Prologue X What You Need
The crown choker of the Titan Kingdom always had burgundy flakes on the diamonds dancing in the light of Jesus' bedroom. The sound of gunshots echoed in his mind. The images of Aaliyah, Jamye, and Ermias' dead bodies flashed in his mind, their corpses full of wounds. Jesus sighed to himself. I couldn't protect them.
The memory of when he first met Aaliyah surfaced. They ate cereal together. He put a little honey in his cornflakes. Her smile; a string of pearls in the sunken place. She was fifteen-years-old and she told him about her impossible dream. To unite all Kingdoms under one banner. It was a familiar dream. It was His dream. Reverie's dream. His father's dream. It was the reason Jesus chose Reverie as a vessel. He thought he could hand responsibility for his dream to her.
Gunshots. Flashes of her body splayed on top of the table still on his mind.
Aaliyah had been the one he had been waiting on. The one to take his mantle. To forge a peace among the Kingdoms, secure it. He had met her his third year into being a regent for the Kingdom of Titans. She had been the reason the remaining twelve years were bearable. She taught Jesus what it was to love as a mortal. He loved Aaliyah.
He remembered standing with her in the Kingdom of Blackbirds, touring Black Wall Street with the King of Blackbirds as he and Aaliyah conversed about the unification of businesses throughout all Kingdoms. He played the background as he watched the two step inside of the king's Porsche. Jesus loved to watch Aaliyah shine.
He played the background in the Kingdom of Saints as well while Aaliyah and the King of Saints popped a bottle of champagne in a studio where LED lights were string along the seams of the walls. Her smile danced like the diamonds on his mother's choker strung around Aaliyah's neck.
The same chain he strung on his neck some four years later. He knew he'd have to go back to those Kingdoms wearing the chain of the leader the Kingdoms all endorsed. He knew he was the only one that could possibly feel her shoes, wear her crown. He was, after all, the one that presented it to her.
Jesus bowed his head. He wasn't prepared to become the leader of a million men. Not like this.
