Saturday, July 30, 4 S.E.

  Aylar opened her eyes where she sat upon her throne, feeling the weight of her crown upon her hair, and the touch of silk on her flesh. To her right stood her husband Leonidas, adorned in the black armor he’d made famous, his helmet latched to his hip and his [Archon’s Psiblade] pressed tip-down to the manastone of the throne dais.

  His own throne was empty, forgotten as he stood before it at her side, and looking down at the scene before them in quiet judgment.

  Her eyes shifted to where her closest friend and bond-wife, Synthra, stood at the foot of the dais—swathed in her crimson robes, with the necklace of the Prime Consort latched comfortably between her breasts. Her head turned when she felt Aylar’s attention, and she offered the Queen a small smile before turning back to the throne room.

  “Bring in the prisoners,” said Uriel Aventus, the Duke of Morning, wearing the mantle of the High Justiciar he had always been meant to bear.

  The doors to the throne room opened, and Aylar turned her gaze to them as a Dagger of her Royal Guard entered, Archon Johnathan Mattherson at their head, his black armor highlighted by purple psionic force runes that faintly pulsed as he marched toward the dais.

  The Terran, now in his twenties, offered a respectful bow to Aylar and a grin at Leonidas, who she saw shake his head out of the corner of her eye, before the Second Archon of Terran Blood turned and stepped aside.

  Behind him were borne several people, all of them Terran, manacled, gagged, and shackled in chains. They were marched forward to the foot of the dais and made to kneel, slammed down by the power of the Royal Guard—many of them Terran as well—in a forced compliance. The Dagger-Master of the Guard contingent, Ilsan Matrovar, saluted and bowed thereafter, speaking only once she straightened.

  “Your Majesties, I bring before you the leaders of the Rebels, who sought to overturn the rule of law and sunder Dawnhaven from within. Each of them was afforded land and titles by the magnanimity of Your Majesties. Each of them chose sedition, greed, and personal advancement over the good of the Realm.”

  Ilsan stepped back after she spoke and nodded to the Royal Guards.

  The gags were removed thereafter, and Aylar leaned forward on her throne, observing the faces before her. She recognized a few of them; Nobles of various standing elevated by her and Leonidas during their years of rule over Dawnhaven. All of them had been thought loyal and trustworthy subjects, and all of them had proven that trust poorly given.

  The foremost among them was a man named Deckard Lightlance, a [Paladin] who Leonidas had personally elevated to the rank of Earl after his service in the war against the Humanity Alliance and its allies. Aylar felt his betrayal most keenly, for Deckard had been a confidante during the darkest years of that conflict and had proven himself a remarkable boon to both Dawnhaven and her husband.

  “The Crown recognizes these faces,” Aylar said in English, using a voice she recognized distantly as her own. Older, more mature, wearied by years of turmoil and projecting the power of her Venerate rank sixth-tier tempering. “Heroes all, once, in service to this nation and all that it sought to become. How is it that you now kneel before Us, bereft of honor and valor, and stripped down by the stain of treason?”

  At her side, Leonidas tensed at her words, and she saw her beloved’s eyes tighten at the corners, a dangerous sign she’d learned to recognize. He was already deep into his Paragon rank, close to his Eighth Temper, and held a presence that was suffocating when he desired it to be. His [Cataclysm Core] had become both a boon and a dire warning for Dawnhaven—few who knew of his power enjoyed that expression levelled against them.

  Aylar subconsciously placed a hand on her belly, already swelling with their child, and tried not to think about what might happen if that power ever turned against Dawnhaven.

  “Your Majesty,” Deckard said at last, his voice ragged from his ordeal, and his grey eyes clouded with weariness, “there is no reason beyond the self-evident for our actions. Despite your greatest intentions, this was an inevitability that could not be avoided.”

  Jeers erupted from the watching Nobles lining the court, the vast majority of them Haelfenn still, with only a few sporadic Nyrfenn spread among them. Almost every single Terran Noble of sufficient rank to attend was in chains before her.

  “Of what do you speak, Earl Lightlance?” Aylar asked calmly, her voice cutting a swathe through the din and returning the Throne Room to silence.

  “The disparity of power and wealth in Dawnhaven, Your Majesty. No matter your noble intentions, nor those of the Archon-King, the inequity of this nation has never changed from its inception.”

  The Earl let out a quiet sigh and shook his head in defeat.

  “You elevated us, Your Majesty, to redress these concerns—but in so doing, all you did was place a target on our backs. The Haelfenn Houses never acknowledged us; they never truly made us their equals. When we sought change to affirm Nyrfenn equity of opportunity, they blocked it on a technicality. When we tried to alter monopolies that had slowly strangled Nyrfenn and specifically Terran Cultivation resources, they painted us as powermongers and greed-driven.”

  Another round of jeers erupted, with some cries of “Liar!” and “Defamation!” ringing through the chamber.

  A sudden wash of power from her husband saved her the need to call them to order, his aura silencing those speaking more readily than any slap; his Psiforce mingling with Cataclysm Mana to freeze spines in place and snap jaws shut in a mix of respect and naked terror. Parnym turned to her from where he stood near the dais, eyes falling to her belly in quiet concern, but he said nothing. Her Court Mender was a man of few words, even still.

