The Republic of Linae (Book 1)

Chapter 14: Cameron

My parents have never had this many people in our house before.

The entire crowd of news reporters takes up the entire ballroom, which hasn't been used in over a hundred years. Prior to this, the room sat empty and locked. No one was allowed inside the room since there was no purpose to it.

The workers had spent the entire day cleaning this area of the house and filling it with chairs. This is the first time I have ever been in the ballroom, and I don't get to see much of it.

Streams of sunlight gather in the ginormous stained glass windows. The windows at the front of the building hold symbols of the five families. In what seems like a random assortment of vibrant colors and black, each of the windows has its own predominant color.

On the side farthest to the right— if you're facing the windows from the inside— the staff with two snakes twinkles out with darker greens and blues. The color somehow fits the Linder family so well. I'm not sure how the gods knew what color to pick.

Next to it, is a beautiful mountain range which is accentuated with light gray, white, and blues. There aren't any mountain ranges in Linae, so I'm not sure how the Bricknas's family symbol came about. It cannot be just based off of their ability to move parts of the earth. Their ability may be strong, but they aren't strong enough to form an entire mountain range.

No matter what the legends say about their role in forming Linae.

The Hansen family symbol sits in the center of the image. The golden crown streams in the most light with scorchingly bright gold rays. It doesn't quite match the scheme of red, white, and black for the background. My family's panel is supposed to represent our part of keeping the nation together, which is why we have the colors of the flag as the background. Something about the gold on top of the white makes it seem like the opposite, however.

Instead of contributing something to the image, the golden color of the crown overpowers everything else. As if it's covering a design flaw.

Someone places a hand on my shoulder, pulling me away from the design. Allyson's blue eyes make direct contact with mine while she gives me a concerned look. She's been watching me too carefully since that day over a month ago where my dream continued happening while I was awake. Nothing like that has happened since that moment, but she hasn't let it slide.

"Are you okay?" She asks me.

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I slide my gaze back onto the stained glass windows. There's too many eyes on us for me to tell her off like I normally do. Perhaps that's why she is choosing now to talk to me. "I'm just looking at the windows," I respond calmly.

Silence settles between the two of us as she, too, stares at the large panes of windows.

Her gaze seems more focused on the leftmost end of the spectrums, where the Dyrns have their own window dedicated to them. The mountain lion sits in the center of the window, resting a paw on top of a deer's throat. It looks nothing like the lion on the Linean flag, which only contains the head of a male lion with a ferocious mane.

Slowly turning to face the crowd, I try to keep a mask of indifference on my face. Most of the reporters are focused more on our parents at the moment, since they are playing the role of a happy couple. With how fast the media can turn on us, I can never be too careful. All it takes is for one wrong gesture or look and I could be the newspaper's next villain.

At the moment, they're more focused on talking about Prince Conlaed of Consahdance and his mysterious disappearance four years ago yesterday. Every year around this time, papers in Linae talk about the young prince who abandoned his country at a time when they needed him most. Then, they focus on his brother, who is painted to be Consahdance's golden boy. Prince Caspian spends most of his time building his reputation and making himself seem like the perfect person. Just last week, the prince was spotted reading stories to children at an orphanage.