Approximately 182 years ago
“The king has died,” the physician announced in a detached voice. “You may come say your goodbyes if you desire.”
In an extreme display of emotion, Mother played the grieving widow so loudly that no one in the room could possibly believe her. We all knew she had never even liked Father and had tried to have him killed on more than one occasion. Her wailing tears now were not enough to impress any of us.
I turned to Father’s advisor. “Everything’s finalized for the coronation?”
“Yes, your highness,” he responded with a slight bow, “we are waiting for the last of the high nobility to arrive. The coronation will be held in the morning, following which you will address the people as their queen.”
A speech. Lovely. I should probably put some work into that.
“The coronation, is that all you can think about at a time like this?” Mother dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “Your father just died!”
“Which wasn’t a surprise, he’s been dying for years,” I pointed out calmly. “I said my goodbyes to him the last time we spoke. He hasn’t even been awake in weeks. At this point, the coronation is the greater concern, because we must show stability to the people.”
I didn’t entirely believe all that nonsense, but Father’s advisor did, and right now I needed him on my side until the crown was officially on my head. I honestly didn’t think he’d try to challenge my claim if he realized I wasn’t going to be the perfect duplicate of Father that he’d always wanted me to be, but the advisor could slow down the process and maybe side with Mother if he didn’t like me – which wouldn’t stop me from inheriting the crown, but could turn the succession into a mess instead of the smooth change it should be.
My claim to the crown came through my father, not my mother. She was nobility, but not royalty. She had no real claim to the crown unless Father had died when I was a child and she could have ruled in my stead until I was of age – but that was long since passed and while I knew Mother craved the crown and the power that came with it, she had no good way to get it unless I abdicated. Then it would fall to her as if Father had died with no children alive, and she’d be free to remarry and have new children to make the new royal line.
That was likely why she wanted to postpone the coronation – try to give her more time to talk me into abdicating, but my mind was made up. Honestly, at this point in my life, I’d probably do it just out of sheer spite. Anything to make sure my mother didn’t get her way.
But it wasn’t just out of spite, really. I did have a goal here – I wanted to be able to bring the elves back to the warriors they had been before Father started his reign of decadence and let them all get soft. I could do it, I just needed to officially have the power to do so. And that required the crown.
So I dutifully wrote out a speech for the people that night, oversaw the pyre for my father as the sun started to come up, and went straight from there to the coronation.
Elven coronations are attended primarily by members of the court – aka the royals and nobles, with no outside visitors whatsoever. Even other elves were rarely allowed, including serving staff. It was just the way elves preferred to handle it – a private ceremony with only the most powerful elves present.
Or, that was the theory. Looking at the nobility now, I had to struggle to keep the disgust off my face. These were not the elite warriors the nobles were supposed to be – these were weak, soft people more accustomed to parties and feasting than to the feel of a weapon in their hand. None of them would last a single brawler’s round, I was certain of that.
But things would change after this. I was even more certain of that. After today, everything would change.
Unfortunately, I was right, but not in the way I expected.
Father’s advisor was the officiant of the ceremony, and as he neared the end of his speech, I felt Mother nudge my arm.
“Kaleen,” she hissed low enough that only the two of us could hear, “you don’t want this – don’t make a terrible mistake. I’m offering you freedom. Don’t be so proud you can’t take it.”
I gave her one cold, apathetic glance. “It’s not yours to offer. This is my right – and I intend to take it.”
I could see the seething, furious look in her eyes as I turned back to the advisor, our exchange taking only seconds and unnoticed by most of the room.
Then the advisor’s speech ended and he turned to motion me forward. “And now let us welcome Kaleen, our new queen and leader.”
I stepped forward, bowed my head as tradition dictated for him to place the crown on it – and in that moment, when my gaze was limited, that was when Mother acted.
I’d never expected her to take physical action or try to attempt to literally snatch the crown from the advisor’s hands. She’d been a schemer, not someone to literally interrupt a serious ceremony like this. Just taking the crown would, of course, do her no good, and even in the moment it took everyone to realize what she’d just done, the guards had started to respond and I was reaching for my knife hidden in the folds of my elaborate dress. She would not be able to leave this room without surrendering the crown – but it seemed surrendering it was not her plan.
Instead, Mother raised the crown above her head and then smashed it down at her feet, throwing down a witch potion at the same time. There was an explosion and I instinctively pushed the advisor away, but the explosion was small, not enough to damage any of us.
