The Blood Throne of Sahirra

[accuscripter]

The wind didn't just howl through the broken spires of the Citadel; it screamed, tearing at the tattered banners. The air was thick with the scent of ash and hot metal, and the distant, metallic clang of mourning horns was swallowed by the ever-present beat of war drums. The sky above Sahirra was not blue, it was a bruised, pulsing gray, heavy as a stone, darkening with every echo. High above the capital, the clouds wept, but no sound was louder than the silent grief of the child who had just become a ruler.

She stood barefoot in the ruin of the palace courtyard, her small fingers clenched in the heavy, blood-stained folds of her gown. Her name was Aeryn, daughter of Queen Elaira Yssa and High King Maeron Thalen, but the child they'd loved had died moments before they did. What remained was a throne, still warm with smoke, and a six-year-old girl with red hair in a kingdom that saw the color as a curse.

She had watched.

One moment, her mother was laughing. The next, she was on fire.

It wasn't a flame from torch or oil; this was black, oily, and unnatural. It hissed like a nest of disturbed serpents, magic that crawled over Yssa's skin, consuming her from the inside out. The Queen's bones were left almost instantly, a crown of fire scorched onto her skull. Her father, the High King, roared like a lion and lunged forward. The black fire swallowed him whole. He didn't scream for himself, he screamed her name until his lungs were silence.

Aeryn had not screamed at all. Not when her handmaid dragged her behind the heavy silver tapestry. Not when the stones cracked and the throne chamber split open like a dying heart. She had stared with the frozen, terrible silence of prey. A silence that did not break even now, standing amidst the smoke and the bones.

The Burden of Rule

The High Orator approached. Beneath his veil, his voice was muffled and grave. He placed the High Crown in her small hands. It was dented from the blast, part of it melted, but the gold still gleamed.

"By the laws of flame and blood, by the pact of the Thousand Thrones, by the will of Sahirra and its sky…" The Orator paused, looking down at the trembling child. "…do you accept the burden of sovereign rule?"

Aeryn looked up. Around the perimeter of the courtyard, black-robed nobles stood like columns of basalt. None knelt. Their eyes were hard, their necks stubbornly unbowed. She knew what they saw: a child soaked in soot and taboo, trembling beside the bones of her royal parents.

A spark, hot, sharp, and strange; flared in her chest, a thorn under the skin.

She stepped forward, planting her small feet on the broken stones.

"I do."

The crown was placed on her head, slipping slightly over her ear. The wind clawed at her, threatening to pull the cloak from her shoulders, but she did not move. She stood, chin raised, as the sky split with a violent clap of thunder. Bells began to ring out her name across the city. No one cheered.

……………………………..

Aeryn's first decree was to bury her parents herself.

She refused the priests, the pallbearers, the gold-stitched veils, and the ceremonial birdsong. In the Garden of Stone, she dug the graves with her own small hands. Her handmaid, panicked, tried to intervene. "Your Highness! Please! You are Queen now, this task is below you!" But Aeryn ignored her, focused on the earth. Her hands calloused and bled, shivering in the cold twilight. The guards watched, confused but silent.

Aeryn did not cry. She whispered to no one.

When her maid finally pulled her back with a firm, desperate grip and motioned for the stunned guards to finish, Aeryn stopped struggling. After the earth was mounded, she planted one lily for each parent, red for Yssa, white for Thalen, and pressed her forehead into the cold dirt until her skin was raw.

When she finally rose, her desert-amber eyes were darker than dusk.

The Shadow of the Alcove

That night, the Royal Court convened without her.

Old men with oil-slick beards. Grandmothers whose fingers were heavy with rings. Priests who smelled of dusty, ancient parchment. They gathered in their silks and furs to dissect their new Queen, wondering aloud if the realm could survive a girl born under such omens.

"She is too young," declared High Minister Varr. "Barely six winters to her name."

"Too cursed," muttered Lady Hareth. "Red hair is the mark of the Unblessed."

"And those eyes," hissed a voice. "Amber, like the Dune Vale beast-folk."

"After the chaos that claimed her parents, who knows what she will bring to us?"

They spoke as if she were a thousand miles away. But Aeryn stood in the deep shadow of a ceiling alcove, still wrapped in her burial cloak. She heard every cruel word. Her small hands curled around the cold iron railing. For a single, fleeting second, she felt the words rise in her throat: Please... help me. But alas the sound never escaped. She had no one left to beg.

She returned to her bedchamber. No servant followed. No guard took post outside her door. Outside, lightning struck the far hills. Inside, Aeryn sat by the glass, hands gripping a bread knife.

She did not sleep.

…………………………….

They tried to kill her in the Hour of Emberlight, when the setting sun bled crimson across the horizon and the sky glowed like a fresh wound.

She had just entered the Solar Hall for the first council. Behind her, the great stained-glass windows burned with light, images of ancient queens, battles, and gods.

The knife came from nowhere. A shadow launched itself from the upper balcony.

Aeryn turned.

The assassin's blade met the air a mere inch from her throat.

A shriek of agony shattered the silence, not hers, but the attacker's. His body instantly convulsed, seizing violently in mid-air. Blood burst from his eyes. His bones cracked with a sickening, audible sound.

