The Slave Queen Of Etherion Ch 12

Chapter 12

Malachite Palace, Lysannum

On the thirty-second day after King Steven's funeral, Jade's coronation was held. Her coronation gown had been designed to emphasise her status as both Queen and slave. She wore a high-collared circular neckpiece that she donned beneath her slave collar, that lay across the tops of her shoulders and descended down her back and upper chest, not quite reaching down to the tops of her breasts. It was black at the top, and faded through silver to white at the bottom, and heavily embroidered with silver thread, her golden slave collar standing out against the dark background. She also wore a tight silver-embroidered corset which compressed her waist from her hips to just beneath her breasts, pushing them upwards and forwards, emphasising her glittering diamond-set nipple rings. She also wore long, tight, silver embroidered gloves that extended up to her upper arms, though her fingers were bare, and on her legs, she wore her thigh-high ballet boots. A pair of footless silver embroidered hose that would cover her legs from ankle to upper thigh and were intended to be supported by clips that hung from her corset had been made, but she had come to love the ballet boots that Rodger had commissioned for her so much that she insisted on wearing them instead. She wore her long black hair in a simple high ponytail, gathered with a modest black leather tube rather than the elaborate coiffure that a princess who wasn't also a slave might have worn at her coronation.

Rodger watched as Xenia helped Jade into her elegant, erotic clothing, and he came over to hug her... and to fondle her bare, protruding breasts and slip a hand between her legs, where he felt a sudden wetness. "I want to fuck you," he murmured into her ear.

"We don't have time for that," she said forcefully, trying but not quite succeeding in concealing a smile. "I'll be late!" However, her hand lingered on his where it caressed her breast, before she slapped it away lightly.

He laughed and kissed her on the back of the neck before stepping back to allow Xenia to continue her work.

Xenia applied makeup to the princess with a speed and skill gained from years of experience. She applied a subtle blush and eyeshadow, and applied lip paint the colour of fresh blood. However, she wasn't finished there, and also applied blush to Jade's bare breasts, and drew a mid-pink line around the edge of Jade's areolae to make them appear even more perfectly round and defined, then applied a paler pink paint to Jade's pale nipples and the middle of her areolae. Finally, she trimmed and applied a clear varnish to Jade's finger and toe nails.

"That's it... we're done, Jade," Xenia said.

"Thank you... Now... chain me, master!" she ordered him.

Rodger knelt to fit shackles around her ankles, the pair linked together by a short chain that was joined to a similar chain connecting the shackles that Rodger fastened around her wrists by a third length of chain. It wasn't as restrictive as it looked; while she held her hands high, a heavy steel ring around the chain connecting ankle chain to wrist chain ensured that her ankle chain would appear quite short, but if she lowered her hands, it would become almost long enough to run normally, save that her wrists were connected by a four-inch-long chain that wouldn't allow her to swing her arms properly.

Rodger stood and clipped a chain leash to the ring at the front of Jade's collar.

"How do I look, love?" Jade asked.

"Ravishing," Rodger complimented her. "Which is what I'll be doing to you as soon as I get the opportunity..."

Jade looked over Rodger in his formal Galadian tartan kilt and sash, and her chains rattled as she brushed away a speck of lint, tugged his sash into a flatter position, and adjusted his off-kilter sporran.

"Let's go," Jade ordered, leading her master behind her by the chain around his wrist that was connected to her collar.

Rodger had to admit that his slave had an excellent air of command when she wanted.

Jade and Rodger acquired an escort of eight soldiers armed with halberds, their breastplates and kit gleaming and immaculate. As they left the palace, Jade dropped back into a position behind and to the left of Rodger, where she would appear to be led by her master as they walked along the roped-off path through the city square which teemed with cheering and whistling people.

High Lord's Cathedral, Lysannum

As they entered the cathedral, and were momentarily in an antechamber, out of earshot of everyone but their guards, Rodger spoke. "I bet that I can fuck you during the ceremony," he implicitly challenged her to avoid it.

"As pleasant as it is, you are

not

going to pound my pussy with your cock during my coronation!" Jade disagreed.

"I didn't say anything about giving you a good pounding... The bet is just that I get my cock into your cunt during the ceremony. What you do once it's in there is up to you."

"All right... but no sneaky fucking when no-one is looking, everyone who's paying attention has to know that we're doing it."