The same could not be said about the crown. The metal was melted from the explosion and the gems were cracked and broken.
As the guards almost instantly contained Mother, I stared at the crown, feeling fear I’d never felt before. Mother didn’t realize what she’d just done – but I did. And I was worried there would be no cure for the curse she’d just unleashed on the elven race.
“You cannot wear that crown,” Mother snapped, dropping all her pretenses as she struggled to get out of the guards’ hands. “Make yourself a new one that matches your ridiculous hobbies, if you will, but your precious heirloom crown is ruined forever now!”
Without even looking at her, I snapped my fingers. “Take her to the dungeons. Her punishment will be decided later.”
I heard her screaming as they dragged her off, and I heard the advisor trying to come up with a quick solution and somehow managing to find Father’s “casual” crown he wore when traveling, which he used to complete the ceremony. But my focus was on the broken crown, fear nibbling away at all the confidence I’d had my entire life.
Before going out to give my speech, I carefully gathered up every last bit of the remains of the crown and placed them in the ornate box that normally stored the crown. I locked the box in a hidden spot in my room before heading out to address the people as their official queen.
But the entire time, my mind was on that box. The fate of the elves hung in the balance, and I was fairly certain my mother had just doomed us all.
~~~~
Approximately 160 years ago
Nicole bent over the desk, examining the crown closely. “Impressive work, I wouldn’t even realize it was damaged unless I knew already.”
For the past 20+ years, I had devoted my life to trying to restore the crown. Even my plan of training the elves back to their original glory was put on hold, because I knew that unless this crown was restored – all the way restored – it wouldn’t matter if I trained the elves or not.
Jewelry making, clocks, locks – anything that required a fine hand, elves were good at. We used to make most of the weapons that supernaturals, at least, used, and while I’d been raised to be a queen, that didn’t mean I wasn’t also taught some of the basics of our people. In fact, I had to fully master goldsmithing before I could be properly respected among some of the nobles.
So I’d set to work repairing the crown myself, painstakingly restoring each bit of metal to where it should be and seeking out those with the proper magic to repair the gems themselves. Now my work was done, and the crown looked perfect.
Except it wasn’t.
“It didn’t fix it.” I sighed heavily and flicked my fingers lightly against the large gem at the center front of the crown. “I’d hoped that if I repaired it, it would be back, but – but the link was broken, and fixing the crown did nothing. I just spent 20 years on nothing.”
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst was that there was nothing to do. Repairing the crown had been the only option.
“What do I tell people?” I asked her abruptly. “The truth? That our magic originated in another world and the crown linked us to it, and when my mother broke the crown she broke the link, so now elven magic is fading? Am I supposed to tell people that there’s no hope, that we’ll start dying younger and younger, that we’ll lose all the magic we had and all the strength we once had? That our race is now doomed with no hope?”
Nicole’s face was grim. “I don’t think the truth will help anyone, to be honest. It’ll just make a lot of people panic and get desperate.”
I agreed with that idea, but it still felt somewhat unfair to keep people in the dark. “What if by telling them, people might be able to come up with a way to fix it? Something I haven’t thought of yet?”
“Couple of problems with that.” Nicole was still staring at the crown, frowning. “If you say anything, you’re going to have the entire elf population out trying to find a solution. People are going to get fed up with us asking them for help – first one, then another one, and another one, and so on. Elves will get desperate enough they may stop caring about hiding in front of humans. Other people may decide to sweep in while we’re weakening and kill us all. I think you should still search for a possible solution, but not cause mass panic – you, me, maybe a handful of other trusted people who know the truth. We don’t give up, but we don’t give everyone a reason to fear, either.”
She finally looked back up at me. “You’ve probably got a handful of years left as queen – supernaturals and humans alike are moving away from the idea of a monarchy. Use those years to set the elves on the right path, and when the time comes for the monarchy to be retired? Then you and I can focus on this full-time. We’re not giving up. We’re just…not giving people a reason to give up, either. You know if you tell them, some will just stop caring about trying to live and enjoy lives? At least this way they’ll keep enjoying life, even if it ends up being shorter. And most of them may not even notice the lack of magic if they’re not at war.”
This was the opposite of what I had truly wanted, but maybe she was right. Elves weren’t going to rise in martial power again, not now – but maybe if I directed them towards paths that didn’t require our magic, such as jewelry making and the like, maybe then they wouldn’t even notice the lack of magic. They might notice the shortened lives, but they could chalk that up to changes in the world, for all I knew.
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