Elian POV

After the tournament, I was exhausted, but that wasn’t something I could let anyone see. We had gathered the citizens of Gresha City together for a purpose. If I could establish myself as King in their eyes, if I could cause them to just think about some of my decrees, then Forya couldn’t oust me from the throne so easily. A show of force like this wouldn’t be enough, but it would help. Especially with the Head of Gresha’s Army by my side, lending the whole thing more of an official air.

I allowed my mind to drift during my speech, gaze drifting through the crowd—and then it stopped on a few faces near the very front. Raike. Perene. My parents. I hadn’t seen anger like that in my father’s eyes in years. Not since I’d joined Gresha’s military. Where I stumbled over my speech, Menone picked it up, speaking with a more authoritative, confident tone. Most of the crowd went silent, listening to him. My family’s gazes remained fixed on me.

Crim kept pecking at my leg, in a pleasantly distracting way. It allowed me something to focus on as I caught my breath.

Once this tournament was over and we headed back into the palace, the aides and other members of the court would doubtless have a lot of things they wanted to discuss with me. Many of those who kept track of our rations, granaries, and food stores had been especially dogged in getting my attention. They had made great lists of all that we had in store—lists I had a difficult time reading. Letters and words had always spun and writhed before my eyes, part of their magical nature, I figured.

Menone stopped talking, and we began the procession back into the palace as Crim trotted behind me, passing the many gathered Greshans. These would all be the commoners—farmers, laborers, fishermen, the odd merchant. Inside the palace lived the nobility, the priestesses, the scribes and historians. They wouldn’t respect the opinions of the commoners, but they couldn’t ignore them. Though Gresha spoke much of love and duty and community, that was only really true outside the palace’s walls.

Really, the hate for Angrans was only at its worst inside the palace’s walls. Lowerclass Greshans had more in common with Angrans than they may want to admit. Neither could afford to be picky when eating, for example. The nobility would not like it, but they’d come around to obeying my decree in the end. I only had to stay King long enough to see it come to pass—and if I couldn’t, then I just had to get Talon out of here as quickly as possible. With Lordrin out of the way and Forya temporarily at bay, he should be my next priority. I didn’t trust either of them to fear the Sun Fiend for very long.

Abruptly we stopped, commotion disrupting musings. Two people were arguing with the guards. “We agreed to wait until your tournament was over—now it’s over. Isn’t filial piety meant to be a kingly virtue?” the man was saying.

Parents. Right. He rubbed his—I rubbed my forehead, schooling my expression into something more neutral. Even if this wouldn’t be a comfortable conversation, it was one I’d need to have at some point or another. I just wished the words that would make them believe me would come easier for me.

It was so simple, most of the time. So easy to figure out what it was that people wanted to hear. It became more difficult when you started going outside what one expected of you. Harder to lie.

Quietly I waved the guards down, and approached my parents. “Filial piety may be a kingly virtue, but one can hardly blame the guards for being confused. Usually, a Crown-son’s father is another Crown-son,” I said amicably, uncertain it was the right word or even tone. Raike and Perene had stayed behind lingering in the crowd, I noticed. Hard to say how I felt about that. Perhaps I was envious?

“I may not be a King or a Crown-son, but that doesn’t change anything. Especially when you’re not responsible enough to be a King,” Father said. “What are you thinking, making huge decrees like this? This isn’t like your little adventures, Elian. It won’t be just you and your friends who get hurt. A whole city will suffer. All because you grew too friendly with an outsider, instead of caring for your family—”

“Isn’t it the parent’s job to teach the child? Are you saying you failed as parents?” I cut him off.

Crim crooned lowly, seemingly distressed at the raised voices.

He seemed taken aback when I spoke out of turn, but kept speaking regardless. “Yes, perhaps we haven’t been as strict with you as we should have been. After…after you joined the army, your mother convinced me they’d straighten you out. That any further discipline was unnecessary.” His mouth thinned. “But seeing the company you keep, how often you disappear, I see you’ve failed to learn anything. You don’t understand a thing about sacrifice, or heroism. You assume you’re the only person in this world who matters.”

Sharp breath through the nose.

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“What your Father means is, you’re a very kind child. And a very adventurous one,” Mother rushed to say. “Those are good traits. But a King can’t be kind, or adventurous. A king must be wise and stalwart. Loyal.”

“The—the Crowns chose me,” I heard myself say. “It wasn’t a dream or hallucination. Other people saw them. If I am good enough for them—then clearly either they or you must be wrong. Are you claiming you’re wiser than a god?”

