Plethora Unraveled

Chapter 18: Misery

Liam

Plethora Summer 2030

The past one hundred days were terrible on Plethora. Death and misery were ushered in by Hope and Asia's deaths and had taken a toll on us. Two days after their deaths, Asia and Hope were burned together on a raft in the river. Queen Lovely did not, fortunately, have them marked as traitors but honored them as Princesses of Waldemar. George's body was left on display to be defiled by any bystander for about a week before they finally burned it. Our family was completely dumbfounded that the Chevaliers did not start a war with us. Only a few of us knew the true reason behind that.

Unfortunately, death was not finished with Plethora, and made more gut-wrenching appearances before resting. Just days after their funeral news spread that Queen Gilana had mysteriously died from an illness that was unhealable; even by the Chevalier healers, who could not heal her in her four-day window. Her death was proof that temporarily immortality was indeed just temporary, and we needed to find true everlasting life.

Two weeks after Queen Gilana's death, King Zais became extremely distant and decided to take a vacation. While on vacation, he completely shut everyone off, ignored our messages and calls to him, and did not return anyone's messages. Lovely became strangely nervous and tried desperately to contact King Zais repeatedly. After not hearing from him, she sent Ethan and Gavin to Vacation Isle to bring him home. Unfortunately, they were too late. He too was taken from us by death, it is believed he took his life while he was on Vacation Isle alone. We took his death extremely hard. Naturally, it affected Lovely hardest. She was extremely grief-stricken and wore colors of grief for seasons. At some point well all attempted to console her, except for Michael. They were worthless acts on our part. The only thing that seemed to calm her was a note King Zais left for her on his deathbed. She kept its contents to herself.

She eventually got better but she has not been quite the same, often disappearing for periods at a time without a trace.

Lovely was in no rush to name me the next King because she claimed that I was not ready. I believe she loved ruling alone with no one to stop some of her decisions. Her wisdom was final and so were her self-made laws, whether they were in the law books or not.

The Waldemar men flocked to her; hoping to take my future place. In some twisted way, it amused her to be the center of all the men's attention and made her feel more powerful. Their worship for her grew more intense and she craved it more.

The only thorn to the attention she received was that Michael grew distant, but what could she expect after she killed his sisters in front of him and covered it up. The Waldemar men also grew jealous of Michael because Lovely would often drop them like a bad habit just to get Michael's attention. He was the one person I was jealous of.

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It was quiet for the next one hundred days; Plethora seemed to be at peace once again. The Chevaliers finally chose and named Queen Amber as the replacement Queen for Gilana. She is of course is just as beautiful in appearance, but she failed in comparison in all other areas to their former Queen. From what I hear, she should have been given to King Johan but strangely enough, like her sister, he didn't choose her, perhaps in reverence of her late husband. He decided to marry Olivia, a simple woman he clearly doesn't love, who is hungry for the throne.