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The irony of a weak little human speaking to him, a great king, that way, was not lost on Konan. He found the way she looked past his brutish exterior and saw the creature inside to be very unsettling — and never more so than this very moment.
“I was never afraid of it. I wanted to be king in my own way. I did not want the symbiotic creature you have mistaken for a piece of headwear to have any impact on…”
He stopped in the middle of his sentence and stared into eternity.
The crown was speaking to him, flooding his mind with images. He saw his younger brother, and then their father, and then their father’s father. He felt and saw his ancestral lineage reaching back through time.
He fell to his knees as the voices of his ancestors spoke to him, deep booming voices like thunder, telling him of ancient events, and chiding him for delaying his coronation so long.
They had seen all. They knew all. And they were angry.
“Did I break him?” Elizabeth looked over at Herk, suddenly much less sure that she had been as wildly clever as she thought.
Herk shook his head. “The crown is speaking to him. It told me I was a pissant unworthy of wearing it. It told me to go find the rightful king. That’s why I’m here.”
“I guess you did the right thing. He’s looking very rightful.”
Herk gave her a guarded look. “Are you his mate?”
“I’m his prisoner,” she said. “My name’s Elizabeth. He’s been interrogating and brutalizing me for being a spy.”
“You have suffered at his hands then. You know he is not… nice.”
Nice was not a word which could be used to describe Konan in either positive, or negative terms. It was a word that failed to match him on any level.
“He’s not nice. He’s much, much more than that.”
Herk nodded with that same reluctant lack of understanding. He was looking at her with a shifty, nervous gaze, opening his mouth and then closing it again, as If he had something to say but couldn’t quite say it.
“A king cannot truly be great without a great queen. Our mother was an impressive woman. She died at the same time as my father. They were both betrayed by their most trusted advisor.”
“So that’s where he gets his paranoia from.”
“I didn’t help matters,” Herk admitted. “But Konan was not a good king. He killed half the court before I took the crown. He might have killed all of them. You have no idea how dangerous he was, or how feared he still is on our world. I didn’t take the crown because I wanted power for myself. I took the crown because I was scared he would put it on one day and become even more powerful and brutal. But then, when I had it on, it just made me go find him.”
Elizabeth looked at Herk, then at Konan, then back at Herk again. She wanted to accuse the younger prince of lying, but his words made sense. She’d seen Konan attempt atrocities with her own eyes. Twice he had fired missiles at inhabited cities and ships without any real concern for the occupants. The fact that his ship had not enabled them to happen did not excuse them. And then there were the indignities and pains she had suffered at Konan’s hands. He’d said he was a changed king, but…
“You’re telling me I just crowned a violent tyrant.”
“That is an accurate way of putting it, yes.”
She looked over at Konan, who even on his knees was a brute far taller than her. She watched his face flex and change with expressions that indicated he was deep in wordless conversation with forces she could not see, or hear, but clearly inhabited the crown.
“Ooops.”
At that moment, Konan opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at her.
“Uh, Konan? Okay, so…”
He advanced on her without a word, and every instinct she had ever possessed screamed inside her head: RUN!
She ran as fast as her feet would take her, but of course it was useless. She might have been able to lose him if she had a head start, but the king was much faster and so much more powerful. He reached out, grabbed her by her hair and neck, stopping her in her tracks and subduing her like a frightened kitten at the same time.
“This is what you wanted,” he seethed. “You wanted a monster to dominate you. You wanted a king to rule you absolutely. You have both now, you arrogant little human. You should never have meddled.”
When she looked into his eyes, she no longer saw any of the vulnerability that had once allowed itself to be seen in their most tender moments. The core of Konan had been locked away, replaced with a hard veneer of royal rage.
