The Crimson Crown

King Aldemar

King Aldemar of the Four Winds Kingdom ruled with the effectiveness and efficiency of a man raised from birth for the position. He was a man who, from a young age, had been inundated with the responsibilities of rule and order. He, like his father, was born for the position and had eagerly awaited the day he rose to power. King Aldemar knew he was in the shadows of past kings, their greatness a challenge for him to do better, to lead the kingdom to ever-lastingly glory. Every monarch had made a name for themselves: his father bringing forth sweeping economic changes with renewed trade agreements, his grandfather’s great schoolings that brought education to the masses, and his great grandfathers for bringing together the sprawling towns under one banner.

Each King before him had a legacy, and King Aldemar worked tirelessly to craft his own. He would be remembered; he would be a man the kingdom worshiped and prayed to when he passed; his rule would be marked by what he had done as a King and a man. He loved his wife, Queen Elenora, and prayed for a day he could allocate the time to caring for her properly. He loathed every day he was forced to rely on her attendants, wishing he could be there for her. From the day he first saw her to when their sons were born, to now, he loved her. She had been an unruly princess, and King Aldemar had used much of his father’s training to bring her into line; women, after all, were not meant for the throne, for a life of rule, but he loved her all the same. 

Queen Elenora, like many queens before her, was a symbol to the people. She represented the love and caress of the throne, while King Aldemar was the bronze and might. He crushed and destroyed so she could be the face of compassion and growth. She was as much a symbol of the royal lineage as he was. The fools of the kingdom placed too much weight upon the Queen’s words, and King Aldemar shook his head at their ineptitude, but it was useful to get what he wanted. He saw the queen for her true self, one to be controlled and kept under his thumb. She, like his mother to his father, was a tool to be used, and he had worked tirelessly to instill that in his son. The kingdom had once seen the arrogance of women, and it never would again.

Long ago, men far wiser than King Aldemar himself foresaw the inevitability of women rising to power once more and set forth programs to forestall the fall of the kingdom. After the disastrous actions of the long-dead Queen, no Queen would rule over the Kingdom of the Four Winds again, ever. While King Aldemar had a say in his wife’s treatment and ensured she was properly cared for, he wasn’t privy to the finer details; he had other matters to attend to. As he ascended to the throne, he became inundated with the worries of an entire nation, he couldn’t be bothered with that of a single woman.

To that end, following the guidance of his father, he accepted the help of the Queen’s attendants, who took over her training and guidance. With the burden lifted from his shoulders, King Aldemar was once again able to focus on what truly mattered: building his legacy.

The fire crackled in the hearth, night’s brisk winds lapping at him through the open balcony doors, candlelight glistening in King Aldemar’s eyes as he heated the wax seal. The metal reflected the light of the candle, sparkling gently before him as he poured the crimson wax over the letter and pressed seal firmly, letting the wax harden before removing his seal. The symbol of the Four Winds glistened up at him, the parchment it adhered to carrying forth his orders. This would be his legacy; his fingers trembled, holding the letter, deceptively light considering the weight of its contents. 

King Aldemar’s fingers tightened around the letter before handing it to the messenger boy beside his desk, “To High Marshell Azure.” he said simply, the boy bowing and leaving the room at a brisk jog. It was done; King Aldemar stared into the crackling hearth, wondering if he had doomed the kingdom to fall.

Prince Dorian

Prince Dorian held Princess Liliana close, enveloped in the warm blankets of their home away from home. Channeling as much as they had, had tired out the Princess, not that he blamed her; he was tired himself. She slept softly in his grasp, and while he was tired as well, his mind was a whirlwind of thoughts that quelled any chance of getting some needed sleep. 

