Hassan looked at the crowd within the throne room, which spilled out through the open threshold and down the many steps and into the central courtyard. It might even have stretched back through the crumbled palace gates and into Ozmandith Road.

But there, near the front, he spotted his friends: Anton, Jude, Ephyra, Illya, and Zareen. Hector’s absence felt like a raw wound in his chest, but seeing the others’ faces was a balm. Even Ephyra looked happy, smiling for the first time in days.

Hassan recalled, what felt like a lifetime ago, the dream he’d had of his triumphant return to Nazirah and his coronation. Standing up here now felt different than he’d imagined it. Back then, it had felt like it would be an ending.

Now, it felt more like a beginning.

Azizi opened the gilded box, and Hassan’s mother lifted the crown into the light. Golden laurel leaves overlapped to form a circlet. This was the crown that had been worn by every monarch since the original Crown of Herat—the Relic of Mind—had been hidden away by the Lost Rose.

Hassan bent his head and allowed his mother to crown him. The crowd erupted into cheers and fell to their knees.

Hassan waited for the noise to die down and then stepped forward to speak.

“People of Herat,” he said, his voice projecting over the crowd through the artificed scarab pin on his jacket. “It is an honor to be crowned as your king. My father sat upon this throne for over two decades. He died trying to protect this country from tyranny and zealotry, to preserve the legacy of light and wisdom bestowed on us by the Prophet Nazirah two thousand years ago.”

Hassan paused to take a breath, his gaze finding Khepri in the front row of the crowd. The same feeling he’d felt the first time he’d ever set eyes on her washed over him again. A sense of purpose and drive. Like the beginning of something so huge he could not yet grasp it.

“I vow to serve this country for as long as I live,” he went on, “but my reign as your king will end one year from today.”

He paused as murmurs of confusion and dismay rippled over the crowd. He felt his mother shift toward him, but no matter how shocked she was she wouldn’t dare try to interrupt him.

“During my one-year reign, I will be meeting with leaders and other citizens of Herat, from tradespeople and scholars to soldiers and farmers. Together we will devise a new system of governance that protects all people of Herat, a system that vests its power not in one monarch, but in the people themselves. A system that is not imposed upon our country by the forces of fate and destiny but that is freely chosen by its people.