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Author's Chapter Notes:

The Coronation begins.

The darkness made it easy to underestimate the size of the crowd. A hundred thousand silhouettes blended together with the shadowy streets around them. The only light came from a line of torches across the front of the stage. Every face in the crowd watched the stage, their eyes reflecting the orange firelight.

 

 

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Upon the stage, the ceremony was about to begin. Front and center was a priestess, standing on a raised platform. The priestess was a strange, foreign beauty, dressed in exotic fineries. She must have stood well over ten feet, yet to the crowd she looked small. Just behind her, after all, were the twin princesses, each more than twice the priestess's height. But there was someone else who dwarfed all of them. Behind the sisters, looming like a colossal shadow, was Cybele. For once you could barely see her, huge as she was. The shadow of her skin melded almost perfectly with the dark of the night sky. She was near-invisible, save for the eerie red glow of a crystal she wore, and the pale firelight that flickered in her eyes. 

***



Livia felt her mother's presence. She always did, somehow. Simply being around her was enough to fill most with a mix of fright and awe. It wasn't merely her colossal size, or the fact that she was Empress of Rome; Cybele simply had a presence about her. When she looked into your eyes, thought Livia, you felt as if she somehow knew all your secrets. And when she was upset, it never failed to send a chill down your spine.

Livia did her best to stand still as she waited impatiently for the ceremony to start. All day, it seemed, had been waiting; waiting for the gladiatorial fights to end, waiting for the servants to finish preparing her for the ceremony, and now this. It had taken hours for the servants to get her ready; everything had to be perfect for the coronation. She wore a bejeweled white dress, a long translucent thing that would have been almost modest if it wasn't practically see-through. Livia did her best not to think about how much they must have spent on the dress, and how much of her the crowd could see through the thin fabric. Her hair was curled into two carefully coiled buns, her face made up with violet eye shadow and crimson lipstick. She wore fine jewelry, made of silver and sapphire. 

Her sister, meanwhile, was barely wearing anything; a black two-piece that was barely more than underwear. Surely Cybele had ordered the servants to prepare her as well, so why wasn't she dressed in more appropriate attire? Then it dawned on her. Julia probably ate the servants, thought Livia. Or worse. The poor things made the mistake of telling her what to do, and now they're in her stomach. My beloved sister has never exactly taken instruction very well. No wonder she's dressed like a cheap prostitute on the night of her Coronation. With this fabric, I might be showing all of Rome my nipples, but at the very least I look like a classy prostitute.

At last the priestess stood on her pedestal, and the ceremony began. The murmurs of the crowd slowly dissipated, until the streets were overcome with an eerily perfect silence.


***

The priestess raised up her arms and threw back her head, as if possessed by some strange entity. She spoke in an accent that Livia couldn't place. "Tonight, two women shall become goddesses. The power granted to them by their birthright shall be made corporeal, and the spirits of the Goddesses will be born into them, through Wine and Blood. In the light of the fire, a tribute will be taken, a sacrifice accepted." The priestess then recited some prayers in another tongue, a language that Livia had never heard before.

So this is it, thought Livia. The ceremony she'd been waiting her whole life for. The ceremony she'd been dreading for nearly as long. In a short while, she would be declared a Goddess, with all the powers and privileges that came along with the title. She would get everything she'd ever wanted. The only cost, thought Livia, will be everything I believe in. 

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