Salt-iron and the hollow crown
The old king has been dead for a year. Nobody has told the crown.
Setting
The fortress of Brannoc, on a coast where iron rusts in a season and the sea eats a foot of cliff each winter. The crown of Brannoc chooses its own bearer, has done for nine generations, and it has refused everyone brought before it since the king died. The court has been governing by forgery.
Main character
- Steward Maeve Corr
Has forged the king's signature four hundred times to keep the harvest moving. Exhausted, competent, out of options.
How it opens
They bring you to the crown at low tide, when the vault floods least. It sits on a plinth of salt-iron, unremarkable, slightly green, and it does not look like anything that has opinions.
The steward's hand is on your shoulder. "Touch it," she says, and her voice is doing something complicated to stay level. "Fourteen have tried. Please understand what happens to you if it says no."
A branch can end when
- The crown chooses, and you live with what it chose.
- The forgery is exposed and Brannoc has to govern honestly.
- The crown goes into the sea and the age of choosing ends.