Prince Dorian was not like his father; he didn’t have the iron grip or tenacity to crush the enemies of the kingdom. His father knew it as well; it was a large reason why Dorian and his brothers had been sent to the army, to toughen their will. The army had strengthened Dorian, but in ways his father hadn’t predicted. King Aldemar had hoped seeing the horrors of war and what their enemies did to their kingdom would develop a resolve in Dorian to crush them to stop further wars from happening. It had instilled in Dorian a desire to end all war, the horrors of it still plaguing his mind and instilling nearly daily nightmares. 

Prince Dorian, however, didn’t seek to crush the enemy; he sought to reach peace agreements. King Aldemar had gawked at the suggestion, dismissing it with barely a thought, “We’ll never reach agreements.” he had said, “We are too different; the people of the mountains don’t think as we do, son; they worship false gods and are too primitive to understand the complex ways of our culture. For storms sake, they have a women in the throne! No wonder they fight us, they know we are right. It’s best to exterminate them like the rats they are and stop them from plaguing our great nation.”

Prince Dorian didn’t accept that rationale. Long before he went to war, he had been down to the prisons, curiosity having gotten the best of him as he went to see these so-called savages. The prisoners of war were far from the monsters his father promised they were. They looked like normal men, albeit worse for wear from the treatment of the prison, a bit dirty and bloodied from their captors or previous battles, but certainly no monsters. They had stared at Prince Dorian beyond their cages, watching him with eyes that reflected a keen intelligence far from the simplistic nature of a brute they had been made out to be.

No, these men were not the monsters modern society made them out to be; lies of three eyes, buck teeth, and cannibalism were common among townfolk and regals alike. Going to war only strengthened Prince Dorian’s understanding of these people. He had been trained in field medicine prior to being sent to war, the idea being he could save himself should he be injured without the aid of a medic. 

Being on the front lines, forced to battle forward, he had seen the terror in the eyes of the young men he fought. Their horror reflected Prince Dorian’s own. The man who faced him lunged, and Prince Dorian reflexively deflected and swept his sword up to the side, severing arteries. The man had fallen, the gaping hole in his neck draining him of life. Prince Dorian had frozen, horror filling his face as the sounds of battle slipped away, opposing forces surging forward and back in a never-ending contest, striking and retreating. 

The man had stared up at Prince Dorian, his lips bloodied as he coughed. Prince Dorian had fallen to his knees beside the man, his sword clanging to the stones below as he tried to stench the flow of blood, but this was no wound a man could heal from. Prince Dorian saw his fears reflected in the man’s eyes as his body slowly grew still, life vanishing from his face, his field medicine failing him.

Princess Liliana stirred, and Prince Dorian shifted, holding her, his mind cast back to reality from his retroflections. The men his kingdom fought were not the savages or monsters others made them out to be; they were men born to a different land with different values. Prince Dorian had vowed to bring them together, to an understanding, to end the war once and for all. Doing so would require him to ascend the throne, a feat that seemed years away. 

Prince Dorian glanced down at the woman in his arms, his beautiful wife, oh how he had fallen head over heels for her. He had known from a young age they would be together; he had watched how Father treated Mother since birth, learning from him. He had assumed all women were like her, needing to be broken and controlled; it wasn’t until his later years, that he spoke with his Mother in private that he learned there was depths to her his Father never alluded to. In fact, there was a depth to every woman he met, contrary to what Father had told him.

Prince Dorian had made many assumptions at the hands of his Father’s training. It wasn’t until near his wedding day that his Mother pulled Prince Dorian aside and had a long insightful conversations with him. The experience had left Prince Dorian amazed at how intelligent his Mother truly was and how her time with his Father had shaped her. There he learned of the many ways of the other kingdoms, as well as how women were treated outside the royal family. At the time, he hadn’t believed her, but as he learned, his Mother was no fool. She had prepared well for the moment, gathering womanly scholars from across the kingdom to show him how wrong he had been.

