Fleur was like a girl leaving home for the first time, about to embark on a long journey filled with opportunities and challenges. Considering that the child's father had already gone to the underworld, it was only natural for her to feel uneasy.
But Murphy's promise that "we're guaranteed to win" seemed to give the young Pharaoh Queen a different kind of confidence. In any case, she performed remarkably well at the coronation ceremony that followed.
When Fleur stood on the deck of the Millennium Sandskip beneath the blazing midday sun and delivered her first speech to the entire city—and even the entire empire—she presented herself as a resolute, dignified, and wise queen. Then, as the sun and moon changed color and the projection of Hades, the Underworld Worm, appeared in the cold moonlight to personally bestow the Pharaoh Queen's radiance upon her, no one in this thousand-year sea of sand could challenge the queen's authority.
Next came the queen's procession, starting from Palace Mountain.
This was an important part of a Pharaoh's coronation. The queen's carriage and retinue had to circle the city, receiving the cheers and blessings of her subjects. At last, they would stop in the central square of Ptolemaic King's City, where the queen would announce the start of the festivities. She would then celebrate with the people until midnight before returning to Palace Mountain amid her subjects' blessings.
Such was the ancient custom, and it made today an inevitably busy one.
But Fleur's coronation included an event that no other Pharaoh had ever had.
In the city square, before the eyes of her subjects, she would judge the traitors who had betrayed both the empire and the Creator's faith.
The rebellion that had just ended had been a greater internal conflict than the Great Mamluk