He dropped to the floor like a bag of shattered glass, a pool of crimson blooming around him.

Aeryn stared. It had not been her hands. It had been something inside her.

The court gasped. Guards surged in, keeping everyone back. The assassin was dead before they reached him.

Aeryn looked down at her hands. They shook. Her blood-colored hair had darkened, the tips now glowing with an intense, fiery hue. As she was escorted from the hall, streaks of deep, unnatural red had begun to appear in her curls. She didn't understand the how or the why. But she was sure of one thing: she was the culprit.

From that day onward, they bowed. Every viscount, marshal, duke, minister, slave, and maid.

Not out of love. Out of terror.

As the shock-faced court parted for her, Aeryn, the child of six who had given a bloody response to their silent judgment, finally smiled.


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[accuscripter]

Hi everyone!
I've been sharing my stories here for almost a year, and I'm so thankful to everyone who's read, liked, or commented.

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– Accuscripter

 

[accuscripter]

The High Court of Sahirra had endured for seven hundred years, a ring of obsidian thrones carved into gems that looked like as if fossilized ribs of a dead Leviathan. It was sunken deep into the heart of the capital, the old ones called it Draakhal-Veir; the Jaw of Judgment.

Aeryn sat at its center. Her legs, still small at six years old, barely reached the silver rest beneath her seat. The court ministers eyed her with their usual blend of malice and disgust. She didn't care for their stares; her attention was fixed on the seat itself. It was vast, like a pit hole; she felt she might fall into it at any moment. It had always been too large, even when she'd played in its shadow as a child, mimicking her father's commands with giggles and bright, naive joy. Now, there was no play. Only silence and the dead, judging stares of her enemies.

Across the circle, the nobles watched her with the quiet contempt of a pack that had lost its alpha but not its fangs. They wore their age like armor: wrinkled skin, silver eyebrows, gold-tipped canes, and rings crested with bone.

They bowed, certainly. But only their heads. Never the spine. Never low enough to forget who they believed she was: a child-queen stained by non-existent prophecy, born of taboo, and orphaned by the black fire, a catastrophe they whispered was her own curse made manifest.

................................

It had been only twelve days since the regimen changed. Twelve days of icy civility, scraped-on smiles, and quiet, systematic refusals by her ministers and servants.

She watched them pretend to obey while they spoke behind closed doors, sealed letters with false approval, and changed nothing essential. Not the guard rotations. Not the tariffs. Not even the old prayer-rites.

Aeryn needed them. She was too young to carry the world and the burden of their noble lives on her shoulders. They knew it. They wanted to use her weakness to unseat her.

Little Aeryn, ignorant of political tactics, tired by the weight of the heavy crown, and scared by their ceaseless, shooting eyes, tried everything they asked. She sought their favor until she was utterly exhausted.

She wore the silks they preferred, dressing in the pale blues and grays that "soothed the courtly mind." She tried to deepen her voice, which only gave them more to laugh at. She memorized the names of their wives and their bastard sons. She even offered absurd compliments, gifting goldleaf paper to the poetry-writing Lady Marrion, and telling Lord Innos his crumbling teeth looked like carved ivory.

She smiled when they mocked her. But nothing worked.

…………………………

The contempt only deepened with time. The laughter started when she was six and kept going even now, six years later. She was twelve years old now, a child physically and emotionally changed, but still powerless.

They laughed when she tripped over the word "recompense." They sneered openly when she asked, during a council discussing distant floods, where rain came from and if the gods had moods. Her maid desperately motioned for silence, but the damage was done.

They exchanged amused, superior glances when she spoke of grain distribution. Once, as she tried to argue a tariff, one minister jested, "Your Highness, it seems you no longer worry about the moody Gods," and the court erupted in laughter.

It didn't matter that she'd watched her parents burn. It didn't matter that she carried power in her blood and terror in her eyes. All they saw was a little girl playing dress-up in a dead Queen's crown.

……………………

One afternoon, Lord Vael of House Miraj, who wore eight rings for the sons he had lost to plague and none for the daughter he still ignored, stood up during council. He spoke without a flicker of doubt:

"My Queen, with utmost humility, I suggest you appoint a regent. Someone older. Wiser. You may, of course, sign off on his final decisions, but let him guide the blade. For now."

Aeryn's fingers stiffened around the cold stem of her goblet.

Vael continued, his voice oily with false concern. "You are burdened, child. Let us carry it with you. Just until you grow."

Heads nodded around the ring like leaves in a poisonous wind. Almost all of them murmured their support.

Aeryn forced her lips into a smile. The crown felt like lead. "And which of you," she asked, her voice quiet, "would like to carry my crown, my dear loyal ministers?"

Dead silence. No one spoke up.

Then, Lord Innos, the oldest man in the room, slowly smacked his lips. "Only what you allow, Your Majesty. Only whom you allow my queen!"

She met his greedy eyes, and the unspoken words were clear: Only what we let you keep.

………………………………….

Aeryn spent that night alone in the palace observatory. The dome was enchanted to reflect the sky as it appeared across every region of Sahirra: storm-ridden on the coast, cloudy in the east, and cloudless in the desert heartland. She stared up at it, her legs curled beneath her, the heavy crown tossed onto the cold marble beside her.

