The Consort (The Sovereign Society- Season 1)

The Consort (Prologue)

I stepped over the threshold to a cacophony of activity. Adjusting the deep blue sash running diagonally across my body, a thousand voices whispered in my head until I demanded their silence. This was where I belonged.

Glancing across the room, where once a bed stood, there was a crowd surrounding our Regent as brushes flicked across her face and attendants scurried about in last-minute preparations. Tension coursed through the room, but calm settled across me as I stepped forward and glanced at Atlas in the mirror.

"We will do this together," I said, holding her gaze in the reflection.

She dropped her eye in the slightest hint of deference before giving a nod as Dominick approached beside me.

"You look regal," he said without acknowledging my presence. This time, her nod was deeper. There was a time when this simple gesture created an uncertainty which would taint my every decision for the day, but it was no longer there and I smiled at the months of hard work that were finally paying dividends.

Atlas avoided us at every possible turn for the last several weeks, but that problem was about to end. I wasn't the man who'd blindly walked into this world more than a year ago, nor one I one who'd be brought up in this odd organization. No, I'd made a thousand choices to stay when going was easier, and a thousand more when nothing made sense. Now I understood my place, and we were just getting started.

As she rose from the chair, I smiled at the tempered steps as the skirt forced her to walk. It gave her a regal air while making her vulnerable and dependent on us. In her usual style, Atlas refused our assistance as we matched her pace on the way to the High Council Hall. The further from my realm we moved, the more she seemed to mentally drift away from us. This was her realm, but in a matter of minutes she would declare our places in it.

Moving through the corridors, I took time to appreciate the human art painted in silvers and golds that lined the corridor. The thought of plugs pushing into their most intimate places or holding in perfect stillness for hours made me both sympathetic to their plight, while also wanting to see my wife in a similar position.

We paused as a unit before the closed doors of the hall and moved forward when they parted before us. The crowd moved in odd waves and slight whispers as we passed, but my focus was on the only person who mattered. When we approached the dais at the other end of the long aisle, Dominick and I moved around Atlas in unison to help her step up into her new position. The subtle symbolism would be lost on most people, and I owed Dominick an immense amount of gratitude for pushing me to understand it all when all I wanted to was quit. There was no going back to the life I'd known before, no matter how much I longed for it.

The Global Master of Arms looked over the crowd when Atlas gave him the slightest nod, and in that moment the world around us changed forever.

"Members of the Sovereign Society, I present the Regent of the Americas, Atlas Devereaux." The announcement of her name sent a shiver of irritation through me, but I'd schooled my emotions. We'd spend many hours discussing and arguing over the simplest concept of a name, a mark of my power over her by rights of a soft world marriage contract, but in the end the Society won. It was a lesson I'd still not learned. The Society would always win and I knew the faster I understood that simple concept, the better off I'd be.

"Do you come this day to give your obedience and service to your Regent?" he continued.

"We do," the crowd responded in a roar of unison. I worked to hold back the shiver that ran through me as the broadcasting camera pushed in on our small, intimate party. Many an hour's discussion covered their use and dangers, but the wider realm was anxious to see the investiture of their new Regent after a few years without one.