Page 10 of The Kingdom of Flames

“A mistake,” the Lord of Green spoke. Celestine turned and saw a beautiful young man on a throne of living trees and ivy. His brow was crested with a circlet of roots and flowers. Her breath abandoned her at the sight of the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His skin seemed plush, and virile.

“A jest?” the Lord of Blue said. His throne was a simple thing. The floor sat with grass of a great plain. His eyes, bright like the sky, and strong face regarded the captain, encased in dark brown skin. Upon his wrist rested a great hawk, and a spear leaned against his throne.

“A challenge?” the Lord of Red spoke. Celestine spun, gazing upon the fixture of war itself. His was a throne of leather, brass, and steel. He wore thick armor, etched with something she couldn’t read. A circlet of molten black daggers sat around his brow in a red mist. The glow from his eyes was the flicker of cities on fire. His back was straight, his jaw like the firm line of a shield. A hand large enough to encircle her entire neck clenched a sword that whispered it had ended thousands of lives.

“An insult, perhaps,” spoke a voice that sounded like a snake across her skin. Celestine almost yelped when she looked upon the Lord of Scarlet, who sat upon the Spring quarter of the court. His flesh was pale. His teeth were like fangs. His throne was one of dripping blood and blades. The eyes of a predator stared her down.

“A trap.” Celestine turned around and saw the lord who spoke, who sat upon a throne of bronze that looked as if it hadn’t cooled. The metal moved and slid around him as if freshly poured from the crucible. His circlet was a helm that covered the top half of his face and had bronze horns of a magnificent bull.

“She is the Tithing, my lords.” Captain Aidric said again.

“A lovely one. Which Banner do you range from, girl?”

Celestine turned to the Lord of the Golden Banner, who looked more a wry brigand than a Lord of Season. His throne was made of stolen decadence. A sly grin greeted her that made her heart miss a beat. It was the smile that saw gowns fall to the floor. The smile that drew you in and made you forget your oaths and promises before an autumn festival.

These Lords were beautiful and terrible to look upon. They were the timeless youth of the eternal. To even think they could have been men was laughable. They looked like what men descended from. Some looked her age of twenty, some a decade past. But they felt older, older than the world.

“I am Unbannered, my Lord.”

“Indeed? Your lands prepare the Tithing then, tell us, where are the rest of them?”

“Speak, little mouse,” the Lord of Scarlet hissed. “Before we pull the bones from your body.”

“Decorum, you little creature,” the Lord of Red boomed from his throne of war in the summer quarter.

“Speak, bride,” The Lord of Green nodded from his throne of living forest. “Tell us.”

Celestine opened her mouth in the center of this beautiful nightmare. Lords of gold and war, of spring and blood and all things in her realm, stared at her. She balled her fist.

“I am the final bride of the Painted Realm.”

Shouts broke out, too akin to her own father’s table. Perhaps when men argued, it always sounded the same, but here it was like being in the center of storms. Insults crashed like thunder. Accusations.

The Lord of the Yellow Banner sat upon the summer section with Red and Blue raised his hand for silence. His throne was one of chains and silken rope, a long whip coiled in his hand, and he cracked it upon the ground of his realm. “I wish to hear this one. What does this mean, Celestine of the Unbannered? The final bride?”

“Speak your truth as you know it,” a demigod said directly behind her. Celestine turned, haunted and enthralled by a voice that sounded like it came from a bottle you couldn’t stop drinking.

Upon a throne of shadow in the winter quarter, the Lord of the Black Banner stared at her. His dress was dark, as were his eyes that stared into her like the void itself. Celestine suddenly felt like she wanted to walk to him and touch him. Like he had been designed for her. Like he had watched her for her entire life.

Upon looking at him, it was his face. He seemed to be made of everything she wanted, everything she was attracted to. He was the canvas painted by desires she didn’t even know the brushstrokes of.

If I walk to him, he is my death.

“Your Painted Realm suffers under the onslaught of your disagreement, Lords.” Celestine turned from the Lord of Black to the rest of the court. She ignored the grinning swagger of the Gold Bannered rogue who sat in Autumn in his creaking leathers and the coins that flitted around his fingers.

“Continue,” the Lord of the Red Banner demanded.

“Your people starve without crops to yield. They dig their homes from sudden blizzards, only to see their husbands drown when the snow melts suddenly under the crush of summer.” Celestine turned among the court, spinning from summer to spring, to winter and autumn.

“If this continues, our people will cease to exist. Men are turning to savagery, to depravity. Hope falters while you war for supremacy of the skies.”

“As is our right, girl,” Lord Cedarheart growled from his throne. His yellow eyes fixed upon her, his arms were cords of muscle with long blue tattoos. “As is our way.”

“That may be so, Lord of the Brown Banner.” Celestine nodded. “Yet if this continues, no one will be left to send to you. No people left. You speak ripping my bones out of my flesh? I am the last morsel of a carcass you have all picked clean!”

“Meaning?” Lord Skye asked from his Blue Banner.

Celestine inhaled, trying to quell the fear inside her. “You must give the realm order and decide your supremacy. You must decide the order of your seasons. If you cannot share power… share me.”

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