She was twelve years old now, and still they demanded she abdicate.

"Do they all hate me?" she whispered into the massive, silent room.

Her maid, Sakina, who was also her nanny and only ally, stood vigil nearby.

"My Queen," Sakina said softly.

"Drop the formalities, Sakina," Aeryn pleaded.

"I am yours, your highness," Sakina insisted, her voice trembling slightly. "Still, I must not ignore what is required of me."

.

.

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[accuscripter]

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[accuscripter]

And what is required of you? She said with a chuckle and looked at her.

"The decorum!" Sakina said with a serious expression.

Aeryn stopped smiling and looked away. "Why now?? What after 6 years?? Why didn't they try to take the throne 6 years ago???"

"They are scared of you my queen! Of your growing power and influence"

"That doesn't really seem like that."

"Then another assassination might have occurred, soon after the first one failed."

"Do you think they know it was me?"

"I believe they know it was you… that's why they didn't dare to do anything reckless again."

"Hmm… then it seem they have forgotten it." Aeryn said with a calm smile.

"Yes?" Sakina said with fear in her eyes.

"Go announce it. Tomorrow there will be a feast in the honor of the noble bloodlines. Everyone must be present."

Sakina had a troubled expression. She was looking at aeryn with confused eyes.

"What?" Aeryn said as she gave her a side eye.

"Nothing my queen! Your words are my command!" And saying this she rushed out of the observatory, her velvet trail following after her.

And aeryn looked up at sky again. Enough of the puppet play… Its time I guess… she said to herself and let out a sigh.

…….

The next day, she held the feast.

An apology, she called it. A show of gratitude for the noble houses' guidance and patience. The grand dining hall was lined with gold-plated mirrors and strings of lavender glass, perfumed with crushed mint leaves and blue citrus. Dancers from the western isles twirled barefoot on silk rugs. Musicians played the double-flute and the deep-toned harp of the Wyrd Tribes.

The court arrived in full regalia, they were suspicious and curious. But lured by wine and women, and flattered by the gesture they came.

Lady Marrion sat nearest the throne, and with a haughty and pleased expression she said, "I mist say, a mature gesture, my queen."

Aeryn smiled and bowed her head slightly with agreement.

"I'm learning my ways; Lady Marrison."

By midnight, they were all drunk. Every last one of them.

And Aeryn was watching them. She watched as Lord Vael leaned too far forward and spilled mead across his belly. She watched as Innos snored into his own sleeve. She watched as Lady Marrion spoke verses to a vase, thinking it was her lover.

The girl queen stood. Raised her goblet.

"To wisdom," she said, voice loud and clear. "To guidance. To growing into my crown."

The court raised theirs. But they couldn't notice the flicker of red behind her pupils, the way her glass shimmered strangely in the torchlight. And no one heard the heartbeat of the room go slow; just a little.

Sakina immediately got close to aeryn. "Not Today my queen!" she said with a dreaded look.

She smiled and spilled the drink in front of her then got close to her, enough to be looked as if she was hugging her, another dignity wrecking practice by a royal, glass still in her hand. "Sakina, I will let them live this night. All of them. But they will remember this feast. Not for the taste of the lamb or the laughter in the hall; but for the unease that is going to crept into them afterward. The dreams that will haunt their sleep. The feeling that something had watched them from behind. I will make them hate their very bloodline, the one they are so proud of today!"

Then she moved away, a strange proud expression playing on her face. and swirled as if she was possessed and sat on her high golden chair.

Sakina didn't think more, as far as everyone is not getting killed, its fine. She thought to herself and let out a sigh of relief.

In the weeks that followed, she continued her "lessons." But she stopped smiling as much. She stopped bending, and the court, well they were seeing this change in her behavior, and they were growing warier.

Then one time it so occurred that, Lord Vael questioned a trade route order she had signed.

And then two days later, his horses bled to death in their stable. No wounds. Just... blood, vanished from their veins.

The next day she said it in the court, "I heard Lord Vael lost his precious horses the last night".

"My lady, has quite an information about the personal affairs of High Lord Vael" a minion minister of lower bloodline spoke for Lord Vael, and Lord Vael protruded his chest out with proud, as if to demand explanation from aeryn.

"I believe you are forgetting the decorum Minister Zalar! Mind yourself, who knows, when you end up like the horses!"

Lord vael immediately was taken aback while that minister Zalar, replied, "Forgive my slip of tongue My queen!"

"Whats the use of tongue that slips! Better get rid of it… No? Lord Vael?" aeryn looked at Lord Vael. Who didn't say anything in response and just bowed down, deeper, this time. Much deeper.

Then she continued, "I remember one of you asked me to appoint a regent, Lord Vael, you said, I am a child and Lord Innos you said, only what I will allow will be handled. But none of you suggested who should be appointed…."

No one of them spoke again.

Lord Innos, how about you?!

"Forgive me my queen! I am old. Instead its high time I should resign." He said with contempt while hiding his face.

"Resignation Accepted!"

