Maeve
Moonrise roars as I wait in the shadowed foyer of the temple. Just feet away, a heavy set of doors will soon open to the sanctuary of the sacred place where hundreds of people are gathered to bear witness to my ascension to the throne, while a few steps in the other direction, behind yet another set of doors, the city is buzzing with nervous excitement.
I’m alone for the first time since I opened my eyes this morning. My reflection in a mirror on the far wall of the foyer isn’t… me. The tall, lean young woman in an immaculate crimson gown stares blankly back at me, her eyelids dusted with gold and her wide, full lips painted a deep, dark red.
Her eyes are hard and hollow–dead–but still that familiar sea-green.
I reach up to run my fingers over the simple updo a trio of maids spent over an hour creating. My hair is pulled tight against my scalp and twisted into a neat bun on the top of my head, not a hair out of place. A band of brilliant rubies and flawless black diamonds rests over the center of my forehead, set in gold, with a veil attached that’s made of the same impeccable gems that trails all the way to the floor like I’m being showered in gemstones.
It’s heavy, but I don’t feel the weight. My mind is blank, honed on the buzz of noise all around me, as I stare at my reflection.
I reach along my neckline where the moonstone necklace should be.
“Are you ready? It’s nearly time,” Grandpa Ryatt asks from the shadows before he appears, dressed in all black. His ebony hair is peppered with gray. He steps into the faint light pouring through tall stained glass windows. He trimmed his beard and is looking more put together than I’ve seen him in the days since he and my grandma arrived back at the castle for this very moment.
“I am ready,” I reply, but there’s no emotion in my voice. I turn away from my reflection, gazing at the doors instead.
“I was told to give you a five minute warning,” he says, stepping closer before coming to a stop a foot away and checking his watch.
“Are you going to walk me down the aisle?” I ask after a beat of silence, but there isn’t a teasing glint to my voice like I planned. Dead. Dead words, dead heart. I woke up this morning feeling… changed. Changed back, I suppose, to what I was before. Back to the woman I trained to be, the woman I promised myself I’d be because I didn’t think I had another option.
Grandpa smirks, shaking his head. “If it were your wedding, yes, but I’m sure your father would like the honor.”
“It might as well be,” I say under my breath, smoothing my jeweled fingers over my midriff, breathing past the tight ache in my stomach.
“What do you mean?” he chuckles, but music begins to play within the temple, and the shuffle of feet as people rise, just out of sight, make my spine straighten.
I turn to my grandfather, the man who’s been ruling beside my grandmother for the past… fifty years, almost, and meet his eyes when I say, “I doubt I’ll get married, so this is it. This is my wedding. My marriage is to Eastonia.”
Grandpa’s smile fades, turning to a tight line as he scans my face. “Is that really how you feel?”
“It’s what I know,” I breathe, turning to face the door again. I slam a wall against the memory of Soren's mouth against the shell of my ear, his breath hot on my cheek while he whispers, “You know exactly who you are,” against my skin.
It was a compliment. It was something he… he saw and liked. Something he reminded me about constantly. He knew what I was capable of and yet never once flinched away from my touch.
In fact, he saw through me, saw the girl beneath the wall of fiery armor I’d built around myself from the moment I was old enough to realize I was something people feared.
And I know without a shadow of a doubt no one will ever see me like Soren did again because… I don’t want them to.
I suck in a breath as a dozen maids funnel out of a side door, ignoring the skeptical look Grandpa Ryatt’s throwing in my direction. His shoulders tighten as I tilt my chin, closing my eyes and forcing myself to tuck every other feeling away.
I am Queen of Eastonia. This is my birthright. This moment is the dawn of a new era.
As the maids unravel my tremendously long train, I turn to my grandpa, giving him a sharp, diplomatic nod. “Thank you for all you’ve done as king.”
“Maeve, we should talk.”
“Another time,” I reply tightly, but he shakes his head.
“I didn’t overthrow a corrupt regime for you to spend the rest of your young life alone,” he says, but the doors open wide, revealing the sanctuary bathed in the light of the sunset and the hundreds of people–guests of honor–here to witness… me.
I feel his fingers dust my arm in an attempt to make me wait, but I step out of the foyer, ignoring the pull against my hips as the train snaps tight, a crimson river of fabric that cascades behind me as I begin to climb the steps to the rise where the high priestess is waiting for me.
Hundreds of eyes lock on my face, my body, the gathered onlookers hushed into unnerving silence as they watch their queen, their beast, their demi-goddess, rise to her power.
I think of climbing on that table in the bar as I step up. I pass eager reporters, the blessed few whom my grandma allowed access to the coronation, knowing their cameras are live-streaming my every move to the crowd outside of the temple and around the Allied Kingdoms.
A roar echoes beyond the walls of the temple as the crowded streets erupt in excitement. I pass where my family is gathered. My parents, my cousins–all of them–everyone watches in silence as I pass, but my parents give me small, encouraging smiles.
I wonder what they’re thinking, if they’re happy, or worried, or maybe a bit of both.
Blake and Brie stand side by side, with Logan on Brie’s other side holding a wriggly Kieran, who immediately lights up when he sees me. Blake, dressed in black with his dark red-brown hair swept away from his face, remains stoic and void of emotion, but his violet eyes scan my face before he turns to whisper to Brie.
My sister is just… lit up from within, and it gives me the boost I need to climb the last steps and stand before the priestess.
I already know what she’s going to say. I know the ceremony by heart because I’ve practiced the steps, the words, the vows. Silence hugs the temple, but my heartbeat is loud, booming through my ears, when I’m made to kneel before her, tilting my head down.
