Then soldiers.
Then citizens.
Aren felt sick.
“Stop.”
Few heard.
He climbed onto the broken altar.
“STOP!”
The square quieted.
Aren looked at them.
“At the festival, everyone laughed when a guard threw me onto this floor.”
Some lowered their eyes.
“I was the same person then.”
Silence.
“The sword did not make me worth more.”
He looked toward Gaelor.
“The giants do not belong to me.”
Then toward Corvin standing in the palace doorway.
“The kingdom does not belong to me.”
A noble called, “You are the rightful King!”
Aren answered.
“Maybe.”
That stunned them.
Oren almost smiled.
Aren continued.
“But if being born to the right mother is the only thing that makes a ruler right, then we learned nothing.”
Whispers spread.
Corvin stepped forward.
“What are you saying?”
Aren looked at him.
“I don’t want your crown.”
“It isn’t mine.”
“Then nobody has it.”
That was the beginning of the hardest year in Eldoria’s history.
Not the battle.
After.
Kings are easier to remove than habits.
Some nobles demanded Aren’s coronation.
Others supported Corvin.
Several provinces threatened independence.
Generals argued that the kingdom required immediate central authority.
Merchants feared civil war.
Priests disagreed over whether the giants represented divine approval.
The giants themselves complicated everything by refusing to endorse anyone.
Gaelor answered one noble’s question with:
“WE ARE NOT ELECTION STONES.”
Aren laughed for ten minutes.
Eventually Eldoria created something new.
A Crown Council.
Not democracy in the modern sense.
Not yet.
But power was divided.
The city elected guild representatives.
Rural districts sent delegates.
Nobles retained seats.
The military had one seat, not command.
The temples had advisers without veto.
Corvin became the first High Steward at sixteen, under adult supervision.
Aren refused every permanent office.
He accepted one title.
Keeper of the Covenant.
Mostly because Oren told him someone needed to understand the giants and because “Boy Who Broke the Throne” sounded ridiculous on official documents.
Queen Maris remained in Eldoria.
She and Corvin rebuilt their relationship slowly.
Aren did not call her mother.
She never asked him to.
That helped.
Master Oren survived another nine years.
He spent them rewriting the royal histories.
Not making Aldric entirely monstrous.
Aren insisted.
“He killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“He hunted me.”
“Yes.”
“He also saved me.”
Oren looked toward him.
“You want all of it?”
“Yes.”
“People prefer simpler stories.”
“Then make them uncomfortable.”
The historian smiled.
“You are finally becoming educated.”
Aren threw a rolled parchment at him.
Oren ducked badly.
Gaelor remained near the capital for three years.
Then one morning, the giant told Aren he wished to return to the mountain.
“Why?”