"Agreed," he said. "Winner gets a night with Xenia -- or anyone else they want -- and the loser has to watch, but doesn't get to cum."

"It's a bet."

There was a knock on the door, and a barely-adult altar-girl with bright coppery hair, wearing her ceremonial regalia entered. "Is the Princess ready to proceed?" she asked, blushing slightly and not looking directly at Jade.

"Briony, isn't it?" Jade asked the girl. "Briony Lovechild?"

"Uh... Yes... your... um... Princess," the girl replied.

"Briony, please look at me," Jade said. When the girl looked, blushing even more furiously than before, Jade continued. "Good... Now, do you see the slave rings in my nipples, navel and clit?" Jade asked. "What about my slave collar and shackles?"

"Uh... yes, ma'am..." Briony answered hesitantly.

Jade sighed.

"An appropriate response would be, 'I'm not blind, slave, now get to the point before you earn yourself a flogging!'" Rodger interjected.

Briony looked shocked. "I couldn't address her highness so!"

"So you shouldn't," Jade agreed. "But right now, I'm

not

the Crown Princess... I'm just Prince Rodger's personal slave. You're the daughter of a whore, aren't you?" Jade asked. "Your father could be any one of dozens of Johns whom your mother fucked for money, right?"

A frown crossed Briony's pretty face. "Well...

I

wouldn't have put it

that

way... but yes."

"Society makes little distinction that you're the bastard daughter of a wealthy property owner and business-woman when your mother is a whore and the madam of The King's Temptation," Jade started. "And surely, given that background, you've seen whores and slaves in a state of partial or complete undress? Maybe you've even seen what their 'gentlemen callers' do with them?"

"Well... lots of times to the first, and the other a few times too..." Briony replied.

"Well, Briony,

as

a slave, I'm of little more importance than a common sex slave whose owner pimps her out for profit... and unless I'm acting in my capacity as princess -- or queen -- then all I am, and all I

want

to be, is Rodger's slave and fuck-toy."

Briony smiled a little wryly and looked Jade up and down like a piece of meat, walking around her, brushing a piece of lint from Jade's neatly-trimmed pubic hair, lifting Jade's breasts to look at the crease beneath them, and tweaking Jade's nipple rings into the perfect position. "It looks like your slave is just about ready, your highness," Briony said to Rodger, her voice sounding as if she was suppressing her laughter with some difficulty. "There's just one thing..."

"What's that, Briony?" Rodger asked.

"Well... your slave's bum is awfully pale..." she said. "Her

cheeks

... and tits have been rouged, but not her bum. Shouldn't a slave have that 'Just Spanked' look?" Briony continued to sound as if she was suppressing her laughter as she spoke, then she burst out in peals of laughter as her mirth got the better of her. "How was that, slave?" Briony asked Jade when she regained her self control.

"That was perfect, Briony," Jade replied with another smile, then stood with her legs slightly apart, and leaned forward, holding on to the back of a chair, thrusting her pale buttocks toward the altar girl. "Could you please correct that oversight mistress?"

Briony glanced toward Rodger, who nodded, smiling slightly.

Briony began to spank Jade's pale bum, her strokes light and stinging, working her way around so as to cover Jade's backside completely. As she slapped Jade's bum, Rodger whispered something into Briony's ear that was lost to the rhythmic '

Smack! Smack! Smack!

' of Briony's hand on Jade's bum.

By the time Briony was done, asking Rodger, "How does that look?", Jade was regretting her request. Briony had spanked her bum thoroughly, and while the individual strokes had been light and initially bearable, their cumulative effect had become painful to the point where Jade hissed between gritted teeth with the pain of each stroke.

"It just needs those last touches I mentioned," Rodger said.

'

Last touches?

' Jade thought, having not heard her master speak.

"Yes, Sir," Briony replied.

"Aaaah! Owww!" Jade screamed as Briony smacked her bum twice more, much harder than previously, once on each bum cheek.

"Thank you, Briony. That's perfect," Rodger complimented the girl. "You may pass the word that my slave is ready for the ceremony to begin."

"Thank you, mistress," Jade said to Briony as she straightened up.

"You're welcome, slave," Briony replied just before she slipped back out of the door.

