Josie closed the space between them and grabbed his arms, her grip tight as she shook him gently. “It is no burden, brother.”
And she meant it. Everything she had done here was for Aidon, yes. But it was for her people, too. She would not have done it had she thought Aidon was not fit to rule. She would not even have considered it.
Duty.
Responsibility.
Loyalty.
Those had been the values her parents had passed on to them both, and Josie…
Josie had finally learned how to make them her own.
***
Long before Aidon took the throne, he wondered who he would be if he hadn’t been raised as the prince who would one day lead. There had always been two parts of him—the Aidon who loved a crowd and thrived within one; and the Aidon who found true peace in the quiet of the woods with his father or sailing on gentle waters either alone or with a friend who was content to leave him to his thoughts.
He wasn’t sure which of them had come first: the quiet contemplator or the crowd-lover. Which one had his upbringing carved into him? Which one had been forced to shrink to accommodate the other? He supposed it didn’t matter. He couldn’t imagine himself without either side, now.
Today, he was certainly grateful for the one who could command a crowd.
Aidon tugged at the collar of his fighting leathers. Thesun had already arced past its highest point, and a breeze was rolling in off the waves behind him, but he couldn’t help but feel overheated as he stood in the small tent behind the makeshift stage Lucas had managed to get erected on the sand of the crescent moon beach with no notice whatsoever.
“Please,” he’d scoffed from his infirmary bed. “It’s like you think I’ve never planned an event while on bed rest.”
“Youhaven’tever planned an event while on bed rest,” Clyde had chimed in, eyeing Lucas’s broken leg skeptically.
“Would we call this an event?” Aidon had asked. It felt more like a sentencing, especially now that he could hear the murmurs of a crowd as they gathered on the beach. Rumor had it that the news of Aidon’s return had spread, but he’d heard nothing of the overall sentiment with regards to his arrival.
Oh well. This wasn’t about him—not really.
“Ready?” Josie asked as she ducked her head inside the tent.
“As I’ll ever be,” Aidon muttered. His eyes flicked upward, as if he could see the golden crown sitting on his head. It felt foreign after so many months without it. “Areyouready?” he asked his sister.
Josie shifted her weight between her feet. “I’m not the one addressing our people.”
“Ah, but you are the one about to be lauded as a hero.”
Josie’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare.”
“I will not let you go uncredited.”
His sister waved a dismissive hand. “Let the bards sing of it in the taverns.”
“It’s time,” Aleissande interrupted from the tent flaps.
Aidon stretched his neck from side to side, nerves fluttering in his chest as he cleared his throat. He paused before he plucked the crown from his head, the gold warm against his hands.
It is not the crown that makes the king.
Dauphine’s words were a soothing whisper in his ear.
He could do this. Hewoulddo this—not for himself, but for his people.
For Eteryium.
Aidon straightened his spine and lifted his chin. And then he strolled out of the tent, ready to make his plea.
