No one knew yet what to think of my reign. I was not yet trusted. Not who they wanted. I had changed everything they thought they knew. I was the threat that made them the evil of the world when they thought they were good.
When someone brings unwanted but needed truth, most people blame the messenger.
As I walked out of the arena with my head high, there was no stomping of feet nor cries for a long, healthy reign.
Everything was silent.
And I was ok with that.
Because I would change it.
Knowledge is the first form of change.