Jade twisted herself around and tried to peer over her own shoulders and under her arms as she tried to look at her own bum, until Rodger gestured toward the mirror. Jade stood with her back to the mirror and looked back over her shoulder, to see that her bum was a neat, even red all over, with the clear mark of a hand-print with spread fingers right in the middle of each of her bum-cheeks, placed in such a way that everyone would know that she had been spanked hard, and that she couldn't have done it to herself.

"Owww..." Jade said, resisting the urge to rub her aching, stinging arse. "That'll teach me not to open my mouth."

"I dare say," her master agreed with a grin. "That was all

your

idea."

Just then, the opening chords of the organ music that was Jade's cue to enter began. There was plenty of time before the opening chords gave way to the theme that was her cue to enter, but she checked her chains and tugged on her leash until Rodger took up his position at the doors.

"All right, love," Rodger said to Jade as they waited. "Let's go get you crowned."

As the music changed, cueing their entry, the doors swung open away from them, each of the huge, ornately-carved leaves of the door being pulled by a burly porter.

Rodger waited a moment for his musical cue, then stepped forward, leading Jade at a measured pace on her leash toward the dais where the Bishop awaited their arrival.

On stepping onto the dais, Rodger unsnapped Jade's leash.

"Prince Rodger, Tharnirion commends you for your care of your slave, Princess Jade, and thanks you for permitting her to fulfill her duty to her nation," the Bishop pronounced, Rodger giving a formal nod of acknowledgement.

Rodger bunched up Jade's leash and put it into the sporran that dangled at the front of his formal Galadian kilt as he retired to stand beside the throne that stood behind the Bishop.

The Bishop continued, now addressing the Princess directly.

"Princess Jade, please kneel," he instructed her, gesturing toward the plump, royal purple cushion embroidered with the national crest that Briony the altar-girl placed reverently between them.

When Jade had followed the Bishop's instructions, sinking gracefully to her knees onto the soft cushion, the stern-faced man continued.

"The institition of Monarchy has been handed down from generation to generation, from the first ever King, Alpharius the Wise, who received his title and his crown directly from the hand of the High Lord, Dominus Excelsus, Himself. On occasion, being the fallible beings that we are, we have forgotten that which the High Lord has decreed, and have needed to be reminded... by the High Lord himself, and by His four Saints, Koros the Restorer, Nethalem the Just, The Red-Handed One, and most importantly today, Hetara, the Queen of the Night, whose travails and triumphs showed men that women are also fit to rule, and that it is

men

who are the most likely to be ruled by their lusts.

"Of course, Dominus Excelsus is the greatest of the gods, the lord of Heaven, but we of Tharnirion must also acknowledge the goddess Idelinæ, Goddess of Victory, for her assistance in gaining Tharnirion's independence when the people of Etherion suffered under the rule of the dark elves of the Brialasan Empire. We must also acknowledge the evil Darin Steelmaster, first free king of Radsarnum, whom history records as Darin the Blackmailer, magus, inventor and high priest of the evil god Stelvarn, without whose assistance the Brialasan Empire would never have been driven from this world, whose price for that assistance was the hand in marriage of the most beautiful and desirable maiden in all Etherion, rule of a kingdom for himself and his heirs, and perpetual acknowledgement. Thus, let it never be said that the worshippers of Dominus Excelsus fail to honour an agreement, even when made with evil men. We must also acknowledge the fair Ella of Sneklum, who, after her true love and fiancee had been murdered by Darin the Blackmailer, agreed to marry her fiancee's murderer, and proved when she and Darin fell in love against her inclinations, that a person may have more than one true love in their lives, and that love is stronger than evil, when King Darin the Blackmailer turned from worship of Stelvarn for love of his wife.

"The Monarchy of Tharnirion has a long and mostly distinguished history. From the first monarch, Queen Lysanna the Strong, who gave her name to this city, and established the tradition that monarchs be buried with their crown when she insisted on being buried with the crown that she wrested from the very brow of the Brialasan empress herself, and cleansed of its evil with the power of the High Lord, to Queen Angharad Sorenid, who abdicated in favour of her beloved husband, King Steven Agutter, styled 'The Cunning,' and became his slave so that the curse of the Sorenid dynasty would be broken: 'Til the last Sorenid monarch dies in the chains of slavery, each Sorenid king shall suffer madness, that he knows not friend from foe, for had I been met with justice, the blessings I could have given would have proved me to be a friend indeed.' Thus spoke the witch Sharlanne from the pyre upon which she was unjustly burned to death by King Vall the Fearful for her imaginary, unproven and unprovable crimes.