They both went silent for a moment, allowing my mind to wander. Crim made another noise at my feet. Food stores, granary, records. Greshan commoners would eat grain, fish, fowl. Angrans would find food through hunts and raids. Greshan nobility turned up their nose at meat. It was a food for the lower classes when farmers and laborers ate it, it was a meal for savages and animals when Angrans ate it. They were better than either, sticking to grain, vegetables, and foreign delicacies. But the drought, if water levels receded—

“We’re not claiming we’re wiser than the gods. But we know you. We haven’t seen a King in you,” said Father.

“You…don’t.”

“We know you. That you’re doing this out of love for your friend, or to feel special, instead of—”

“I’m not doing this to feel spe—”

Crim cried sharply, just as Menone spoke up. “Sir. Ma’am,” the Army Head interrupted. “However well you know your son, I should imagine I know him just as well—and Lordrin a great deal better. A king isn’t born, he’s forged from trial and adversary. And Elian has faced more of either than Lordrin has.” He paused. “And as he said—the gods have chosen him. Perhaps they see in him something neither of us have seen.”

It was something Menone clearly meant as encouragement, and my parents didn’t seem to have a rebuttal for it. But it echoed in my head. Something the Sun Fiend saw in me, that others hadn’t. Something she had seen in me since I was very young. What could she have possibly seen? I tried to rake through my memory.

Here was the simple truth: I really didn’t know what the Fiend wanted with me. For the longest time, I had thought she had seen some spark of goodness in me. Some heroic fate she wanted to snuff out, or frighten me away from. More recently, it occurred to me maybe I was just entertainment. If she helped me fly higher, perhaps it was only because she wanted to watch me fall later. But I had lied to Talon about her for an awful long time. That didn’t sound like something a hero should do.

Perhaps it was the lying. Perhaps there was something twisted in me, something she had glimpsed a very long time ago. But I couldn’t think of what it was.

Vaguely I thought I remembered that phoenixes were meant to be a sign of the Sun Fiend--or was it Crown Naruune? Or was it the Sun Fiend in some places and the Crowns in others? You’d think they’d be impossible to mix up in that way.

The guards, Menone, and I stepped inside the palace, the doors shutting behind us. Even when I was very young, I’d had my beliefs. Back then, however, I hadn’t wanted to be a hero and warrior. I’d dreamed of becoming a healer in the temple. Greshan nobility believed meat-eaters little better than animals, but was there really much difference between us and them? If there wasn’t much difference between noble and commoner, then what difference was there between Angran and Greshan? A different language, like how donkeys brayed and chickens clucked? But they were both animals. Both meat.

Weren’t we all just mortals in the eyes of Crowns? Wasn’t it…proud, to claim you were special somehow?

What made a human so much more special than an animal?

A long time ago I had tried to find out. If I wanted to become a healer, I’d need to know how things worked. I needed to learn. So I took one of the chickens behind the house and cut it open. Feathers flew everywhere, getting in my mouth. My hands were sticky. It was just meat. Father had been furious. Had taken me down to the river and head under water and breathing and breathing—

Washed the blood off. Washed the blood off. He was furious. Sat his child down and lectured. About sacrifice. About how killing things just because was a waste. The chicken could’ve still laid eggs. Now we’d need to get another. Livestock animals could die, but one had to be deliberate about the when and how. Is that how the Fiend sees us? The Crowns? Livestock animals? Was that how Hallow Zaya—?

A slap across my face brought me back to the present. My eyes drifted down to Crim, and it took a moment to recall his feathers were just like that. I quickly returned my gaze to Menone.

“I-I’m sorry,” I managed.

“Are you here with us, Crown-son?” asked Menone.

“Yes. I am. Thank you.”

He said something then. About how proud he was, about how yes there’s an order to everything but sometimes one has to go outside the order, about how the tournament had served its purpose. I nodded along and he left on his duties. I was thinking about—drought. Granary. Animals. Livestock. Sacrifice.

There was a sharp pain in my leg, and I winced as Crim bit into my skin. Careful not to disturb my injuries, I crouched down and stroked the bird when no one was around to see.

“Yes. I think we’ve kept your master waiting long enough, haven’t we?” I murmured to the bird. “Can you do me a favor? This next thing I have to do is going to be rough for us both, I think. So just…do what you do best.”

Crim crooned again, tilting his head, and I shook my head as I rose again. There was still so much left to do. Before things got more complicated, while I had a chance, I should do what I took this role to achieve. Without any further delay, I tracked down the nearest maidservant, and gave her orders to bring up a meal from the kitchens—something light, like soup.

It was time to tell Talon about my ascendancy to the throne.