Romans & histoires Witch King's Ring

“You’ll die.” “Then let me die beside you.” I pulled away. “No. I need you alive. This kingdom needs a King.” “It needs a Queen more.” That stopped me. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a ring. Plain, iron and engraved with runes. “It belonged to the first Wolf Queen. Before the curse.” I took it. Held it in my palm. It felt like fire. “You want to crown me now?” “No,” he said. “I want to follow you. Whether you sit a throne or burn it.”

Only when he was an inch close to me did he look at the box he held. “Open it,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “You want answers, explanations, they start here.” I briefly glanced at Josephine who looked disinterested. With shaky hands, I opened the box. I expected a lot of things but what was in it made me pause. I raised my head at King before taking out one of the many ring boxes. In it was what I guessed it was. “My wedding ring,” I muttered. I grabbed another and it was the same thing. I tried to take it out but King held my hand. “You can't touch it,” he said. “These are the switched rings.”

The flickering candlelight reflected off the polished metal, catching the object resting on the dark velvet cushion. My breath hitched. It was a silver crown, intricately forged to look like twisted roots and thorned branches. A half-transformed wolf was carved directly into the front of it. The King stepped toward me, lifting the crown from the tray with both hands. His eyes locked onto mine, hard and demanding. "May you wear this crown in duty to the lineage you carry, and to the protection of the throne." He raised the silver above my head. I felt like I was drowning. I looked up at Eilís one last time, just to catch a flick of anything. Any emotion. Any sign.

"The sculpture in the palace garden. They never would have dreamed Lyra would hide the evidence in plain sight!" He turned to look at me. "They think you're a replacement. Let's give them a show." His voice was cold, thrilling. "Are you in?" He walked to a safe, entered the code, and took out a gleaming silver ring. "This is the Ring of the Silver Peak, the symbol of our royal authority." He walked back to me and placed the ring solemnly on my finger. "You are not the girl who needs protecting anymore. You are a Princess of the Silver Peak Pack, and it's time they remembered that."

I ask and Agnes’ face is heavy, as if she didn’t want to be bearer of this message. “The king has bestowed you with rare silks from the desert of Qatar, and jewelleries from the grounds of Ethiopia. He has also gifted silks to your maidservants and has ordered for a customized carriage, one threaded in gold and silver with your initials on it. Also, he has picked his finest horse and handed it to you. In that box is his war ring, a ring he has won to all his battles…it is a part of him and now, he is giving it to you.” Agnes says and I open the box to see the ring.

Surely I will wake up and be back in the fields harvesting barley, in the stables brushing down horses and at night serving in taverns where the knight used to drink and fuck. But she looked up once more and caught Perci’s eyes and knew she was foolish to think this a dream. She had fallen into the same fate as the previous queen. A glorified slave. She found that she had no appetite and when the king dropped her hand on the table, rather roughly as though she was possessed of some kind of disease that was communicable, she buried her hands in her lap and twiddled. There was only one reason why the king would want to marry her now. Was it any coincidence that he made his announcement as soon

“That one’s a family heirloom. Knowing that the king has already impounded that poor alpha’s estates, the ones that the queen was hiding out in, the last thing I want to do is give him the opportunity to run off with something from my family. As soon as we know that you’re, you’re not facing trouble with the king. We’ll switch out whatever we get you for the real one. I want you to have my family heirloom. Not the king.” “I’d like to say that the king wouldn’t be petty enough to steal an engagement ring from a young woman, but at this point, I can’t even be sure that that would be the truth. Don’t spend a bunch of money tonight. If I’m just switching to your family heirloom, there’s no point

I held the mother fucker ring in my hand and thought it must be the tricks from the fucking two reptile heads. "Are you fucking doing a trick on the ring?!" I roared. They covered their heads and exclaimed, "No, sir!" "I swear I didn't do it!" "We can't change the size of an object! That's not something that we can do!" "So why this fucking ring is getting larger and smaller by itself?!" I shouted. "It's a relic ring, sir. It's King Czar's ring." "It's made by a Gifted One and given to King Czar as a present when he was young."

he began lifting his hand. I saw it. I t was a flame ring. Red and black. It was made for the royal family, the House of Reign. Only a person from the royal lineage of the Witch kingdom could use it. Unfortunately, the last royal was this Heathen standing before me. He cared much more for the praises of the other kings than that of his own people. The flame ring was made when a certain band of third-class witches wanted to overthrow the throne. It was designed in such a way that whichever royal had it on could teleport any witch he so desired, torture them by the invisible flames and banish them.

' 'I will give you whatever you ask for it, O' Osdara,' the king said as the man rose and put the sparkling gold ring in his right palm, 'even if it means a part of my kingdom. 'Oh not at all. If I should ask for what it cost me to gather the diamond, ruby, topaz, emerald, quartz, et cetera, no one can afford it. All I ask is what it cost me to gather together all the precious stones and to get the services of the experts who worked on the project. But before we go on, I will like to tell you something about the serpent. The ring will not kill the serpent. No one can kill the serpent except the person specially equipped to do so.'