How To Rule ✅COMPLETE

The King's Death

It felt like she had cracked her skull and her brain was melting. It hurt worse than a migraine and she wished she would just pass out from the pain and then it stopped.

Her hair turned first.

Streaks of white replaced some of her hair strands stripping them of their red colour as if the black magic drained the life force out of her hair. It shocked her and she kept pulling parts of her hair to confirm what had happened till her hands started to hurt.

Her fingers slowly started to turned black, each inch of skin the black markings touched felt as though she was burning underneath her skin. The markings only went as far up as her knuckles but it still felt like her skin was melting, burning from the inside. By the time the markings stopped forming she was shaking on the ground processing the pain with her hands clutched to her chest. She needed to get up and check on her father but she just did not possess the strength to do it. She sat there till everything stopped hurting and her mind could focus again.

The walk towards her father's rooms was torture. Each step made her apprehensive and the maids and guards who she passed on the way did not make it any better. They stared at her with emotions in their eyes she did not dare interpret. Gavin was standing outside her father's rooms and when he saw her, the look in his eyes confirmed her worst fears.

He was gone.

She knew it and as she raced into the room, his still body laying on his bed was answer enough and she couldn't help but break down next to his cold body not caring who was watching. Her voice cracked. Tears started to roll down her cheeks.

Bitter.

Unstoppable.

'Father you can't be dead. I did the spell perfectly please.'

Gavin watched as she crumbled to the floor. She kept repeating the same words over and over again but he still could not understand their meaning. As her hand went up to wipe her eyes he saw them. Her fingertips were black as though she had dipped them in black ink but Gavin wondered where she got the ink and then he remembered the rumors he had heard growing up; of the queen sporting similar marking. He knew it was not possible she would not play around with that type of magic. But as he looked at her he realised he had barely recognized her in the last few days and after her father's injury it seemed she had finally snapped, he knew if she was practicing it would definitely not end well.

As Rin looked at her father's corpse, wiping the tears from her eyes it finally dawned on her that he was really dead. A single look at her hands reminded her of the spell and how it still had its consequences even if it had not worked.  She should have read the instructions but the book did not come with a manual. If it had she would have known never to use it because the thing about black magic is once you start using you never seem to want to stop. And now as she watched them cover her father's dead body all she wanted to do was find a spell to reverse his death but she feared the pain and the markings that came with practicing black magic.

'Rin, the officials, they have arrived.'

Gavin's words pulled Rin out of her pity party and turning away from her father's body, she walked slowly towards the throne room. All she felt with each step she took was numb. It all felt irrelevant that she had to meet her father's officials immediately after his death but she kind of felt glad for it. It was something to focus on and keep her mind off what she really had lost. Her father's top officials were all in the throne room, and they did not look the bit sympathetic. They were a pack of power hungry wolves and she had to convince them she was ready to rule before she was officially crowned which if she had a choice she would want no part in but it was her birthright. On arrival she stood before the throne but she could not bring herself to sit in his chair. Not yet atleast.

Gavin watched as Rin talked to her father's officials who after his death effectively became hers. She answered all of their questions in a way that only a true royal meant to rule could. One thing though was a major warning flag to him.

Her voice.

It was mechanical. As if she had detached herself from reality. He hoped she would snap out of it soon because he did not know what would happen when reality would finally set in. Even as the officials left she did not break down and as he excorted her back to her room he held in the urge to shake her back to reality. To show any feeling, any emotion that proved she was grieving but he restrained himself. She would grieve when she was ready in whatever way she wanted and he would be right there to support her.

Rin had been called many things in her life: abomination, witch, princess but finally she would be called queen and she dreaded it. Even as she got dressed for her coronation all she wanted was to crawl back in bed and not wake up. She had hardly slept the entire night and as she got ready she resented herself for the numb feeling in her chest. Her father would be buried by the end of the night and she felt absolutely nothing, no pain or grief but one thing was certain, she did not think she was ready to say goodbye to to him just yet; first though she had to get through the coronation.

The walk down the aisle of the church was brutal. Everyone's eyes were on her and she couldn't handle it especially on this day. She knew her father's body was being prepared for his burial and she did not want her every move, every emotion scrutinized by the public at that moment. Outwards she looked confident ready to begin her rule but inwards each step made her tremble. She feared the cracks in her sanity would show and the people might catch a glimpse of her slow descent into ruin and she felt too exposed to them and there was nothing she could do but continue to walk to her crown.

The beginning of her rule.

Rin almost rejoiced when she reached the podium but the hard part was not yet over. She had to make her coronation oath and it scared her. When the time came her voice did not tremble as she thought it would, her coronation oath resonated on the church walls and the people looked to her in a way she could only describe as adoration but she knew it would not last. It would last only until they figured out she was exactly like her father and then they would hate her just as they hated him.

When the Archbishop placed the crown on her head and kneeled before her everyone in the church followed suit. She stood before them all and she felt powerful. It soothed her in a way and for a minute she forgot what her day had been like since her father's untimely demise.

The crown felt heavy on her head but she dared not take it off. Rin knew it represented her father in a way and it made her even more warry of the crown and disappointing him by botching up his legacy.