Chapter 83: The Sea of Ants
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The Grand Plaza was a dish-shaped basin of white limestone half a mile wide. Seven roads fed into its rim, and every road now crawled with bodies, a living tide of polished shells and rustling cloaks.
Kai found his comrade there. He and Vexor joined the flow from the eastern gatehouse, moving shoulder to shoulder with bakers in flour-smudged aprons, with smiths whose hammers still hung at their belts, with scholars ants clutching wax tablets.
High overhead, banners snapped in the dawn breeze. The Queen’s personal crest, an eight pointed star shrouded in vine leaves. Bronze loud-tubes bristled from tower balconies. Crystal screens which were invisible by day were affixed to archways around the central plaza’s rim.
By the time the second bell tolled, not a grain of bare stone remained. A hush rippled through the crowd. The air smelled of resin polish and nervous anticipation.
With a soft thrummm, every crystal screen flickered to life. A ten story size projection bloomed above the plaza’s center: the silhouette of the Eight Star rank Queen.
She sat on a throne carved from a single piece of blue amber. Her face was veiled in shadow, yet the outline of a delicate jaw, a slender neck, and a diadem of softly glowing star-gems was clear as chiseled moonlight.
Her aura was impossibly vast and rolled through the plaza like warm wind. Even the banners seemed to lean toward her.
Citizens fell to one knee. Kai knelt too, heart hammering. He felt Mia’s presence far off to the left, where nobles gathered on a marble terrace but he dared not crane to look.