The After Effects

To Lead The North

It was all a dream. It had to be. There was no way that all of this is real. For starters, me killing my father, who was also the ruler of the North. On top of that, people are insisting that I take his spot.

Me? A queen? What a joke.

The past week has been absolute chaos.

After dethroning and murdering my father, I slept for two days. Apparently coming into ones powers can be quite exhausting. Killing two people with newfound powers, well that is especially tiring.

My deep sleep was the only downtime I've had this entire week. The moment I was awake, my father's council and men were demanding I meet with all of them to discuss recent events. As if that wasn't tiring enough, helpers and citizens have been coming to the castle all week, giving me gifts and begging me to take over.

It was only recently that I realized why they were doing this.

I'm supposed to take my father's spot.

That leads me to my current conversation with Locke. Rorek had his arms wrapped around me, offering me comfort while Soren stood, amused, in the corner of the room.

"You're crazy if you think I can take his spot," I hissed at my brother, who was definitely off his rocker, considering what he was telling me.

Locke straightened and crossed his arms, not buying my attitude. "We have literally been trained to be royalty since before the Plague even happened," he scoffed. "And don't even give me that 'I was fighting for my life' crap, because when you weren't fighting he had a teacher down in your cell preaching to you about this and that."

I wanted to be upset at his coarse words, but he was right. Although the learning environment wasn't ideal, the time that wasn't spent training was spent with a mean old lady that drilled math, science, and many other subjects into my brain.

"Why can't you be King?" I was grasping at straws at this point.

A small part of me tingled at the thought of being Queen, of having the power to help change the world for the better. But a large part of didn't think I deserved it. Yeah, I killed the King, but that's all I did. I've killed since I was fourteen and it's something I'm strangely good at. What if that was all I was good at?

"Because you killed the King," Locke pointed at me in case I missed his emphasis on you. "Besides, we both know you'd be a better ruler than I could ever be." His eyes flickered over my shoulder to the large male encompassing me in his embrace. "You have someone to rule alongside you and you have a real reason to fix this deeply messed up world," Locke spoke with pride. His words, while they could be interpreted as sad, were him telling me how proud he was of me and how far I've come.

I turned slightly in the huge arms that wrapped around my waist to face amethyst eyes. "What do you think, mountain man?" I asked my significant other.

"I think that you've always known that it would come to this, and I think you are more than ready to rule over these people, who also seem to really like you," Rorek said, his purple eyes dancing with black, signaling that he and his dragon were speaking as one.

"But what if I lead them wron-"

Soren caught me off as he pushed off the corner he had been standing in. "The fact that you're even concerned about that, proves that you would be a good leader. Acer," Soren quirked his eyebrow as he called me by my dreadful title. "you are probably the person most fit to rule, second, only to me, of course." I rolled my eyes at the male's insist swagger.

"Beautiful words," I teased the Prince, though I really did find his words helpful.

After all, he spent the majority of his life alone so he could focus and prepare to rule over the Southern territory whenever his father retires. If anyone could deem me fit to rule, it was indeed him.