Recollection (Re-write)

CHAPTER FIVE: KINGDOM HEAD

Eleven people sat in silence, the air tense with the resistance to accept what they all knew needed to happen.

Henin Salazar stared from the foot of the table - if you could even say a circular table had a head and foot. The former beta of Regiis frowned, unable to remove his gaze from the two chairs that stood empty at the head of the table. One, more ornate than any other chair in the room, its back towering above the rest, a blue sash draped over it. The chair of the kingdom head.

The second chair, made of dark wood and with small carvings etched into its edges was the same as every other chair in the room, all other than the absent council member, a grey sash in the place of its deceased occupant. Grey, to represent the former fourth in command of Regiis - the Delta.

Henin forced himself to drag his eyes from the chairs of two of his closest friends, focusing instead on the cracked skin and chewed fingernails he clasped in front of him on the table.

The remainder of the council looked to him, waiting for him to speak. But Henin didn't. Dread only filled him as he thought about the words he would speak today, and the future they would influence. A moment that would be marked in history.

His throat tightened, the need for a sip of water growing and growing with the dread that snaked its way into his stomach. Was what he was about to say going to doom the continent forever? He didn't know. All he knew, was that if he didn't speak them at all, if no one did, then not only Regiis would fall, but so would the kingdom.

Henin took a deep breath, and his voice was hardly more than a whisper as he spoke into the silence of the Council of Elders. "We can't keep this up any longer," he paused, struggling to voice the words. "The absence of a kingdom head is taking its toll. As the months pass, the worse the state of Regiis becomes," Henin shook his head in devastation, his face dropping. "We've had twelve miscarriages in the past month alone - that's worse than it's ever been. Not to mention our people are becoming more frequently sick, and civil unrest is arising. It won't be long until the other packs observe similar symptoms."

The faces of each council member were grim, and it wasn't long until they were even more so, as a frail woman, the eldest of the eleven members, Edna, whispered "Messis is already seeing it. Our productivity has been in the decline for years, soon we'll hardly be able to produce enough crops to support ourselves, let alone the other packs."

"We won't starve," a deep voice said from next to Henin.

"No," another man, one with dark blonde hair and dark bags under his blue eyes, spoke. Frazer Spence, the former Gamma argued back, "But our safety will decline. The more we have to engage with humans, the more we risk revealing ourselves to them, and the more we risk a war."

"We're not just risking the wellbeing of the packs," Henin breathed. "We risk the destruction of our entire species if we don't appoint a new kingdom head."

"But disrupting the bloodline -" Another woman whose dark auburn hair sat on her shoulders in heavy curls started.

"Would do less damage than having no kingdom head at all," interrupted Frazer.

"I think we've taken long enough to accept that the bloodline is no longer," added a blonde woman who sat next to the empty chair of the kingdom head, her mouth curled with a sad smile.

"I won't support this," the man next to Henin growled. Orange eyes flashed as he stared around at the other council members. "To appoint a kingdom head who is not part of the bloodline, even distantly, is a curse to the species."

"We don't have another option," Frazer growled back.

"We've searched the packs for the drop of royal blood. Not a single distant relative lives, Lachlan," Henin attempted to counter the council member's anger with a peaceful statement. He didn't disagree with the man. A part of Henin was angry too. He didn't want to appoint a new member, but he knew that the curses that would be brought upon the packs for this decision would be better than what would happen if the decision wasn't made at all, and so his heart broke as he followed his statement up by saying, "It's our only choice."

"So we look harder!" Lachlan stood from his chair, his teeth gritted as he stared Henin down. "I know you don't want this Henin. The look in your eyes tells me as much."

"We don't have the time to look any harder," Edna said. "We've searched for twenty years, and we've come up with nothing."

"What about the Griffins? The bloodline was present in their gene generations ago, it's possible it could be now."

"It's not," Henin said, "And even if it was, the Griffins were killed when they fled after the attack."

"Sometimes genes skip a few generations. They had a child," Lachlan countered. "What about it?"

"That child's body was found burned and strung up a short distance from its parent's bodies, you know that Lachlan," whispered the blonde woman.

"Fine." Lachlan slowly descended back into his seat, his nose flaring as the glow in his eyes dimmed. "But know that I will never support this decision."

Silence filled the room once again as Lachlan finished his argument. Henin sat contemplatively in his chair yet again. He wanted to agree with Lachlan. With everything in him, he wanted to agree. He knew how wrong it was to stray from the bloodline. His soul cried out to him that it was the wrong decision. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room taunted him as he brought up the strength to finally say, "All those in favour of appointing a new Kingdom head, raise your hand."

Henin watched as seven hands slowly, and reluctantly rose, turned to eight as he painfully placed his own in the air.

"Then it is decided," Whispered Edna, the sound of the grandfather clock increasing the dread that filled her voice, the dread that was evident on the faces of the council members. "Two days from now, the new Kingdom head will be decided by a ballot within the council."