Rex felt like his head was stuffed with cotton and pounding with drums. He hadn't slept a wink last night. How could he, when they had shoved him into a room so extravagant it felt more like a museum than a place to rest?
The bed was too large, the sheets too soft, the canopy overhead suffocating. He wasn't used to ceilings painted with gold filigree or pillows that swallowed his head the moment he lay down.
Mira Lilith's cushions were of a far superior quality---
The bath had been worse. They had led him into another door where steaming water poured from lion-headed fountains, and servants tried to fuss over him like he was some fragile porcelain doll.
He waved them off, locked the door, and sat in the water alone, feeling like a thief who had stumbled into the wrong house. The heat seeped into his bones, yes, but he couldn't shake the sense that at any moment someone would burst in and and shout that it was all a prank. A final, cruel gift for his last day alive.
Then the clothes. Ugh, the clothes. Even the garments meant for sleep were too fine for his liking, soft silks that clung too easily to his skin, stitched with patterns that glittered faintly in the lamplight. He wore them for all of ten minutes before tossing them aside and pulling on only the plainest robe he could find.
And the food. Plates of cheese, sliced fruit, sugared nuts, and a decanter of wine had been arranged by his bedside, as though midnight hunger were a royal condition that had to be anticipated and cured with delicacies. He hadn't touched any of it.
He wasn't about to risk falling asleep after gorging himself on what looked like bait in some elaborate trap. He left the dishes untouched, watching them until the candles burned low, until dawn crept in and another day began without him ever shutting his eyes.
And now morning had come, dragging him into yet another absurdity.
The capital beyond the palace walls had erupted into celebration. A festival, they said.
A week-long spectacle, parades and feasts, as if the entire land had decided to throw away its burdens just to worship the crown on his head. Rex had seen nothing like it since New Year's Eve back home, the kind where fireworks lit up the slums and everyone drank to forget their lives for a night.
Only here, it wasn't just a night. It was a whole week.
And not just a celebration of the crown. A rebirth. They had changed the kingdom's very name overnight. The old one was already gone, scrubbed away, erased. Now everything bore Aurex's mark. His now name. As though they had rung in a new year, turning the calendar with the stroke of a pen and declaring that the January will now be called Ianuarius.
It unsettled him, the speed of it. He wasn't sure if he should laugh at how easily people swallowed the change, or be terrified of what that said about their desperation.
Rex rubbed the side of his head, weary eyes narrowing at the sunlight spilling through the tall windows of the meeting room.
"Just one day…" he muttered under his breath.
But now, now he is sat back in the room that was rebuilt for another purpose.
A military room, stern and cold, walls stripped of finery and instead lined with tall shelves stacked with scrolls, inked records, and heavy bound tomes. A round table stood at the center, carved with a relief map of the kingdom and the surrounding lands, every river and mountain cut into its surface. Small markers of wood and metal dotted it, some shaped like banners, others like towers, armies frozen in miniature as if waiting for orders to move.
The chairs around it were solid, functional, and filled. His so-called faction had taken their seats with a natural familiarity, while Rex himself lowered into the one left for him, the head of the table. The irony wasn't lost on him, though he was sure he wasn't leading anything here.
Mira Lilith, with her long black hair flowing like a curtain of silk, lounged at his right as though the seat had belonged to her all along. She had been appointed his 'Chancellor', his official adviser and vassal, the role that had once been held by Sini Reinhardt. The woman who had thrown away her life for Aurex.
Shin Lan sat to his left, posture rigid, his long white hair catching the light as though spun silver. His green eyes swept the table, sharp and watchful, with eyes that brought back the memory of a dark, locked room and the cops who had interrogated him, his hands bound behind his back. He had been appointed as the 'Marshal', commander of security, both for the king and the people of the land. Rex didn't doubt the man could kill a room with nothing but his lance and his stare.
Across from him was Inis Reinhardt, the copper haired woman whose grief still clung to her like a storm cloud. Her expression hadn't softened since the throne room. If anything, it burned hotter in this close space, her grey eyes snapping whenever they flicked to him.
She was the 'Keeper', the one who oversaw intelligence, the flow of information and communication across the kingdom. But he was concerned by her rage against him shattered the calm she needed for a role that demanded nothing less than perfect clarity and absolute control.
And then there was Cross. The youngest among them, an elf boy who looked barely taller than when Rex was street rat, though the air around him made his presence far weightier than his frame. The boy had said it was his mana, and Rex's mind simply went blank.
His silver-white cloak pooled around his chair, and his delicate hands were folded neatly on the table, as though he was trying to look more composed than he felt. He was the 'Magister', a mage, emissary, and the ambassador for all races that are not just human. A bridge to the wider world, or so Rex surmised. The thought of ruling more than just humans… even with the familiar presence of elves already among them, made him uneasy.
Together, they were known as the 'Four Pillars of the King', Aurex's faction behind his rise to the throne.
They are Aurex's chosen, Aurex's shield, Aurex's spear, Aurex's foundation.
Now his.