"ye...Yes? No.. nO..... I meant…"

"Lord vael you would like to be the regent?"

"I am incompetent my queen." He bowed.

"Lord zalar! You even forgot I am the queen! You must want to become the regent, I presume!"

"I deserve death my queen! You don't need a regent!" He fell in prostration in front of her.

"Hmm… well if anyone of you ever want to suggest anyone for the position of my regent, can let me know… for now the court is dismissed"

.

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[Kadessor]

It's an interesting story.

I'm usually not sure about original fiction but I like the concept and seeing it through the eyes of a child queen way out of her depth but trying to not let people walk all over her.

I'm curious about the magic system. How does it work? How does her specific magic work?

I'm kind of shocked at the distain the court has of her? Is it because she is just a child or is it her magic/bloodline?

Small note you are missing some punctuation for speech in a few places and the. Capitalizing some names.


I'm curious where this goes. What the plot with end up focusing on and where our little queen will go.

 

[accuscripter]

The dagger struck the air where her heart had been half a second earlier. It clattered against the obsidian floor.

Aeryn turned, slowly, as if the motion were part of a ritual older than time. Her hair, streaked with crimson gold, caught the torchlight like fire unfurling.

Behind her, the would-be assassin writhed, a man instantly reduced to a slippery, broken thing, like a snail sprinkled with salt. His face was gone, his features contorted and slack. Blood, thick and unnatural, leaked from his ears as if a statue were weeping gore. His limbs trembled violently, pulled taut by invisible strings.

Aeryn had not lifted a hand. The entire court, assembled for the Tribunal of Houses, watched in horrified silence. They had come for order and old ceremony, not to witness a blood rite. Yet, here it was.

……………………..

Hours earlier, it had seemed a normal court day, normal in the tense sense of a taut battleground locked in cold war since Aeryn's recent questions had exposed the court's cowardice.

Aeryn entered the Jaw of Judgment in a gown of raven black, crimson-gold ringlets wound in her hair. Her eyes, pale brown like honey over cooled steel, scanned the seated nobles.

As she crossed the court doors, the whispers started. Not the rustle of silks or the songs of the minstrels, but marrow-hushed voices beneath the palace stones. The bones spoke to her now. She didn't know how; perhaps they always had, but only now, in the silent chaos, could she finally hear them.

One among them comes to spill your crown, they whispered. It is one of your own guards. He has been paid.

As she reached the throne, she smiled, dismissing her maid Sakina with a feigned task. She sat, waiting.

She let him lunge.

The moment his blade swung, Aeryn turned with an unnatural, chilling calm, like a prepared priestess. And in that instant, something inside her didn't break, it opened.

It was a well bursting open after centuries of drought. A howl of red fury. A roar in her ears that was not sound, but blood calling to blood.

The guard's veins instantly lit up beneath his skin, glowing red-hot like molten metal in a forge. He dropped his weapon, shrieking, and clawed at his own flesh. His blood did not spurt; it rose, spiraling from his wounds in ribbons of scarlet, caught in the invisible grasp of a twelve-year-old girl.

When the body dropped, Aeryn said nothing. She looked up at the frozen court, her expression conveying a devastating emptiness: "What is this? Are you playing with me? This is all you have got?"

No tears. No screams. Only the silence of someone who had just remembered what she was made of. She looked at the twisted corpse, waved a hand, and turned her sight away, a look of utter disgust on her face.

"Clean this up!" she commanded. "If you ever wish to play games like this, at least choose better players, or play me directly! Do not spoil my court with the foul blood!"

…………………….

As she settled back onto the throne, they bowed.

It was not a show of unity, but a chain reaction of terror. It began with Lady Marrion, whose pale lips trembled as her knees creaked, forcing her stout body down. Then Lord Innos, hand to his heart, his expression blank with shock. Even Lord Vael bowed, though his neck twitched, visibly resisting the weight of the gesture.

They bent low, not in loyalty but in absolute dread. A child queen had survived assassination and responded with a display of power so primal and absolute that the ghosts in the walls held their breath. They knew now: she was not simple, and she would not be easily dismissed.

That night, the Jaw of Judgment closed early.

Aeryn locked herself in her chamber and stared into the mirror. Her hair had changed drastically. The red that had once only kissed the tips now bled and ran upward, strand by strand, like her roots were catching fire from the inside out. Her light brown eyes glimmered faintly, now more gold than amber. Something deep in her blood was waking, making her feel flushed and feverish.

She threw herself onto the bed, desperate to sleep, but the cold memory of her sudden murder kept her awake.

At midnight, she went to the mirror again. This time, she whispered, "What are you?"

The girl staring back was silent.

……………………….

Aeryn was done trying to please them. After the murder, all possibility of common ground was lost. She made a commitment to her reflection, to do no more flattery, No more courtly performances, No more polite smiles over honeyed bread.

The next day, she went to court and gave a single, terrifying command:

"All Houses will bind blood to me. Publicly. No more ancestral oaths on parchment want you all to bind your loyalty to me!"

They gasped. They resisted.

"Your Highness, you are too young!" "The weight of the blood will break you!" "Blood demands blood, it will retaliate!"

