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Sons of the Flaming Throne 2 – Ch. 13 | KT OLLA

 IT was at the city square in the heart of Jerusalem. The chants and praises for the Fourth One soared aloud with high pitches.

‘Hail the Prince, the Fourth Son!’

‘Hail the Prince, the Fourth Son!’

Those words were the chant each people met when they joined the flowing crowd. And the songs, they were those the prince’s men told them to sing.

The praises were loud and bustling, so much that the new queen’s convoy could hear it from a distance. So that party hastened their pace to see what the shouts meant.

Adonijah had taken advantage of the king’s condition to win the centre stage. He’d chosen the city square around the palace as the platform that’d host his first outing.

He made the dare that winter morning, knowing the monarch had fallen weak. For he’d thought this—that David was no longer David.

Now the elders were ready to watch the son of David. But that was only how far they wished to go.

They were not ready for another father-son battle. Or a clash between brother enemies vying for power. 

The younger folk, however, wanted the game of power. They loved the sound of power tussle, but they hadn’t heard it before.

In any case, they fancied its clashes and crashes in their minds.

So, that cohort of younger blood didn’t mind whoever took on the flaming throne. Whether it was the fourth son, the fifth or even the tenth.

All that was game for them was the battle for glory.

Now Adonijah saw through them. He read their excessive zeal and knew just then that it wasn’t for him. Their loud praises, too, told him he’d got sycophants for fans.

All the same, it was game for the man – as long as another son of David didn’t show up there. As long as he wouldn’t have a rival from the sons of the throne.

But just then, when the prince’s concerns were solved, he started to hear the sound of another convoy rushing to him.

The rattling came sifting through the noises of his praise singers; and soon he was sure his fears had arrived.

He told himself he could not stand another prince of David staging conspiracy. Especially at the time he was plotting same.

But right then, he was convinced that he’d inspired another. And he was no longer sure his followers would stay. He recalled they were all sycophants.

Now he looked ahead towards that horizon from where the coming convoy would emerge. He gazed with such eyes that almost dissolved to water. 

He watched and gasped. ‘This is the end of me!’

But it was the beginning.

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