Chapter Sixty-Two
YAVARA
I struggled to sit upright in my throne as the priest before me droned on and on about the Holy Mother bestowing me with my right to rule. The seats before me were filled with hundreds of minor nobles and rich merchants, for there were no representatives of the Noble Court to witness me anymore. Perhaps it had become much less dangerous to be queen of the Highlands, but it also had become much less prestigious. To make up for the lack of nobility, I decided to conduct the ceremony in the merchant gardens instead of the castle. My throne was placed atop the hill, and the two-hundred thousand citizens of Bentius were spread out on the grassy mall below me, stretching to the very edge of the merchant district. The scars of Gorlok's attack were still very evident in the city, and even more so upon her people. Many of the attendees had missing limbs, and quite a few wore masks to hide their disfigurement. My mages would work tirelessly to heal those affected, but for the thousands of dead, there was nothing I could do.
It's not your fault.
I told myself, and hoped that in some cosmic sense it was true.
I turned my attention to more selfish concerns, and telepathically scanned the crowd for a familiar mind. I didn't find her. I hadn't expected Leveria to show up. I'd already dissolved our agreement, and with my crown tightly secured from any nobles or ambitious generals, there was no need for her. From a pragmatic perspective, her absence was likely much better for my image. Though the sight of the Dark Queen bowing before my throne would temporarily raise my standing and my ego, there was the very real possibility that it would be construed as collusion. Right now, I was trying to distance myself as much as I could from Alkandra. But I was not a pragmatist, and so I was disappointed. In truth, I missed her. Not only that, but she'd made several promises of what she'd do to me on my coronation night, and I'd found it very hard in the past week to think of anything else. I needed it. Oh god, I needed it so bad.
"Yavara!" Esmerelda hissed. If there was one thing about the rebel leader I loved (besides her tongue) it was that she never—even in front of dignitaries—called me anything other than my first name. She despised formal titles out of principle.
"What?" I whispered back.
"You were touching yourself!"
I smiled at her. "No one can see what my hands are doing in this massive dress. It has more structure than a cathedral."
"I can see!"
"Only because you're looking so hard." I winked, and enjoyed that she blushed. Esmeralda had the very alluring quirk of being a sexually-reluctant slut. Shame and trauma had done such wonderful things to her sexuality.
"Your Highness, be modest." Lady Lydia Straltaira scolded softly from the other side of my throne. Elena's mother had always been a stickler for etiquette, and so she used my title insistently. Unlike Esmerelda, however, there was nothing modest about Lydia Straltaira between the sheets. She was brazenly curious about my body, and would push her fingers into every part of me in some mad scientific effort to find out how I worked. I didn't mind in the least.
"...and on the twelfth day of creation, the Holy Mother did bestow the holy kingdom of the Highlands upon her most favored children, and the high-elves did forever tend her fields and sculpt her great hillsides. Amen," the priest finished, then cleared his throat. "Is there anyone present who doth object to the crowning of Yavara Tiadoa, first of her name?"
The gardens were silent.
The priest held up the crown that I'd already worn for the past three months, and placed it ceremoniously upon my head. "Then by the power vested in me as high priest of the Holy Order, I do declare Yavara Tiadoa, first of her name, to be the ruler and protector of the Highland Kingdom."
The attendees broke into a standing ovation, and the air filled with their adulation. They filed into the aisle, and one by one, they began their ascent up the throne. What a line they formed; god, it was going to be a long day. This was what I got for following Esmerelda's advice of being more "accessible to the people" or whatever stupid hippy shit she said. Not only was this going to be pointlessly boring, but it was also dangerous. Though I doubted any of my subjects would be foolish enough to try to assassinate me, I still scanned the mind of each person who paid tribute to me.
Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip, don't trip...
thought one dignitary right before he stumbled on the last step, and splayed out before my feet. I bid him to kiss my ring, then I watched him leave in abject humiliation.
Don't look at her tits, don't look at her tits, don't look at her tits...
thought a merchant who was doing an admirable job of keeping his gaze fixed on my face. I rewarded his chivalry by raising my ring hand just above my bosom, and allowing him a long linger down my cleavage as he kissed my ring.
God, that dress is so ugly on her. Her sister had such better taste,
thought a lesser noblewoman of the Feractianas province as she kissed my ring.
I need to piss so fucking bad!
thought a stablemaster of the Feltian province.
Do I bow, or do I kneel? Half the people are bowing, and half of them are kneeling! Is there a rule? How come nobody told me about this?!
thought a panicky young maiden as she made my way to me.
"Nobles and dignitaries bow; merchants and craftsmen kneel." I told her with a smile.
She gaped at me in shock, then fumbled with her dress, and got onto one knee.
Then I guess this fulfills my end of the bargain.
Leveria chuckled sardonically in my mind as the maiden glanced up at me to reveal a pair of blazing orange eyes.
By the way, that dress is fucking hideous.
I did an admirable job of keeping my face impassive, I think. The royal mages that surrounded me didn't notice a thing, and Esmerelda and Lydia were too busy conversing with the guests to look down at the lowly made prostrating before the queen. Leveria's eyes had already turned back to their high-elf blue in the time it took me to blink. She smiled wickedly at me, took my hand in hers, and kissed our family ring. Only she didn't just give it a peck; she sucked it sensually into her mouth, then tongued the space between my knuckles. When she was done, she stood up, and walked away. Before I even had a chance to process what had happened, she had already disappeared into the crowd. I was so stunned that I didn't notice the great hush that had come over everyone. I looked up.