Their resistance lasted exactly two days. They knew her power now, 6 years ago they were not sure but now it was clear what she was, small, yes, but potent enough to haunt their dreams. One by one, the Great Houses stood before her in the Tower of Names, where ancestral records were etched into silver stone.

Aeryn stood at the heart of the ritual circle, barefoot, her red hair unbound, while the storm she carried thundered behind her, a sound not born from clouds.

She watched them prick their thumbs and drip their noble blood into the flame. Watched the sigils blaze red across the silver stone. Watched their magic, their power, their lineages, all bind to her.

She was no longer just their queen. She was their anchor. Their leash. And their curse.

But not all Houses complied in truth. One house rebelled went against her command and maybe used a beast's blood instead of nobles's or heir's that reversed the magic binding. Unfortunately no one found out until very later.

That week, her terrified mentors begged her to soften. "The court fears you, Your Highness," one whispered, hands shaking. "Fear is not the same as loyalty, my Queen! Its soo sudden my queen!"

She dismissed him with a flick of her fingers. The mentor instantly began to bleed from the nose and did not stop for three days. No physician could staunch the flow.

The new names spread like wildfire: the Witch Queen, the Redborn., the Blood Heiress of Hawasa.

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[accuscripter]

A few days had passed since Aeryn's terrifying demonstration in the Jaw of Judgment and the forced blood-binding ceremony. The court was subdued, but the external fear was now matched by a deep internal terror that haunted the young queen.

Aeryn had stopped sleeping. Not because she physically couldn't, but because she feared what sleep would bring. The nightmares, which began in fragments after the binding ceremony, (a consequence of foul play) were now whole, vivid, and lethal. They were smears of red across a sunless sky, hands stretched toward her from beneath bone-colored soil, and a sound, distant and wet, like water dripping in a dying well.

Last night, the kingdom had died in them.

She had stood in the palace courtyard, barefoot, blood-soaked, and watched the people of Sahirra stagger through the streets. Their eyes were hollow, their cheeks sunken, their veins utterly empty. Not cut. Not pierced. Simply… emptied. As if the land itself had drunk their vitality.

They walked until they fell, cracking like brittle wood on the unforgiving stone. There was not a scream among them. Only silence, and the wet whisper of red flowing through unseen cracks in the foundation. They were walking dead. Soul-less.

Aeryn woke with a silent scream stuck in her throat. Her pillow was stained crimson from her nose. She looked at her hand, trembling and sticky with fresh blood.

…………………

Sakina found her at dawn beneath the bone-laced arch of the eastern window. The Queen sat, knees pulled to her chest, her face damp with sweat, the faint, dried streaks of blood unwashed.

"My queen…" Sakina started softly, clutching a pitcher of lavender water.

Aeryn turned, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted.

"If I asked you something, would you lie to me?"

Sakina hesitated. "If you ordered me to."

"Don't." The girl-queen's voice was hoarse. "Tell me the truth. Tell me what they call me." She looked out into the far distance.

Sakina looked down, then whispered: "The Witch Queen."

Aeryn nodded slowly, as if the word had already been stitched to the inside of her skin and now simply itched. "They think I drink blood, don't they?" she said with a faint, chilling smile.

"They fear you," Sakina said, falling onto her knees. "And when men fear women, they make monsters out of them."

Aeryn did not press. She left Sakina there, alone in the room.

She did not go to court that day. Instead, she walked barefoot into the labyrinths beneath the palace, where the walls were carved with the names of dead rulers and the air smelled of salt and forgotten fires. Torches flared to life as she passed, unlit by hand. Her power was now an openly flickering thing, uncalled for, at her fingertips. The blood in the stone hummed, awaiting its opportunity.

She reached her parents' tomb. Their sarcophagi stood side by side, carved from deep sapphire obsidian and veined with molten silver. Aeryn knelt, reaching for the script etched into the lids: Queen Elaira Yssa. High King Maeron Thalen.

Her fingers froze inches away. The stone was cracked. Someone had defiled the graves.

Aeryn scrambled to her feet, her heart thundering. She opened her mouth to scream, "SAKINA!", but the name died on her lips.

There, burned into the marble floor in blood-red ink, she saw a message:

Your power will be your tomb. Lose it willingly and you and your people will live. Go against the divine calling and you will face retribution that was never seen before.

She stood straight and turned. A figure in grey-white stepped out from the deep shadow at the far edge of the tomb. Hooded, faceless, cloaked in robes that shimmered like oil on water.

Aeryn raised her hand, magic pooling at her palm. "Who are you?"

The voice was neither male nor female. It was new. Non-human. Beautiful, yet capable of sending a thrill of pure horror into the listener.

"A message. That is all."

"What message?"

The figure tilted its head. "You dream of blood because it remembers. You see a dying realm because it is already dying."

Aeryn's voice cracked with desperation. "Then tell me how to save it."

"Let it go."

"I can't. I won't."

The figure began to dissolve into the shadows. "Then the curse will bloom, red as your crown."

Aeryn demanded: "Why?"

"The One who created you will not burden your soul beyond what you can bear. But you have crossed a threshold, and He cannot allow you to go beyond what has been ordained for you. Either relinquish your gifts, or face the destruction by the very power you seek to wield while awaiting the divine retribution! A lesson for those who try defy His will."

