The High Court of Sahirra had endured for seven hundred years, a ring of obsidian thrones carved into gems that looked like as if fossilized ribs of a dead Leviathan. It was sunken deep into the heart of the capital, the old ones called it Draakhal-Veir; the Jaw of Judgment.
Aeryn sat at its center. Her legs, still small at six years old, barely reached the silver rest beneath her seat. The court ministers eyed her with their usual blend of malice and disgust. She didn't care for their stares; her attention was fixed on the seat itself. It was vast, like a pit hole; she felt she might fall into it at any moment. It had always been too large, even when she'd played in its shadow as a child, mimicking her father's commands with giggles and bright, naive joy. Now, there was no play. Only silence and the dead, judging stares of her enemies.
Across the circle, the nobles watched her with the quiet contempt of a pack that had lost its alpha but not its fangs. They wore their age like armor: wrinkled skin, silver eyebrows, gold-tipped canes, and rings crested with bone.
They bowed, certainly. But only their heads. Never the spine. Never low enough to forget who they believed she was: a child-queen stained by non-existent prophecy, born of taboo, and orphaned by the black fire, a catastrophe they whispered was her own curse made manifest.
.................
It had been only twelve days since the regimen changed. Twelve days of icy civility, scraped-on smiles, and quiet, systematic refusals by her ministers and servants.
She watched them pretend to obey while they spoke behind closed doors, sealed letters with false approval, and changed nothing essential. Not the guard rotations. Not the tariffs. Not even the old prayer-rites.
Aeryn needed them. She was too young to carry the world and the burden of their noble lives on her shoulders. They knew it. They wanted to use her weakness to unseat her.
Little Aeryn, ignorant of political tactics, tired by the weight of the heavy crown, and scared by their ceaseless, shooting eyes, tried everything they asked. She sought their favor until she was utterly exhausted.
She wore the silks they preferred, dressing in the pale blues and grays that "soothed the courtly mind." She tried to deepen her voice, which only gave them more to laugh at. She memorized the names of their wives and their bastard sons. She even offered absurd compliments, gifting goldleaf paper to the poetry-writing Lady Marrion, and telling Lord Innos his crumbling teeth looked like carved ivory.
She smiled when they mocked her. But nothing worked.
...............
The contempt only deepened with time. The laughter started when she was six and kept going even now, six years later. She was twelve years old now, a child physically and emotionally changed, but still powerless.
They laughed when she tripped over the word "recompense." They sneered openly when she asked, during a council discussing distant floods, where rain came from and if the gods had moods. Her maid desperately motioned for silence, but the damage was done.
They exchanged amused, superior glances when she spoke of grain distribution. Once, as she tried to argue a tariff, one minister jested, "Your Highness, it seems you no longer worry about the moody Gods," and the court erupted in laughter.
It didn't matter that she'd watched her parents burn. It didn't matter that she carried power in her blood and terror in her eyes. All they saw was a little girl playing dress-up in a dead Queen's crown.
............
One afternoon, Lord Vael of House Miraj, who wore eight rings for the sons he had lost to plague and none for the daughter he still ignored, stood up during council. He spoke without a flicker of doubt:
"My Queen, with utmost humility, I suggest you appoint a regent. Someone older. Wiser. You may, of course, sign off on his final decisions, but let him guide the blade. For now."
Aeryn's fingers stiffened around the cold stem of her goblet.
Vael continued, his voice oily with false concern. "You are burdened, child. Let us carry it with you. Just until you grow."
Heads nodded around the ring like leaves in a poisonous wind. Almost all of them murmured their support.
Aeryn forced her lips into a smile. The crown felt like lead. "And which of you," she asked, her voice quiet, "would like to carry my crown, my dear loyal ministers?"
Dead silence. No one spoke up.
Then, Lord Innos, the oldest man in the room, slowly smacked his lips. "Only what you allow, Your Majesty. Only whom you allow my queen!"
She met his greedy eyes, and the unspoken words were clear: Only what we let you keep.
..................….
Aeryn spent that night alone in the palace observatory. The dome was enchanted to reflect the sky as it appeared across every region of Sahirra: storm-ridden on the coast, cloudy in the east, and cloudless in the desert heartland. She stared up at it, her legs curled beneath her, the heavy crown tossed onto the cold marble beside her.
She was twelve years old now, and still they demanded she abdicate.
"Do they all hate me?" she whispered into the massive, silent room.
Her maid, Sakina, who was also her nanny and only ally, stood vigil nearby.
"My Queen," Sakina said softly.
"Drop the formalities, Sakina," Aeryn pleaded.
"I am yours, your highness," Sakina insisted, her voice trembling slightly. "Still, I must not ignore what is required of me."
.
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