"King Steven himself was a good man, risen from the gutters and slums to attend the Royal Officers' college by the sacrifices of his loving family, and come to royal estate by virtue of winning Queen Angharad's nuptial challenge. He has been called many things: Good, Wise, Just, and less flatteringly, Lustful, but the description that suited him best was Cunning: No matter the problem, King Steven always found a solution, even if it was unorthodox.

"So, we come to Princess Jade, the only legitimate child of King Steven Agutter and his slave-wife Angharad Sorenid. However, mere ancestry does not make a monarch. As its monarch is guardian of the laws and traditions of Tharnirion on behalf of all the peoples of Tharnirion and the land itself, tradition demands that a new monarch must pass certain tests, and make the vows of the monarchy in order to take their post."

The Bishop turned to Briony, who was holding an ancient sword with a black pommel stone, lying on a cushion, offering it to the Bishop. The sword was not rusty, but like an ancient carving knife, was pitted with age and had been sharpened to a mere sliver of its former self, until it could no longer be expected to withstand the rigours of battle. The bishop lifted the sword and displayed it to the audience.

"This is Elfbane, the sword wielded by Queen Lysanna herself, with which she removed the head of the Brialasan empress before removing the crown from her cold dead brows. It has seen better days, but when wielded by a true monarch of Tharnirion, it shall regain a utility in equal measure to the potential of the monarch who holds it, and the gem at its pommel shall glow with the light of the monarch's justice."

The Bishop offered Elfbane to the kneeling Princess Jade, who stood and took it and raised it above her head as the Bishop stepped back. The pommel stone glimmered with a faint blue light, and the cathedral was filled with a sudden deep, resonant thrum that shook the dust from the ceiling as the sword visibly grew from an object that was not much more than an over-sharpened shortsword to a longsword, then a broadsword, then a bastard sword, then a two-handed sword, then even larger still, until Jade's arm trembled with the effort of holding its huge bulk aloft, then the dim blue light within the pommel flared up until it was so bright that no-one could look at it, and had to turn away and cover their eyes. Then there was the sudden crash and deep-toned clangor as a huge metal bar bounced and clanged on the stone floor before coming to rest, then suddenly the thrum fell silent and the actinic, blinding light winked out, leaving the bright cathedral seemingly little more than a dimly lit hall in comparison.

Jade and Rodger opened their eyes that they had closed against the blinding light, as did the Bishop and the other ceremonial attendants, to see Elfbane, once more a mere over-sharpened shortsword, lying on the floor amidst the stones of the floor that had been chipped, cracked and shattered by its fall, a yard and more from where it lay innocuously.

"Oops..." Jade whispered to the Bishop. "I couldn't hold it..."

"Never mind," the Bishop replied equally quietly. "It was a good omen...

very

good."

The Bishop raised his voice once more. "The next test is the Test of Fertility. Being able to father -- or bear -- heirs of the body is not an

essential

duty of a monarch, but a kingdom is more stable in the knowledge that the succession has been guaranteed. To this end, we have the Girdle of Alaya," the Bishop referred to the Goddess of Fertility and Farming, as he gestured toward a young man carrying a long, broad leather belt. "Alaya's Girdle is known for being impossible for an infertile person to wear, while the number of holes which pass through the buckle indicates the number of children the wearer may father or bear. Princess Jade, please raise your arms."

Jade's chains clinked as she lifted her arms in front of her face, and the young man stepped in front of her and put the broad leather girdle around her waist, and fed the end of the girdle's belt through the tongueless buckle, then stepped back. The girdle clung to her hips for a moment, the end of the belt neither pulling in nor moving out, then suddenly the end of the belt whipped through the buckle, pulling tighter and tighter until Jade's waist was cinched in far more than her corset could ever account for, and she gasped in surprise and grabbed for the girdle. As she touched it with her hands, it stopped pulling tight, and popped back out to hang loosely on her bare hips once more.

"I think that we can safely say, 'Lots'," the Bishop said, eliciting a ripple of laughter from the assembled witnesses.

"The final test is the Test of Gold. Gold flows toward the monarch, and it is a measure of a monarch's greatness that gold flows from her hands, that she is touched by it, yet is not burned by her desire for it."