Chapter 112. Crown of Night, Crown of Bread

They called it coronation because there wasn’t another word for putting a circle on a head and asking your neighbors to clap. We made it what we needed.

No dais. A work table dragged to the center of the courtyard. On it: a loaf, a knife, a coil of rope, a basin of water, a small hammer. The circlet lay beside them like a quiet moon.

“Protocol?” Syra asked, wicked.

“Don’t trip,” I said.

Elen placed the circlet in my hands instead of on my head. “This belongs to the city,” she said. “It lends itself to you.”

I lifted it—and paused. “Kael.”

He stepped forward, brow already bare, his own circlet nested under his arm.

“Side by side,” I said. He nodded.

“Repeat with me,” I told the circle—the packs, the runners, the priests, the children who would remember nothing but the shape of this day. “A crown of night—so we remember the dark is ours to walk. A crown of bread—so no one forgets why we built the kitchen.”

Laughter. A few tears. I