The King Ritual

To take his place on the Atlantean throne, Julian must first complete a fourteen day ritual in the far mountains. The ceremony begins as expected, but as the days pass, Julian experiences stranger and stranger phenomena until he must make a difficult decision.

Will he give in to the pressure and go home a failure, or will he go against his morals to gain the approval he seeks?

The King Ritual follows Julian, the crown prince and heir to the throne, into the mountains far from the city of Atlantis, where he and his trusted cheetah companion must survive for a fortnight while the young prince offers gifts to the gods and meditates on his upcoming ascension. What he thinks will be a relaxing camping trip at the sacred spring turns into something he could not have imagined.

This story is part of Unspoken Gods, an ongoing world building project created by Kimberley Crawford. It takes place in a version of our world where the gods still roam and fantasy is reality.