Ann

There were times, admittedly only a few, when Ann Copperton wished to be born with a different name. Times when she craved a simpler life, devoid of all the complications and responsibilities that her position demanded. Other days she merely dreamed to live in another age, when there was a reason to carry those burdens. When the Copperton's name still meant something, when she meant something.

And this was one of those days.

My aspect won't change, no matter how many times I look.

Ann thought, shaking her head at the image reflected in the mirror. She'd never considered herself as someone vain, and she didn't usually spend so much time admiring herself either, but the person reflected in the mirror of that gold foil frame wasn't someone she recognized. Someone she liked.

She'd spent most of the morning trying to find a way to look less gaudy. She could do nothing about her dull red hair or the freckles on her pale face. She had learned to live with that, or at least to tolerate it, but that hand-embroidered long shirt was uncharted territory, something she would have gladly avoided. The high quality of the fabric was undisputed, but there were way too many laces, and even the amaranth and amber tapestry hanging at the walls appeared less excessive.

However, if she still could bear the ceremonial clothes of her dynasty, the same thing couldn't be said for the Rising Sun on her left shoulder even bigger than the bloodied rose on the back of her tunic. It might have sounded like something trivial, but it was a ploy, a scheme that carried the rotten stench of politics.

Ann moistened her lips trying to drive away the persistent bitter taste in her mouth, though she was well aware the effort was as grueling as it was pointless. From the window of her room, she could see a city rising over the lush plain in the distance. Its boundary circumscribed by tall walls connected by five towers, each of them equidistant from the others and marking a different access to the city.

Fivestar they called it, and the reason behind the name was as obvious as the shape of its walls. Ann could imagine the people crowding around the markets or the faithfuls going to the morning mass. But to her everything seemed so far, though it was less than a league away.

There were reluctance and a bit of resignation on her face when she forced herself to look down, where a long parade extended on the cobbled road connecting the city to the castle. The noises of steps and horses, of metal and wooden carriages merged together in what seemed like an orderly cortege.

But observing more deeply one could see a specific order inside the column of knights clad in shining armor and well-dressed ladies. A division marked by the flapping banners. Something she could exploit. Ann kept gazing at the parade below until the last carriage disappeared from her sight. That's when someone knocked on the door.

"Yes?" She asked though she knew why they had come.

"It's time, your Highness," A man said.

Ann left the room accompanied by four guards wearing plate armor, full helm and bearing the same bloodied rose on their breastplates. When they took a hallway, the busy servants hurriedly shifted at the sides to let her through.

They bowed with their heads and eyes down, rising only when Ann and her guards left the room. She'd always found the custom a little pretentious, no different from the lavishly decorated halls.

Unbounded luxury was the precept permeating the castle: from the golden chandeliers hanging on the ceiling to the silver candelabrum inlaid with precious stones, the glass roses of the eastern continent or the mosaic floor. Perhaps, there had been a reason to justify this ostentation when the castle was built, but it felt just like another sign of decadence now, the reminder of glory and power long gone.

When they grew near a colossal studded door, Ann steps became slower. They were heavy like her heart knowing what was waiting for her on the other side. The noise was muffled by wood and iron, but the clamor coming from the adjacent room was unmistakable. Ann took a deep breath before nodding to the guards. The hinges screeched when the four of them joined forces to pull the heavy door open.

The room on the other side was a hall with a red velvet carpet at the center leading to a big and rough stone throne. The room was huge but empty, clearly built to accommodate a lot more people that were here today. At either side of the room, round stone columns sustained huge arches rising till the high-vaulted ceiling.

Under each arch, a statue of white marble was placed. Only women were carved in the stones, all wearing the same five-pointed crown. There were hundreds of statues, one for each queen of the Copperton dynasty. The guests were all standing, and no chair or bench was arranged inside the massive hall. It wasn't expected for them to sit, only the Queen had that privilege.

When being the Queen was still worth something.

"House Alhstrom, Avernus and Summermer only sent some envoys." A young lady said. "Minor nobles as representatives for a coronation, isn't this disrespectful for the new Queen?" 

There was a lot of noise inside the hall, magnified by the echo of two hundred people speaking with each other. Therefore, It wasn't a surprise that only the last people at the back noticed Ann's arrival.

"What do you know, child? The Queen signs the papers, but the Highlords fill them." An older lady answered. "This ceremony is nothing but mere tradition."

"Quiet" A man nearby curtly said sneaking a glance to the open door.

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Gradually the people in the hall began to turn and an old man with a grey goatee and a multicolored tunic - more suited to a court jester than a noble - bowed. A page boy followed him. He played his brass trumpet and the people still on the velvet carpet cleared the way.

"Princess Ann Copperton, Protector of the Faith and Humble servant of the Lord of the Morning" The man proclaimed in a high pitched, shrilling voice.

The jarring sound echoed through the hall. It was even worse than the noise made by nails on a chalkboard and so annoying that some of the guests even winced and covered their ears. Ann gritted her teeth. If the Rising sun embroidered on her shoulder was the first scheme, this crier was the second.

Is this my chamberlain? A buffoon as the Queen's voice?

This was becoming a pattern, a way to discredit her rule before it could even begin. If the objective was shaming her with half the nobles of the realm, it was a success. Ann straightened her back, raised her head and tried to keep a bearing befitting her position.

The crowd quieted down, and now the eyes of every person inside the hall were on her. Her hands were damp with sweat as she walked, trying to not look at the people surrounding her.