  Leonidas’ head shifted just barely at her side, and he nodded to her with a tightening of his eye, deferring yet again.

  He always deferred to her. He’d never truly believed himself worthy of rule.

  Perhaps this could have been avoided if he’d been a King in truth, instead of just my Husband and Warlord.

  The thought rippled through her mind absently, and Aylar cast it aside. It was too late for such thoughts. She had to focus on the here and now—on what was before her.

  “You claim that We were remiss in our handling of these matters, Earl Lightlance, yet you did not raise these concerns with Us. You did not bring your fears and woes to the Crown. Instead, you raised the flag of rebellion across your collective holdings and sought illegal secession and sedition against your rightful Monarchs. Why was this your recourse, We ask, instead of a more measured attempt at making your woes heard? Our Realm has bled for your refusal to simply speak.”

  The Earl sighed at her words and settled back onto his heels, sit-kneeling upon the floor as he looked up at her, his eyes—once so bright, so brilliant—now devoid of their once-inspiring light.

  “How I wish that would have been enough, Your Majesty. You and the Archon-King were a brilliant ray of justice for us of Terra, after so many years of uncertainty following the Integration.”

  His eyes drifted to Leonidas, and Aylar saw true regret there, mixed with resignation. It wounded her to see it, though she could never show that to the Court.

  “We had hoped, with a Terran King, that things would truly change—instead, they remained the same. Instead, they became worse. You neglected us because you believed that the act of marrying one of us would be enough to bridge the divide. You forgot, Your Majesty, that you did not marry just a Terran, you married a Cataclysm—the First Archon of Terran Blood. The Starsword’s spiritual heir.”

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  “I am still one of you, Deckard,” Leonidas said at last, his rumbling voice filling the chamber with a force and masculine intensity that sent delightful shivers down her spine, even a decade after marriage. “I have always been one of you.”

  “With respect, Your Majesty, that is not true,” Deckard said without ire, while still looking up at Leonidas—as if he were seeing a god in flesh, instead of a Terran. “You are far beyond us, far beyond any of us. The Haelfenn worship you as Alurien come again, the singular Terran they permit themselves to respect, the singular Terran they are too terrified to defy. You have not been one of us since you ascended. You tried, I grant you that, but you forgot what it meant to be human a long time ago.”

  “My Mentor died for the Terrans of this City, Deckard,” Leonidas said again, his voice tense with constrained grief. “She died for you.”

  “And yet,” the Earl said sadly, “here we kneel, Your Majesty. Shackled. Rebels all. Because of desperation, because all other avenues were closed to us. We did not choose rebellion to wound you, Archon-King—we chose it because it was the only recourse we had as our people fell further behind, and the King that was supposed to elevate us became a puppet of Haelfenn ambition.”

  Another round of outrage filled the chamber, and Aylar turned when her husband’s hands tightened on the hilt of his sword, his gaze narrowing with a mix of anger and grief, gripping the Psiblade so tightly that anything else would have been crushed into dust by his power.

  “Enough!” Synthra said sharply, silencing the chamber with a growl of her draconic power. Only when all voices ceased did she turn, bowing her head to Aylar with a small, supportive smile.

  Thank you, my love, Aylar thought quietly, and looked down at the Earl and his compatriots.

  “Your words aggrieve Us, Earl Lightlance,” Aylar said after a moment of thought, her hand idly rubbing her slightly swollen belly. “Your words hurt Our King, and hurt Our heart. What redress can there be, now, when you have chosen the path of sedition? You have all but guaranteed the erasure of Terran peerage across Our Kingdom. What, then, are We to do?”

  Deckard sighed softly and bowed his head.

  “There are no more words to share, Your Majesty. It was once said, ‘Alea iacta est’, ‘the die is cast’. We have made our choice, made our stand, and been made to reap the consequences. What happens next is for you to decide alone.”

  “Will you not apologize, Deckard?” Leonidas asked beside her, his voice ever-so-faintly raw. “Will you not ask for forgiveness? Perhaps if—”

  “No, Leonidas,” the other human said wearily, using her husband’s name the way he had on countless battlefields. “You and I are not soldiers at war any longer, my Captain, my King. We are not souls embroiled in the pits and the fire. We are past that point now. You have chosen your side, Leonidas, and I cannot blame you for choosing love—but you forsook us when you did, and that is your cross to bear, old friend. That is your cross to bear.”

  Leonidas exhaled beside her, and Aylar saw the way his eyes tightened, saw the way Synthra looked at him with that uncanny knowledge only a wife could hold. They both held pieces of him, and she saw the same pain in her bond-wife’s eyes that she held in her own heart. How had they strayed so terribly far? How had it come to this?

  “The prisoners have made their statement,” Uriel Aventus declared a moment later, thumping his Luxan Spear. He had never been the same since Ceruviel’s sacrifice. He was harder, now. Colder. “Judgment will be passed by Her Majesty, as the Realm’s highest Authority.”

