She didn't go to see Aaron. She couldn't honestly pretend not to revel in this new power of hers, and she didn't want to see him so shocked by her heartlessness. Everyone in the capital was being rather heartless today. At midday, she would be named High Heir to the Kallian Empire, and tonight, not twenty-four hours after her brothers' deaths, there would be a celebratory Ball. Markus, Erik, Tyton, Perseus and Theseus would have their funerals at never o'clock. Their graves would be dug in the I-Couldn't-Care-Less cemetery.
Kallians were a remarkably practical people, and the loss of six of their princes did not seem to bother them. As long as there was some new princess (would this one try to assassinate the mother as well?) to take their place, then who could really care? The Empress certainly did not.Lysandra decided she would have to make a favourable impression on her people. She wore a dress of black and silver, long-sleeved and shining. Her ruby necklace looked like blood drops.
Her black high heels were painful as they were beautiful. Her black hair-she had let the dye grow out for the ceremony-was tied into braids with red gold woven in. The Spare Heir's crown was pink diamond and silver.
She walked into the Throne Room, with the nobles gathered and Aaron, now second-in-line, watching her. Her mother gazed at her with laughing obsidian eyes, and in her hand was a crown of onyx and black gold, so much more magnificent than the one on her own head. Her gown trailed behind her as she neared her mother.
She kneeled at her mother's feet and kissed her obsidian ring. She threw the crown she was currently wearing to the ground with disdain.
Medea placed the onyx and black-gold crown on her daughter's head.
"I name you, blood of my blood, bone of my bone, my Heir. I name you, eldest child, the Crown Heir to my Empire. If I should fall, I give you my blessing to rule. Rise, my daughter, blood of my blood, bone of my bone, and take your place by my side."
Lysandra rose and took the throne beside her mother.
Power tingled at her fingertips. It was all that she had dreamed and more.
The nobles came, one by one, to pledge the allegiance to Lysandra as their Heir. Every one of them, who had sneered and snickered at her, whispering that she was only useful to be sold off like cattle in a marriage to some noble for her mother's gain. Who had said that she was cursed, without magic or alchemy.
She knew that some of them had wondered whether they would be the one she was married off to, that some had competed for the power of marrying into the Crimson line. Knew that most of them had laughed when her investments in stock markets failed, saying that she shouldn't have bothered, that she was stupid. They had said it was dumb luck when she did well. The nobles who had made life so hard for her because she was a girl, and sixth-born, and apparently not blessed with the magic of her line.
They all kissed her ring. They all bowed their heads, like they did to her mother, and once had to her brother.
They had all laughed at her. And look at who was now standing higher than they could ever reach.
When she was Empress, she would marry none of them. She'd rather die heirless than name one of their sons or nephews Emperor-Consort. Let them all crawl at her feet and beg for scraps. Victory is the sweetest vengeance of all.
When they left the throne room, Aaron caught up with her at last.
"Lysandra!" he called out.
"That would be Princess Lysandra to you," she blurted out before she could stop herself. "I now rank substantially above you."
YOU ARE READING
Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)
Fantasy'Medea Crimson took a deep breath, walked into the abyss and died. It wasn't for the first time.' Completed, first in the Lost Continent Series. Three Kingdoms on the brink. A war on the horizon. The peoples of the Lost Continent are forever divided...