The figure vanished.

Aeryn collapsed onto the cold marble, alone in the tomb, the bones of kings and queens pressing their silence into her. Her breathing was shallow. She didn't remember leaving the catacombs, but the crown felt heavier that night when she put it back on and faced her reflection.

……………………….

The next morning, she stood before the mirror. Her hair was almost entirely red now. Only the faintest traces of gold remained near the scalp. Her eyes were no longer light brown. They held an echo of copper, a glint of change.

She stared. And behind her reflection, for just a moment, she saw the hollow-eyed people again, the bloodless, dead mannequins of her dream. She turned away before the scream could escape her lips.

The court tried to pretend nothing had changed, when they exactly knew through their spies in the palace that something was amiss with the dress up queen. They came in their silks and leathers. They bowed with the same guarded half-curves. They delivered reports as though the world was not unraveling. But they spoke softly, and all eyes watched her hands. They were using her weakness, her fear for her people, against her. It was proving more devastating than any assassin or poison.

In the lower quarters of Sahirra, the rumors had bloomed and become unstoppable. Whispers of the blood-queen who cursed the crops with her shadow. Of the red-haired girl who drank nightmares. Of the palace whose stones bled at midnight. And one rumor louder than all the others: She is not the queen. She is the curse.

That night, Aeryn returned to the observatory. The enchanted sky swirled above her, gray and storm-choked.

"No stars tonight, Your Highness," Sakina said softly.

Aeryn stood at the chamber's center, her arms crossed behind her back. "Sakina," she interrupted, "Do you believe I was born cursed?"

"I believe," Sakina said gently, "that you were born watched."

Aeryn turned. "By what?"

"By something ancient. Something the world thought it had buried."

The queen's voice was firm now. "Then I will bury it again!"

Sakina frowned. "And if it's part of you?"

Aeryn's lips trembled once, then settled into a hard line. She didn't need to answer. She knew it was true.

She whispered her final, devastating resolve: "I will save them. Even if I must become what they fear, or what I fear."

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[accuscripter]

Six years had passed since Aeryn bound the Great Houses with blood. She had vowed to save her people, even if she became what they feared, but the line between queen and curse had long since vanished. The dreams of a dying kingdom had now invaded her waking world.

Aeryn's madness came slowly.

First, as a whisper in her nightmares. Then as muttered curses in the merchant alleys. Then louder still, in the high courts, murmured behind silk fans and beneath powdered beards: "She is a witch... but alas, she is a queen." And finally, even in the sacred prayer houses, where the scent of incense grew hesitant and the lips of holy men trembled when they dared speak her name.

She was eighteen now, and stood taller than most women in her court. Her hair was no longer streaked, but fully, violently crimson, as though flame had chosen her scalp for a throne. Her skin bore faint, ghostly marks like smoke trails, residue of blood magic etched just beneath the surface. And her light brown eyes, once soft, no longer merely shimmered. They glowed; sunken, haunted, ringed with dark crescents that looked like sleep had long abandoned her.

Every child in Sahirra knew the stories now. Red hair was cursed. Amber eyes were the mark of a withered soul. And their queen... their witch-queen... was a sanguine artist.

……………………..

It started with dreams. But now it began to slip through the veil into her waking hours.

At first, it was a sound; a soft, distant drip... drip... drip; like water leaking from a cracked cistern. But it wasn't water.

Then came the visions.

She would find herself standing at the edge of a barren, gray valley, hands clean, feet bare. The sky overhead wept not with rain, but with blood. Thin and pale at first, then thick, darker, until rivers of it flowed. The ground beneath her cracked with the crunch of bone, thousands of them.

She would turn, and see them: the people of Sahirra, lying where they had fallen. Drained and shrivelled, their eyes wide with questions she had no answers to.

A court minister would stand before her, droning about grain taxes, and she'd blink; only to see blood trails across his mouth, his eyes hollow and accusing. She saw silent, dead blood dripping from his sleeves, pooling at his feet. The stench of rotting bodies and drying blood would follow, unfathomable and palpable. She could taste the metallic copper on her tongue.

She would grip the arms of her throne until her knuckles turned white, shutting her eyes. The minister would simply roll his eyes, whispering behind his palm: "The little queen is distracted again."

They had no idea what she was enduring. Not even Sakina knew yet.

In the days that followed, Aeryn withdrew. She canceled feasts. Refused visitors. She wandered the palace's long, forgotten corridors and silent crypts. She would stand before her mother's tomb, whispering questions no one could answer. Other times, she climbed the Tower of Names and stared across the city, watching smoke rise from the forges and bakeries, wondering what part of her was still human.

Was she still the girl who had watched her parents die? Or had she become something else entirely?

She still remembered that day. Six years old. Her mother smiling. Her father arguing. Tugging a sleeve to ask, Why do crows only sing when people die?

Then came the black fire. The silence. And the screaming.

……………….

Her eyes stung now. She closed them and tears slipped down her cheeks silently.

A maid stepped into the room. "Your Highness...?" the girl said softly.

Aeryn looked up, and something inside her snapped.

