Appears in The Compact Reader
Set in 430 IE, as the Compact and Hanar prepare to liberate Amargosa, Uneasy Lies the Crown follows the political deadlock within the Realm’s Seat of Supremacy after the death of the Sovereign. With the rightful heir, thirteen-year-old Akon, still a minor, the Council refuses to appoint a regency—something not done for four centuries. For months, the heads of the Gelt castes bicker and stall, recycling the same candidates and arguments.
Frustrated by the stagnation and under subtle pressure from the Council and Mulda, Sovereign Consort and Akon’s mother, Sansar Aryanna, head of the Diplomatic Caste, reluctantly agrees to ascend—on the condition that Akon be named her uncontested heir. With no better alternative, the Council agrees, and Aryanna surrenders her name to become the new Sovereign.
During her coronation, a mysterious human envoy named Jez Salamacis—posing as a representative of the Compact—presents Aryanna with a supposed relic: the mummified heart of the last named Sovereign, Devold. Weeks later, Aryanna opens the box, triggering a biotoxin that melts her into a tar-like sludge and kills everyone in the Sovereign’s Residence.
As Aryanna dies, the Realm is once again left leaderless on the eve of a war it can no longer afford to delay.