Elena Straltaira was standing before me and Bentius in all of her bronze glory. She'd discarded the robe she'd used to conceal herself, and now revealed herself to all in one of Leveria's form-fitting dresses that left almost nothing to the imagination. Headmaster Lucian fumbled to cast a perception spell, but it was no use. I felt all the eyeballs of the kingdom fixed on the woman who had been their queen. Surely many of them had heard the rumors of what she was, but those rumors had faded over the course of Elena's brief reign. Now, every rumor they'd ever heard about her was validated, and the worst part of it all was that most of them were true.
I hissed under my breath to her, "What the fuck are you doing?!"
"Showing them," she said, "they'll need to get used to people like me in the coming years. I won't have a war started because an angry mob crucified one of Leveria's daughters!"
"Why would one of her daughters be here?!"
"Do you want to trade with the outside world, Your Highness?" Elena hissed, "Because if you do, you'll have to go through Alkandra."
"She's lifting her sanctions?"
"Yes. We'll talk later. Right now, you need to handle this situation with grace. The people are waiting on your reaction."
I cleared my throat, and gestured magnanimously toward Elena. "The people of Bentius welcome Ambassador Elena Straltaira, ranger of Castle Thorum, noblewoman of the court, and queen regent of the Highlands." I said.
I was answered with more deafening silence. For a moment, the very air seemed to be muted, then someone dared break the suppressing void with a clap of their hands. A smattering of applause followed, and a few unsure cheers came after, and then the tension broke with some laughter. There wasn't a great upswelling of adulation from the people for the woman who had sacrificed everything for them, but there wasn't a great uproar of anger either. There was simply a subdued appreciation, and a quiet fear of what invisible line in history had just been crossed.
Elena bowed, then elected to kneel instead, and kissed my ring. When she stood up, it was on shaky legs that she did so. Her mother was at her side a second later to hastily guide her into the royal tent. If she had waited a fraction of a second longer for the tent flap to close, I would've missed the firm smack on the ass Lydia gave her daughter. If she hadn't been so hasty, then perhaps she would've remembered to secure the flap instead of letting a gust of wind reveal the violent blowjob she was giving Elena a second later. I made a quick motion toward Headmaster Lucian, and he cast a spell on the tent flap, securing the rope. Then I donned my royal smile, and addressed my next subject.
After ten hours of people kneeling, bowing and kissing my ring, the watchmen closed the park, and the crowd dispersed. I declined the palanquin that would take hours to get back to the castle, and instead just flew over the city, keeping close to the rooftops lest I lose my energy. I had to land two times between my journey, one time causing a young boy to nearly piss himself when I dropped onto his bedroom balcony. I got a little too ambitious when I tried to fly from the noble district wall to the top of the castle tower, and for thirty terrifying seconds, I struggled to reach my window. After collapsing in a fit of wheezes and cold-sweats on my office floor, I decided to never again try something that fucking stupid again. I wasn't that woman anymore.
I filled up the bathtub, indulged in a long hot soak, and then with my skin freshly cleaned and the day's grime washed away, I toweled myself off, and put on my robe. I opened my office door, and looked down the hallway. Lydia's door was closed, as was Esmerelda's. The ambassador's room door was also shut, and the 'do not disturb' sign hung from the doorknob. I sighed. Looked like it was just going to be me, a glass of wine, and my entire treasure chest of dildos tonight. I gave Elena's door one final woeful glance, then walked back into my office. If she kept this up, I was going to have to buy a discrete consort from Ardeni to fulfill my needs. It had been over a hundred days since I'd last had a man inside of me, and not since Brock and Alkandi had double-teamed me almost a year ago had I felt a cock inside this high-elf body of mine.
I opened my bedroom door, and was disappointed to see no one waiting for me in my bed. I didn't know what I expected. I grabbed a bottle of wine, opened my closet, hauled out my heavy chest of goodies, and opened it to reveal all the loneliness inside. Half of these were from Prestira Rasloraca's private collection. What a lonely life she had led; opining for a man who would never love her like he should. Would that be my fate after all this time? I shook away the thought, and selected the biggest piece of silicon in the box. I paused, frowned, then selected another one. Violent anal masturbation without proper pretreatment could be risky, but I had gone to the bathroom and bathed already; it should be fine. It sometimes galled me that God had decided I should gain more pleasure from my asshole than my pussy. Yes, I could orgasm easily from vaginal stimulation just like every other girl, but what made me so much fun was that there was a second, even more sensitive g-spot stuck in that naughty little hole back there. That cute little bleached hole that I always kept fresh with a scented enema; that fun little fudge factory that sometimes violently expelled great fountains of stinking diuretic shit. I grabbed an extra towel just in case, then selected a bottle of lube, and stood upright to see a pair of burning orange eyes staring at me from the darkness.
"Ooo, someone's having a fun Friday night." Leveria giggled from my closet.
"FUCK!" I screamed, and dropped my dildos in fright. They bounced off the floor, and rolled into the black. A booted foot stopped one, and a magical flame was ignited to burn the end of a cigarette, revealing Leveria's dangerous face in the darkness. She blew out the smoke, savored the atmosphere she cultivated, then lit the lamp oil in the lantern above, and illuminated the whole of the closet.
