❝He has a heart of stone. I have a heart of glass. I just have to pray mine won't shatter...❞
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The werewolf world is brutal. From the moment my heart defect surfaced, I was labelled the weakest of my pack: the Runt, the Invalid. The girl who...
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Naomi
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Today is my coronation. Well, our coronation.
A week has passed since the fight, recently dubbed the Battle of Solarflare (since, apparently, my flame glowed gold in the sunrise behind it). My name has spread throughout the continent of Raelia, as well as the tale of my flame, and to say the attention is overwhelming would be an understatement. Apparently, as a royal, you get fan-mail, and I've received many letters from all over the continent, many celebrating my "miracle" power and my triumph over the tyrant king. They think I am a miracle, sent by the gods themselves to spread my light. It was surprising to see a lot of people happy about Galen's fall. There are a small handful, of course, who are upset by Galen's loss in power. At least, I think it's a small handful, based off the few hateful letters expressing their disdain about me being the new queen.
Queen. That word is still so jarring. Technically I am the queen, given I challenged the Gahndor king and won, but as Galen once so pleasantly put it: I am not of Gahndor blood. Hence, my right to the throne sparked a lot of controversy around the kingdom. Either way, Kohl still holds claim to the throne as the surviving heir, and my union with him today will cement me as queen. However, he insisted we be coronated together, as equals. As king and queen. Then, we wed as lovers.
The nerves rush through my body at the thought, and my hand goes to my chest on instinct. Though, it is not needed anymore, not as I feel the strong, steady beats of my heart under my fingers. My heart is no longer a liability. Kohl's mother not only brought me back to life, but also healed every ailment I had in the process, including my once-faulty heart. I'll never have to worry about sudden heart attacks or taking foxglove again. I can run for miles now – as I have been doing these past couple of days – without fatiguing. It's every wish I've ever had, come true all at once.
But not without a cost. I'd seen the toll Queen Selene's death had taken on Kohl. He always hides his grief around me, in hugs and kisses and smiles, but it is in the quiet moments that I spy the anguish for his late mother. I try to keep the conversations about Selene to a minimum to save him from the pain. We'd concluded that Selene must have been a descendant of the Athena house to have gotten those healing abilities, and for whatever reason, she'd kept silent about it. I'd tried to convince Kohl she'd done it to protect herself from Galen, but I knew it hurt to know his mother had kept such a secret from him. I hurt for him, too.
"Get that dour look off your face, Nomi. Nobody wants a scowling queen."
I catch Macy's dark eyes in the reflection of the vanity mirror and smile. Her delicate fingers rake against my scalp, pulling my hair into an intricate array of pale braids and curls, weaving white lace and crimson pearls throughout. The small detail brings out the red in my eyes.
"Good thing I'm not queen yet," I joke. Macy smirks.
"No, but you will be. And when you are, I'm going to make you sleep in one of those wretched cells for a night," she says, tugging on a lack of my hair particularly hard that it makes me hiss. We mostly made up about the arrest, but she is still pretty pissed at me for it, and fair enough. Apparently, the guards barely watered or fed the prisoners down there, something me and Kohl quickly changed. Still, I couldn't help but feel bad about my bad judgement, and decided whatever little punishments Macy passed my way, I deserved. I should have trusted her as my friend, after all.