But as she got closer to the throne, she couldn't help but gaze at the four bigger banners at the front. Only the standard bearers and some knights that Ann didn't recognize were under the Scorpion of the Avernus, the Pegasus of the Summermere and the Oaktree and thunderbolt of the Alhstrom.

They didn't feel the need to come. They don't have to. She thought bitterly.

The only man of the four great houses to attend was Morris, third son of Mors Anchorvy, a stout man standing close to the Banner of the White Shark. And the reason was quite obvious: a fair woman with auburn hair standing at his side. Ann's sister.

Helena. When Ann gazed at her, her sister smiled back encouragingly. But there was something in her green eyes that she didn't think to find.

Helena looked worried. The knot in Ann's stomach grew tighter. Her sister never worried. She was nineteen, barely a year younger than her, but she had always been the leader between the two of them. Headstrong and proud, there wasn't a problem that Helena Copperton couldn't solve.

Ann kept gazing ahead, up to the stairs and that stone's throne. There, a bald and fat man with a placid and jovial smile was waiting; his simple white gown embellished with silver and golden threads on the sleeve's rim and neck.

However, it was the pendant on his neck - entirely made of precious stones encrusted in a white golden framework - that attracted the attention. Obsidian from the Embersea was in the background depicting the night's sky and several different stones with various shades of red and orange composed a Rising Sun.

And this is the court chaplain.

She slowed down, and he almost stopped walking entirely when she saw something she didn't expect to find here; a big block of stone with a space carved in the upper side that seemed of the same dimension of a human's skull.

An executioner's block.

Three. The number resounded in her head like a death knell.

The executioner's block didn't seem out of place, on the contrary, it fitted perfectly as it had always been there, part of an old tradition dating back to the days right after the cataclysm, dark times of intolerance when hunting witches was an everyday occurrence. That's why one of her ancestors decided to remove it, centuries ago.

The fact that was there once again could mean only one thing.

I hope I am wrong.

"Your Highness," The chaplain said, bowing slightly before turning to the crowd. "Lords and ladies of the realm. We are gathered here today for the coming of age and coronation of her Highness, Ann Copperton." He said, spreading his arms like he wanted to hug the crowd. "But before she can take her rightful place on the throne, an offering must be presented to the Almighty, the Lord of the Morning."

Ann's foreboding seemed to come true, and she was almost afraid to turn when the court chaplain dramatically pointed his finger somewhere behind her.

Two guards were dragging a woman in shackles. She was young, no older than twenty years old, and quite pretty beneath the layer of dirt and the tattered dress she was wearing. But what attracted Ann's attention were the guards. There was a deliberate slowness in the way they were moving.

It almost seemed like..a parade, a well-devised show built for the benefit of the onlookers. The worst thing was that Ann knew the reason of this farce. It was a trap and a test at the same time, a way to restate the power of the Temple and its hegemony over the crown.

Over me.

And yet, even if she knew it was a trap, she had no choice but play along as the alternative was even worse.

If I don't do it, I'll be labeled as craven or worse, faithless. But if I do, I will support the Temple. Either way, the Temple wins.

When they arrived near the executioner's block, the two guards placed the woman's head on the hard stone. At that point, she was already sobbing quietly.

"Cry as long as you want, you will find no one to hear your lies and no mercy for your wickedness here." The chaplain sternly said to her. "This harlot," He turned to the crowd, pointing one fat finger at the woman, "is guilty of the most heinous of crimes! Fornication and adultery!" His voice surged until he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

There was no trace of his benevolent smile, his expression dangerously close to zealotry. The crowd cheered, though a few of them took the opportunity to rail against the woman.

"Adulterer!"

"Bitch!"

"Kill the whore!"

Well dressed ladies, scions of noble families, knights, and lords; all were screaming, all wanted her dead, to see her bleeding. The crème de la crème of the realm turned into a mindless mob.

"Silence!" The chaplain said raising his hands. "This strumpet will get what she deserves." The chaplain said, dramatically pointing his finger at Ann. "And it will be our princess, Ann Copperton, to deliver justice in the name of the Lord of the Morning."

When he finished speaking Ann was white as a sheet, her lips trembling uncontrollably. She clenched her shaky hands and turned away, giving her back to the crowd as she tried to get a hold of herself. But it was pointless. No matter what she did, it couldn't change what was waiting for her. Ann closed her eyes, trying to think of what was happening as a dream, a fleeting nightmare that would end once she did as asked.

"God of hunt and harvest, sea and rivers, Maker of everything that grows, Please receive our offering." She said, the words flowing out of her mouth like she had said them countless times. And she did, every year just before the harvest. But those times the sacrifice had always been an animal, never a human being.

"Please receive our offering" The crowd echoed.

She turned and walked to the executioner's block, unsheathed her sword and then raised it, keeping the blade upright over her head as she prepared to strike.

"Spare me! Mercy!" The woman cried.

The sword in Ann's hands wavered, and she did something she'd tried to avoid so far; she looked at her.

Ann swallowed when she saw that tear-stricken face, the desperation mixed with a tiny bit of hope that Ann could spare her. But she didn't, she didn't spare her. Without warning, the sword descended on the woman's neck, splitting it asunder. Ann was still breathing erratically when the people all around her started shouting and cheering, clapping and celebrating like she had done something worthy of praise.

Before she knew what was happening, Ann was kneeling on the floor while the chaplain placed a five-pointed crown on her head. He said something, but she couldn't hear him anymore. She was still looking at that woman, unable to turn away from her hollow eyes, the haunted expression on her bloodied face. Unable to forgive herself.