Grandma Ella appears before me, Grandpa Ryatt beside her, and I feel the weight of a crown placed on my head. A crown of precious stones–gems from every corner of Eastonia. Emeralds, sapphires, and polished obsidian from Veiled Valley. Diamonds, turquoise, and aquamarine from Tarsian. Rubies and emeralds from the Roguelands.
And moonstones from Moonrise that glow a bright crimson as my powers ignite the moment the crown is placed on my head.
“Rise, Queen Maeve,” Grandma whispers, a soft smile in her tone as I slowly look up at the woman who did the impossible, the woman who pulled this ancient city from the lake, who freed a nation with her mate by her side.
They couldn’t have known it would all be for me.
I can’t let them down.
Grandma and Grandpa take each of my hands, helping me straighten, and then I turn to the crowd.
The applause inside is muted, but outside… Moonrise explodes in noise.
I barely register the moment. Everything is sound and color as I leave the temple, Aviva and Sarah quickly removing the heavy, beaded train while Misty guides me into a waiting car to rush me back to the castle. Brie slips in beside me, trembling with nerves and excitement as we’re driven down roads purposefully closed off for this, but it’s impossible not to see the groups of people situated on rooftops, clambering for a view of the balcony where I’ll make my first appearance to the public, my people, as their queen.
“Did that really happen?” she asks breathlessly, gripping my hand as the blacked out car skids around a sharp corner, the back gates of the castle opening wide to allow my family’s procession of vehicles entrance. “You’re Queen of Eastonia?”
“I am,” I breathe, the first words I’ve said since the ceremony, when I vowed to protect and serve the Goddess above all others. My heart barely beats as Brie hurries me out of the car, and we rejoin the family, everyone whispering excitedly, uncontrollably, while following me into the castle’s depths. Brie stays close, but to my surprise, I feel Blake come up behind me, steadying me with a hand gripping my elbow as we walk the steps to the fourth floor where the wide balcony opens to a view of the city.
Grandma and Grandpa go first, stepping out onto the balcony side by side to the roar of the crowd. The sunset has faded into streaks of violet against the clouds where the full moon begins to rise, the countdown the eclipse, and the Sacred Rite, beginning.
“You look great,” Brie says in a hushed whisper as she adjusts the impossibly heavy crown on my head, taking a few pins from her hair to secure it in place. Blake waits beside us, his eyes on the balcony while Grandma and Grandpa give a wave down to their people for the last time as king and queen.
My heart pounds while Brie and my mom fiddle with my gown, my hair, and my jewelry, but my eyes are on Blake for some reason. I haven’t seen him in months.
“We need to talk,” I say to him, and he glances at me, his face as emotionless as ever. “Tomorrow morning. I mean it, Blake.”
His answer is the slightest of smirks.
I grind my teeth but Grandma and Grandpa start backing up, turning toward the doors. “This is it,” Brie breathes. “What are you going to say?”
“Nothing,” I answer, which elicits a confused look from both my sister and my mom.
“You’re not going to say anything to your people?” Mom asks, genuinely confused.
“No,” I say with a shrug, then glance at Blake, who is just… staring at me. Staring at my chest, where the moonstone necklace is missing. “Not yet. Not now. They don’t care about that,” I continue, looking away from Blake and stepping past my mom and Brie. “They just want to see what I can do.”
I turn to look at the rest of my family, everyone dressed in their finery, everyone looking both nervous and excited as my grandparents step back inside, and the crowd beyond the castle walls turns from roars to muted whispers of anticipation.
There’s… nothing I can say. We all knew this was coming. I was born for this. I was made for this.
But… that girl–that excited, over-confident idiot who thought she had everything she needed, and wanted, in the palm of her hand?
She’s gone. I left her on that train platform when I bent to kiss Soren’s cheek, biting back the truth I desperately wanted to share with him.
That I regret it–leaving him. I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t have. Had he felt the same, I would have thrown all of this away and disappeared, going somewhere we could be… us. Together.
I squeeze my eyes shut against a wave of grief and nausea that washes through my stomach, stifled by the boning of the gown, and step onto the balcony.
The crowd goes silent. All across the city, the massive group of celebrators gazes up at me as I walk to the edge of the balcony. I scan the crowd, my face etched from stone, void and stern.
I will not be known for my kindness, my grace. I will be known for ruling with a fist of iron, with a voice that carries and demands justice. I know Blake refers to me as Bloody Maeve. Some people think he’s joking, but maybe he’s seen this in my timeline–this heartbreak that serves as the catalyst that turns me to iron, once and for all.
I let the crowd see it. I know my face is blown up, zoomed in for everyone across the Allied Kingdoms to witness. I let them see that fire in my eyes as my powers simmer, scratching and clawing to the surface as I summon them for the first time since I left Soren and returned to startling reality.
The full moon beckons, and even with the eclipse on the horizon, just an hour or so away, I feel… more powerful than I’ve ever been.
And I don’t have a necklace to absorb the excess. I could bring this city to its knees in one swift motion of my wrist.
I could burn any trace of my world from existence in the blink of an eye.
But I look at the faces of my people, taking them in, seeing the excitement and promise of a future in their eyes, a future I vowed to protect.
I know its… impossible, but I look–I search until I feel my knees going weak–for one set of eyes in particular before I raise my hands and let my powers ignite, showing Moonrise–showing Eastonia–who their queen has become after years out of their view.
And I wonder if Soren can see it, and if he’s… smiling.
Because I’d give anything to see it one last time.