The first night Prince Dorian had gone to sleep after his revelation, he wept. He wept for how his Mother was treated and for the thoughts and misconceptions he had portrayed about poor, innocent Liliana despite having never met her. His mother had explained to Prince Dorian that while he may think differently now, he had to keep up the act for the sake of his father. He knew it as well; his Father would find a way to have Prince Dorian killed before taking the throne if he knew Prince Dorian’s true feelings. His Father would go on rants for hours about how women in power would bring the kingdom to its knees, and for the first 18 years of his life, Prince Dorian believed it.

Now, with his lovely wife in his arms, Prince Dorian vowed never to treat her as his Father treated his Mother. He would protect her, cherish her, and love her as his Mother never would be. Prince Dorian felt as if he were walking a tightrope between pleasing his Father, pleasing his wife, and keeping himself sane somehow through it all. He hoped Princess Liliana didn’t hate him too much for what he had been forced to do. His Father had made it clear that he would be watching and keeping careful tabs on Prince Dorian’s new wife. In the King’s own words, she was the second largest threat to the thrown after the enemy troops bearing down on their kingdom.

Prince Dorian would not give in, though, he would ascend the throne, he would lead the kingdom to victory, and all through it, he would do it with the commanding strength of his new Queen.

Elara

Elara didn’t have the knowledge or wisdom of Morris, having only been in the service of the Queen, and now the Princess, for a short few years compared to the elderly woman’s decades. Still, Elara’s dedication to the throne and the royal family had done her well, quickly rising passed other attendants and servants who prostrated at the feet of their masters. Being a servant to the Princess was a tiring job, awake after the Princess would go to bed and up again before the Princess woke. There were long nights of sewing, of cleaning, of organization that neither the Prince nor the Princess saw. That was, after all, the purpose of herself and Morris, to take such burdens off their shoulders so they could make miracles happen as they had today in the town of Insbrook.

Elara's chores and work were burdensome as it was, without the peculiarities of this kingdom’s royal family and their insufferable desire to pacify a Queen to prevent her from running the kingdom into the ground. The kingdom had had bad Queens, as they had bad Kings, as any kingdom does; yet for some odd reason Elara couldn’t understand; this kingdom had decided that one bad Queen was enough to justify their newfound hatred for female monarchs. Perhaps that was the biggest reason the enemy attacked the Four Winds kingdom. 

Although it was never said outside the castle, many people were aware of the family’s treatment of women, which had turned more than one nation against them. Most did so quietly, shutting trade routes and pulling their citizens back to their homelands, while others decided to wage war. Elara had no clue how the royal family was clueless to this knowledge getting out; the castle was filled with servants of varying nations, and it was common practice for enemy nations to position spies within their ranks. A women led the enemy nation that attacked their kingdom, a fact not missed by the king, who was devoted to his belief that women would lead a kingdom to ruin. 

Prince Dorian didn’t strike Elara as being of the same breed as his Father. From what Elara knew of the Prince, he was far more understanding and had come to terms with the fact that his Father didn’t know everything. Ironically, the boy had been sent to war to toughen him up and show him straight, which had done exactly that, but what the King didn’t foresee was that it would toughen his son against him. 

Elara made careful indentations in her notebook, a log that would be compared against other attendants such as Morris. As much as the King was the keeper of the castle, the attendants were the gears that made everything work. Elara, like Morris, was keeping careful track of everything that happened behind closed doors. She was part of a carefully orchestrated network that ran behind the scenes of the royal family. Elara’s position was one of risk, but also reward. 

Elara was privy to much information she would otherwise never have access too. As she sat there, folding and stacking diapers for her Princess, she contemplated how far she had managed to get. The King and Queen may wear the crown, but people like Elara held a power that commoners often were unaware of. She smiled to herself, noting the heavily soiled diaper that had been disposed of, the Princess having pooped herself once again this afternoon. It, along with other activities forced upon the Princess, was an indicator of how accepting she was of her new position. It was a good thing; she would make a fine Queen one day, and Elara planned to be there through everything.