Chapter 1
As the unfamiliar metal crown pressed itself harshly into Viktor's flesh, his golden eyes scanned through the thousands of bloodied zaunites bowing at his feet. They were all looking up at him with such hope. That feeling—to be regarded in this way for the first time—was… overwhelming. He thought they were incredibly naïve. After all, they knew nothing about him. And it was so different from what he had known about the citizens of Zaun for all his life. Usually, zaunites were more careful when choosing to trust someone with such an important thing. More untrusting. In the end, the pain they'd suffered made them glad to grab any hand outstretched towards them. He'd make sure that never happens again.
Still clouded with thoughts, Viktor turned to look to his right, where a small teenage girl was standing. She was the only familiar presence in this whole field of crimson red and bruised purple. He could tell that her steady gaze was already on him, though her intense blue eyes held no trace of the desperate hope that marked the others. Instead, they shone with pride—pride in him, in his vision. The kind of pride that made him want to live up to it, to protect it. He realised then that if there was anyone worth doing this for, it would be her.
Her disheveled appearance made a spark of fear climb up Viktor’s spine. He had told her to stay away from the battle, but when did she ever listen to him. He was so preoccupied with getting the runes right, he didn’t even see her sneak into their attack squad.
Nearing on the edge of panic, he quickly checked her over. She didn’t seem to have any hurt limbs or major injuries. There were dirt smudges and small scrapes on her face, but nothing he wouldn't be able to fix in a few seconds.
The braid she usually kept on her back was now untied by the struggle of the fight, revealing her rather long hair. He didn't notice how much it grew in the meantime. How fast do moments flee. Viktor glanced again at her intense blue eyes and the relief of ending the fight washed over him once more.
With newfound strength, he turned his determined gaze to the mass of people and took a step closer. The enemies weren't many but they were significantly more powerful than his supporters, so none came out clean. Looking at them now, he felt lightheaded and so, so exhausted, but there were still things to be done. Viktor wanted to repay these people for all the sacrifices they'd made today. One way to do that would be to become the leader they needed, the king Zaun deserved and the saviour they hoped for. The other was something he could do right now. He settled for both.
The ancient power flooded Viktors body on his command, honeyed eyes turning a powerful blue. His will guided the glowing strings of magic to latch onto every person bowing in front of him and deliver the enchanted ale to their wounds. Gashes closed and bones snapped back into place. Faces scrunched in relief and jaws dropped from surprise. The longer Viktor cleaned blood and repaired tissue, the more insistently his own injuries throbbed. By the time he was done with everyone, he was half convinced the sky was falling and the ground was tilting in all directions at the same time.
Before he could foresee any of it, the mass of brave zaunites rushed to him, completely mesmerized by the healing abilities he had revealed. From well-built women to frail men, they all touched Viktor reverently and whispered grateful words in his ear, like worshipers to a revived god. It was all too much for him. Just when he was about to collapse, a high-pitched voice pierced through the cocoon of people that had formed around him and made everyone stop in their tracks.
“Are you out of your freshly beaten down and barely healed minds?!” The voice shouted loudly enough for all to hear. “Can’t your stupid brains understand that the new king of Zaun would rather not have you idiots all up on him after he almost singlehandedly defeated an army of magic-infused monkeys?! Go and do something else, for fuck’s sakes!”
Viktor was extremely glad for the space that was created right after the words registered in the rightfully slandered minds of the crowd. He immediately recognized who was the owner of the blunt voice. He couldn’t exactly say that he was surprised. Jinx certainly had a way of making herself heard. With her bold attitude, striking eyes and unusually colored hair, she was hard to ignore. And that reminded him—he should find another, more suitable, hairstyle for the new length her hair required…
He didn’t get to finish that thought, because the space Jinx had oh so gracefully bestowed upon him also meant that nothing supported his weight no longer. Like a cane without a holder, he fell to the filth-covered ground, gladly accepting any sort of rest he was given.
The blue haired girl practically jumped to his exhausted body and haphazardly lifted him up by the shoulders into a sitting position. His vision struggled to focus on her worried expression. Even as tired as he was, Viktor managed to stretch his dry lips into a smile. He slowly lifted his hand and lightly stroked her cheek, in a comforting gesture. From the fact that she didn’t pull away, he could tell she wasn’t all that upset with him.
“I am alright, darling, do not fret,” Viktor said in what he wanted to be a reassuring voice. She didn’t buy it.
“Yeah, say that to me without your words slurring and then maybe your pants will stop being on fire. Oh wait, you don’t have any,” Jinx responded while helping up the newly appointed king. Her voice scaled up and down in that characteristic Jinx way Viktor was so fond of.
He admitted his wardrobe was not at its best these times, but he’d be damned if he’d ever let her win too easily in an argument. Consequently, he decided to throw his own jab at her appearance.
“Stop frowning so much, otherwise your eyebrows will stick that way. Or do you enjoy looking like a petulant child all the time?” He had to make it fatherly, after all he wasn’t just any competitor in this fight.
“I’m not a child!” Jinx’s voice cracked on the apex of her enraged sentence.
Viktor couldn’t help but let out a gravelly chuckle at the drastic change in her tone. Looking at her size, one could easily mistake her for a helpless child, nothing of concern. No one would be able to tell what she had been through or how much she had learned from all her bad experiences. She might not be very mature or serious, but that did not mean she couldn’t hold her own.
“You are a child,” Viktor said in a soft voice. “And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Jinx scoffed and grumbled something under her breath.