  Was that where I went wrong? She wondered silently. Was it a mistake to accept Haelfenn dominion to placate the Court, instead of insisting on Leonidas inheriting a true King’s weight?

  It was too late for such ruminations. She knew that.

  She had to be the Queen. Whatever came after, she would handle then.

  “We have heard the words of the Accused, and We have weighed their worth. These men and women, sons and daughters of our new and shared Homeworld, have served Dawnhaven with distinction in the past, but no amount of righteousness may ameliorate the grievous sting of sedition. It is Our judgment that these souls, once Exemplars all, be stripped of their titles. It is Our judgment that these sinners, once Paragons each, be imprisoned for their trespass. It is Our judgment that these villains, once Heroes of Our Realm, be sentenced to die for their sins. We make this declaration not in anger, but in sorrow. A Realm without Law is no Realm at all, and for the good of all people under Our care, the Law must reign supreme.”

  Earl Lightlance and his cohorts slumped fully at her words, defeated.

  Mutters of satisfaction and approval echoed from the watching Court, and Uriel turned to her in silence, sensing perhaps that she was not done.

  She felt as much as saw Leonidas’ hope leave him at her side, and though he stood tall and imperious, she could feel her beloved’s heart breaking. How he loved them, even as they betrayed him. How he loved them, even as they put knives in his heart. It made her want to kiss away his woes, but she would defer that to her lover-wife. It would be a poor attempt that day, after all that had passed.

  Still, perhaps she could ameliorate it, if only slightly.

  “However,” Aylar said at last, her voice carrying. “For such notables to believe Rebellion to be their only recourse, there must be rot at the foundation of Our Realm, and as the Mother of this Kingdom, We will not abide rot to contaminate Our children.”

  The Court’s tension ratcheted up at her words, and she felt Leonidas looking at her, his beautiful blue eyes fractionally widened with hope.

  “Thereby, before their execution, these once-noble souls shall submit a full recounting of their grievances, including names, Houses, and incidents to Our Master of Intelligence—” Bardulf stepped out of the shadows at her words, and smiled wolfishly when he did “—in order to assist in an inquest into the noted corruption that plagues this Realm. If their lives are to be given, let them be given with a final service to those they so desperately sought to protect, however misguided they were.”

  A ripple of movement erupted from the Court, and more than one of the Haelfenn nobles advanced, rushing toward the kneeling prisoners with desperation writ large on their features.

  Aylar did not react. She had no need to.

  Leonidas shifted with a displacement of air.

  One moment her husband was standing beside her, the next a boom of sonic disruption rocked the chamber, and he stood with his hands outstretched; all five Haelfenn held in the air by bands of rippling violet power and blistering scarlet energy. He hadn’t needed to move, she knew, but his instincts always bent themselves to action—unapologetic and implacable.

  She continued as if nothing had happened.

  “This is Our judgment, and shall be the judgment moving forward, without exception.”

  Uriel Aventus stamped his spear, and the chamber echoed with it like the finality of a gavel.

  “So it is ordained, so it must be,” he said gravely.

  “So it is ordained,” the Royal Guard, Synthra, Bardulf, and all her Court repeated, “so it must be.”

  A second later, the scene fractured into darkness, and Aylar abruptly jerked herself up from where she suddenly sat upon the circular Rite of Ascension testing chamber, staring around her in a daze as the sudden transition robbed her of cognizance for a brief moment. Her eyes fell onto her companions, and she saw Bardulf, Parnym, Synthra, and Leonidas stirring as well, sitting up from where they had appeared on the chamber floor.

  Her gaze lowered to her armored hands, and she instinctively touched her belly, feeling the cold steel of her red-adorned warplate and the complete absence of a swelling. It had felt so real. All of it. Her love for Synthra and Leonidas, her pain at Brightlance’s betrayal, her calm realization that her nation had deviated so terribly from its path.

  Aylar looked at Primus, who regarded her with a kindly expression as her companions roused themselves fully.

  “Justice by Law, and Justice by Love. A fascinating choice, Princess Aylar. A fascinating choice indeed. Rare is the Monarch that can so effortlessly dispense the needs of the Law, while recognizing the greater problem that lurks behind the veil of sedition. A most apt handling of the scenario.”

  The Proctor turned then and walked to the archway, lifting his hand and killing its shimmering light with an idle gesture, rendering it inert.

  “You have chosen Justice and Mercy, ruled by both Law and Heart. Your first choice is made. Your next awaits when you are recovered.”

  Aylar nodded numbly at his words and turned to stare at Leonidas, his helmet off, and his face a mask of disbelief. Synthra met her gaze beyond him, and something like understanding and trepidation passed between them at what they had experienced.

  We had been lovers, too, Aylar realized, her fingers curling inward. I had loved her as she had loved me. What manner of madness is this, to make us feel so strongly, and yet keep those feelings so separate from our waking selves?

  Her eyes fell to her hands, and she once again touched her belly, feeling traitorous tears welling at the corners of her eyes.

  What manner of cruelty is this?

  The chamber gave her no answer, and she fell into a grief-stricken silence.

  Nobody spoke for hours.

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