The maid's eyes began to bleed.

Aeryn gasped. "No! No... NO!"

She rushed forward, trying to undo it, but the harder she fought the worse it became. Blood streamed from the girl's nose, her ears, her mouth.

"No! Please, I didn't mean..." Aeryn sobbed, cradling the girl's trembling body. "Sakina! SAKINA!"

Sakina burst into the room, instantly kneeling beside the Queen. One glance told her everything. She gently took the bleeding girl from Aeryn's trembling hands. The maid was shaken, but not fatally injured.

Sakina looked up at Aeryn, then placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "You did this?"

Aeryn could barely nod, her own hands stained crimson.

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know!" Aeryn wept, raising her bloody hands. "She just called my name and I... I didn't mean to, Sakina! I don't know!"

Sakina's voice cut through the hysteria like a whip. "Aeryn! Get hold of yourself."

Aeryn went silent, flinching.

"Breathe," Sakina commanded, firm and steady. "Close your eyes. Think about what you were feeling in that moment. And reverse it."

Aeryn obeyed, her lips trembling with misery. A minute passed. When she opened her eyes, they were steady, clear. She placed a trembling hand on the maid's forehead. Slowly, within a few seconds, the bleeding stopped. The girl's body eased into unconsciousness.

Aeryn stared at her for a moment, her breath catching. Then she turned and ran away.

……………………

In the days of quiet solitude that followed, Aeryn began her research. Not about politics, but about herself. About Blood Weaving, the magic she was honing without even knowing it, the pride that was quickly becoming her bane.

She ordered the Vaults of Hollow Lore to be opened. She read ancient scrolls, some inked in powdered bone, timed back to her great-grandmother. She dissected stories of magicians who went mad, women who turned to mist, and children who razed their own villages to silence the screaming in their blood.

She did not stop, even when the ink bled into her fingertips, even when the books seemed to whisper, even when her nose bled in thin, precise lines across her face like sigils forming from inside her.

She needed to know: Was this curse growing? Was her dream a prophecy, or a warning?

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn had achieved a fragile control over her powers, but the cost was her sanity. Now, as the whispers of the dying realm intensified, a new, more seductive presence began to call her deep into the ruins of her past.

It began with accidental defenses. Then came the blood accidents. Then came the dreams. Then came sounds. And now, there were hums. Beautiful, feminine sounds.

Then one day, she heard words in the hums.

"Come find me."

The voice floated into Aeryn's nights like smoke. Sweet, soft, and distinctly feminine. It called not from the world around her, but from somewhere deep, beneath stone, beneath memory, beneath blood.

She tried to follow it. Night after night, her feet silent on the marble floors, her breath held. She moved like a ghost through the palace, barefoot and dazed, slipping from her sheets in the velvet hours just before dawn. The hum was haunting her. It shifted locations, sometimes in the eastern wing, sometimes the cellar halls, once echoing through the golden pillars outside the high court, like a song trapped in bone.

Aeryn started to fear she was truly descending into madness. Yet, the more she tried to ignore it, the clearer the voice became. It wasn't just sound; it was a pulse. A vibration, like something massive breathing just beneath the marble floors.

She grew used to roaming the palace in disheveled splendor, her silk gown trailing like smoke, hair undone, eyes unfocused. The courts whispered that the Queen was slipping, but she didn't mind. If they had heard the hums, the names, the murmurs in the walls that begged to be found, they might have gone mad too.

……………

The hum grew stronger, more constant.

And then, one night, the heartbeat returned. It pulsed through the walls, a familiar, secondary drum beneath her ribs.

She followed it, not with urgency, but with the aimless resignation of someone being led. It guided her through the oldest halls of the keep, places long abandoned, layered in dust and memory. Finally, it led her to a door she hadn't touched in twelve years: her parents' chamber.

She hadn't stepped inside since the night they died; since the black fire devoured their eyes and silenced their breath.

The door creaked as she pushed it open.

Nothing remained. No furniture. No silks. No memory. The Council had long ago ordered it all burnt, claiming every item might be cursed, tainted by whatever dark power had murdered the royal couple.

Aeryn stepped inside, every breath catching. Only the walls remained, bare stone, smooth and veined with strange sigils. They hummed as she stepped closer, vibrating with the same low, otherworldly frequency that had haunted her nights.

Her gaze hazy, her hand trembling, she reached out, drawn by a heat in stone that should have been cold. She touched it. The surface trembled beneath her palm.

Aeryn gasped, staggering back as a seam, a thin, silent seam, opened down the middle of the wall, revealing a passage hidden deep within. Her heart thudded once, hard. Her tired eyes looked inside, laced with fear.

…………….

The passage led to a circular chamber, small and cloaked in a strange, silver light that had no source. Green, leafy veils lined the walls, spiraling like vines through time. The air shimmered as she stepped inside.

At the center stood a bone-white pedestal. Upon it sat a thick book, bound in cracked red leather, sealed with a clasp shaped like a human ribcage. Her hand hovered for a second, then reached out.

The ribcage clasp creaked open on its own.

She opened the book. The pages were filled with names, thousands of them, and scattered among them were drawings, portraits of forgotten souls, figures sketched in maddening detail, their eyes seeming to watch her from the parchment.

