Chapter 10 - The Girl Who Put the Crown on the Table
Everyone expected Elara’s coronation.
Instead she carried the Star Crown into the Hall of Kings and placed it on a plain wooden table.
The High Priest gasped.
“What are you doing?”
“Making it lower.”
“What?”
“It is always above everyone.”
Elara pointed at the table.
“Now people can look at it without kneeling.”
Cassian smiled.
The seven Stewards formed a semicircle.
Then Elara addressed the kingdom.
“I don’t know how to be a queen.”
Whispers spread.
“I don’t even know if I should be one.”
Nobles shifted uncomfortably.
“I know what it feels like to be afraid.”
“I know what it feels like when adults decide things and don’t explain.”
“And I know what happens when people think a name gives them the right to control everybody else.”
She looked at Cassian.
“He could have hated me.”
“He didn’t.”
She looked at Mara.
“My mother could have told me I was too small to matter.”
“She didn’t.”
Then Elara touched the crown.
“Maybe this crown did not choose me to own Aurelion.”
“Maybe it chose me to stop anyone from owning it.”
Captain Rowan began clapping.
Then Mara.
Cassian.
The Stewards.
Then thousands.
That day, the Charter changed.
War could no longer be declared by one ruler alone.
Regional governments gained representation.
Royal money became independently audited.
No monarch could imprison someone without legal review.
No child under sixteen could exercise full royal power.
Elara signed last.
Her handwriting was terrible.
Tomas whispered:
“History will preserve that signature.”
“Can history improve my handwriting?”
“No.”
“Then history is useless.”
That evening, an arrow nearly killed Lord Severin, leader of the old royal faction.
A black ribbon was tied around it.
Everyone blamed the Black Seal.
Dain examined the arrow.
Then shook his head.
“The knot is wrong.”
Only palace guards tied arrows that way.
Someone inside the new government wanted reformers and royalists to destroy one another.
The enemy was inside the palace.
May you like
And the next target was Elara.
---
