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𝓑𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓼 of sunlight streamed down and through the stained glass windows, kaleidoscopes of colored light swirled throughout the extravagant chambers designated for foreign royalty, Princess Alma of Lucia, future queen of Camelot. Though it was high noon and the sun was bright, there was a certain chill in the air, pervaded by the pungent odor of death. Having been surrounded by so much violence and death in her childhood, following her father during his military campaigns with her older half brothers, the princess had developed quite a strange premonition. A sensation, humming, expanding, consuming her, that warned of the definite end for someone. It was eerie. Her skin crawled as she peered down at the Town Square where Uther Pendragon, King of Camelot and her father-in-law, was making a very public example of someone who defied him and his laws by practicing magic.

It was a fitting scene. Uther peered down form a balcony on castle, while his subjects looked on at this spectacle. The hierarchy solidified into Camelot's very fabric, Uther above and his subjects beneath. Camelot, reigned by Uther, swallowed magic within its borders and snuffed it out, like a gale, plunging the kingdom into darkness. Though the occasional flicker of magic were engendered sporadically, Camelot somehow felt darker than even Lucia, a kingdom known for the brutality of its laws. The ever looming threat of the weight of Uther's decree extinguished the hope of magic ever blooming brazenly under the heaven of Camelot.

Unlike Camelot, the Kingdom of Lucia was accepting of magic and those who practiced it. Two separate councils had been had been established by King Aldahir, great grandfather of Princess Alma, after he inherited the throne from his uncle, King Lionel; one was comprised of advisors and high nobility of those without magic and a separate council for those with magic. Though there was no shortage of conflict between the two populations cohabitating the growing empire, the royals of Lucia recognized that it would be easier to try to appease those with magic and accommodate them as opposed to trying to purge them out (as exemplified by Camelot). That did not mean that those with magic received special privileges which other citizens were denied; but they were held to the same strict, iron clad laws which other citizens were under. King Lunden, Princess Alma's father, ruled with an iron grip, forged during the "Black Reign," the years during which King Lunden's father ruled Lucia. By the time Alma had been born, her grandfather had been dead for many years, so it wasn't as though she had felt strongly towards the late King. Quite the opposite, the more she heard about her ancestors and her family line (usually from whispers from the servant), the harder it was to have pride in her name, especially since she began staying in Camelot.

Down in the Square, King Uther gave a brief speech. His voice carried, echoes extending themselves to reach the ears of the young princess. She could not make out his words, but the executioner standing beside a man down on his knees gave away his intent. King Uther reminded Princess Alma of her own father. They were the heavy hammer, forging their people into obedient and rigid iron underneath the weight of their egos. Their like-mindedness had forced the young woman into her current circumstances, impelled into a loveless marriage, rushed into a kingdom that was not her own to one day lead people that did not view her as their own.

Though no one she knew would agree, her father and her father-in-law had much in common. Most of Camelot spoke quite negatively of King Lunden, claiming he was a violent, polygamist brute. He seized women as trophies after military victories and forced them into his bed, as exemplified by his six wives. He had a bad temper and no respect for others and little regard for his own children, eight sons and a single daughter. He killed his own father to seize the throne when he had enough support from the military and his father's own council members. While King Uther's ascension to the throne of Camelot was much less bloody and he refused to take on another wife after the late Queen Ygraine, the purging of creatures with magic from Camelot was just as ruthless and brutal as any of King Lunden's wars. Lives were uprooted and entire villages were pillaged and depredated under Uther's orders. Being in Camelot, married to Prince Arthur and under the weight of King Uther's heavy, vigilant gaze, was still much like being prisoner to her father's temper and strict mandate.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦 || Arthur PendragonWhere stories live. Discover now