“Look at me. You have more to be proud of than any of those Pilties raised with a silver spoon or those greedy and disloyal Zaunites that would sell their morals for a dime, no matter what anyone says.” The conviction in his eyes was unwavering. “But you’ve been through so much at such a young age, you don’t know what it actually feels like to live.” His voice trembled slightly as he said this. Jinx didn’t know it, but this had been his childhood too—always fighting for survival, never having time to actually be a child. He didn’t want that for her.
The girl was now studying him intently. She wanted to disagree but thought about it for a bit and decided she wouldn’t be able to win that argument. Her eyes were like glass windows to her soul; you could always tell what she was feeling. She didn’t say anything after that, only turned her gaze forward, towards the small castle they were heading to.
It was built in the time when King Vander ruled, but it was not quite a castle. It was more like a stone mansion, taller than it was wide, with three glass domes—one on the top and two on the sides. The blazon of Zaun, an emerald eye, like a gem, shining in a field of crimson, was etched into the front of the building. Underneath it stood a large oak door, now wide open in the aftermath of the fight.
Thinking about it now, the official residence of Zaun’s sovereign didn’t always look like that. If Viktor remembered correctly, when the mansion was first constructed, it had a different structure. He guessed Silco had made some changes based on his personal taste. He’d make sure to do the same.
They were walking slowly, but the distance wasn’t long. Soon, the rather oversized eye was staring them right in the face. Oh, he’ll definitely change that. Together, they stepped into the eerily castle that, despite the rubble and shattered objects, still held a certain indescribable importance, weight.
Jinx, apparently, didn’t feel the barrier between the outside normality and the stillness of the chamber, because she excitedly left his side to inspect something that was dropped on the wooden floor. In the meantime, Viktor limped his way to the back wall, eyes solely focused on the massive throne that seemed to pull everything in with its sun-like gravity. When he reached his destination, he delicately traced the intricate design of the black metal and ran his hand over the soft velvet cushions. He didn’t like most of Silco’s redesigns, but this he would keep. It felt like a perfect emblem for what Zaun was supposed to represent.
Lost in the forever-flowing river of his thoughts, Viktor didn’t feel Jinx getting close until she put a warm hand on his slouching shoulder.
“Sit on it,” the girl whispered. “It’s yours now, after all.”
Jinx was right. Everything belonged to him as of his coronation. The people of Zaun had chosen him so there was no reason to doubt them. They needed a better leader and he wanted to be that for them.
Almost precariously, Viktor turned around and lowered himself on the cold seat. While he leaned back, shifting his body so he could get comfortable, Jinx brought him a tall scepter, royally sculpted, made out of a dark, sturdy wood. It looked even more imperial than the throne he was sitting on.
Before he could decline such a beautifully crafted object, that, in this case, didn’t belong to him, she pulled a shiny, ultramarine colored stone from her tool-belt and hovered it over the top of the scepter. Feeling the magical properties of the jewel, the wood split into strands and curled around it, forming a round shell to hold it in. The stone was now levitating in its elegant cage and was spreading rays of blue all across the room.
“I remember when you gave me this,” Jinx said, still admiring the fantastical symbiosis between the magical and the ordinary. “Right after you saved me from those pathetic goons and I was crying and all that,” she added, waving her hand dismissively. Jinx was always beating herself up for being ‘weak’. That never sat well with Viktor, but he didn’t get to tell her what was on his mind, because she had already moved on with her story.
“You brought me to that crappy place you called home,” she smiled at the memory, “sat me down, held me tight until I stopped crying and then you gave me this.” She was looking at the gem again, but this time with a distant look in her eyes. The light emanating from it mirrored the one of her irises. “You told me: ‘This will keep you safe, no matter what’.” She paused for a second to chuckle a little sound of amusement. “It was so cheesy and childish, but even so, it calmed me down and I always had it with me.” She was now looking at him. “Never knew you actually meant it.”
Viktor didn’t know what to say. Luckily, Jinx wasn’t waiting for an answer. She crossed the space between them and took his large hand into her smaller one, palm up. “Now it’s my turn to return the favour. It’s no longer your duty to protect only me, but all of the people of Zaun and the only way to do that, is to keep yourself safe.” Viktor gave her an unconvinced look.
“Come on! Let’s face it, nobody’s gonna do a better job at this than you! So, if you want your homeland and its citizens to live prosperous lives and all that bullshit, you have to take care of yourself.”
Viktor tried, “But why do you— “
“Nope, I’m not hearin it. You will accept my generous gesture, take the wonderful… cane… stick… whatever this is and you will be the majestic king everyone expects you to be. And that’s the end of this discussion.” Her decision was unshakable, so Viktor had no choice but to accept it.
“Very well,” he resigned to her wishes. “But I’ll have you know; my newly acquired status also allows me to enforce some restrictions onto my subjects.” The smirk was very noticeable on his face and in his tone.
"Yeah, in your dreams," Jinx’s voice echoed from the staircase as she disappeared to explore the next level.
A soft laughter bubbled out of Viktor’s throat. That girl was going to become an extraordinary person someday, he just knew it.
This day, despite the struggle to overthrow Silco and his poisoned council, turned out better than he had ever hoped. There were casualties, but only a few. He had feared for a far greater number. They even crowned him without any objections, something that he would have never expected. Of course, the work was not over, there still were many more things to be done, but right now he could enjoy the little peace given to him.
Looking through the open doors, outside in the streets, he could see the price paid in blood for the life they wanted. He didn’t know if it was worth it. All he knew is that the deal was struck and now they needed to move on the best they could. Move on and let the light shine on them at last. Yes… bright times were coming.