She flipped the pages slowly until she saw her.

An old woman with deep lines carved into her face. Dark eyes, smiling awkwardly. There was a profound heaviness in the sketch, like the woman carried oceans behind her stare.

Underneath the portrait was a single name: Hawasa. Etched into the page so hard the parchment had nearly torn.

Aeryn passed her hand over the name, her fingers trembling. She whispered it out loud: "H A W A S A."

She sat frozen on the bone-white pedestal, knees drawn close, eyes locked on the ink. The chamber around her was silent except for the frantic beating of her own heart, as if it, too, was remembering.

As she read, the book did not offer gentle fiction. It offered memories carved into skin and marrow, not ink.

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn was no longer reading a historical record; she was absorbing a memory. The truth about the 'curse' was not that it was evil, but that it was born from a profound, agonizing trauma.

There was a girl... young, barely past her first bloom, a streak of sunlight in the cold. Hawasa was her name, a daughter of the Southern Azure dominion, where the snow met the sea and laughter cracked like ice. She had been joy, she had been hope. But joy is fragile in a world set on fire.

When the people of the Cinder Fire Hegemony came, they did not come as conquerors; they came as devourers. They took everything: her family, her tribe, her betrothed. Their ashes scattered over a sea that no longer sang. They chained her like a beast and hauled her across the ocean, burying her in a stone prison beneath the crust of their cruel empire.

There, in the bowels of the Cinder Fire Hegemony, where the walls sweated and stank of rot and despair, Hawasa began to wither.

Aeryn read with faintly trembling hands, her breath slowing as the images painted themselves across her mind. She saw Hawasa curled on the stone floor, eyes fierce but desperately afraid. The prison was forged from silence, starvation, and the unbearable stench of burning hope.

The guards came, fire in their hands and something hungrier in their eyes. Aeryn swallowed thickly, feeling her stomach turn. They pressed Hawasa into corners where the shadows couldn't even look. They seared her skin, tore her clothes, and violated the last sacred things she possessed. Her body became a battleground, her soul a scar.

Aeryn's eyes stung, her vision blurring, but her hands refused to let go of the pages. Her breath hitched, imagining the silent screams that sat in the throat like a swallowed knife.

Hawasa fought, trying to draw moisture from the sweat on their bodies, from the filth in the gutters, but the fire devoured it. They held her down until her voice gave out and she became a silence that bled. Her body fractured, her cries died into the stone. When dawn came, they left, satisfied. And Hawasa was laying half-dead on the floor, slick with her own blood, sweat, and silence.

She didn't move for days. Her limbs were too broken to crawl, her soul too shattered to scream. She forgot the sound of her own name. But then... her body betrayed her.

Aeryn let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding, instinctively clutching her own stomach to ward off the echo of that pain.

Hawasa had denied it, refused to believe that anything could grow in a place so soaked in death. But her blood spoke the truth. A child had taken root, born of violence and seeded in agony. Never love.

Hatred became Hawasa's second heartbeat. She tried everything to rid herself of the life inside her. She starved, threw herself against the walls, and clawed at her belly until her fingers were slick with blood. But the child clung to life like rot clings to damp wood. It would not die.

The day it was born, it came with a storm of agony. Hawasa bit through the pain in silence, limp on the floor, the blood pooling beneath her more familiar than breath. The baby came wailing, small and screaming.

She turned her head away, sickened. But when she looked... something twisted inside her.

The baby's eyes were wide open. And they pulsed.

Aeryn was flinching as the description seared into her mind.

Veins throbbed beneath the newborn's translucent skin, not with weakness, but with something unnatural. Something aware. Power hummed beneath its flesh. It was a mirror, showing Hawasa everything they had done, carved into muscle and blood.

Rage rose in Hawasa like floodwater. She crawled toward the child, trembling, her hand stretched out not in welcome, but in judgment. But just as her fingers hovered over the tiny throat, the cell door slammed open.

A guard stepped in, eyes widened. He snatched the child from the floor.

"No!" she screamed. "No, give it back! Give it back to me!"

Aeryn's chest ached. Hawasa hadn't wanted the baby back to love it; she had begged for it so she could kill it! But the door slammed shut, and the child was lost to her forever.

…………………

Something in Hawasa shattered. She collapsed in the corner, her cries silent, a shaking, unmade thing. The image of the infant's flickering veins, its unnatural body twisting, haunted her.

And then, one night, a lizard scurried across the floor.

It was nothing. Small, twitching, insignificant. But Hawasa's gaze latched onto it, unblinking. Something inside her, somewhere beneath the grief, deeper than pain, focused. She didn't chant. She didn't breathe hard. She simply reached. Into the stillness. Into the blood.

The lizard twitched. Its back arched, legs spasming. It staggered sideways, confused and trembling. Then scurried away, half-bent and broken.

Aeryn sat frozen, her hands clenched on the page. Her skin prickled.

It was not joy Hawasa felt then. Not even vengeance. It was control. Cold and sharp and absolute. And it changed everything.

She began to practice on rodents, honing her skill. Years later, when the guards returned, the laughter in their throats turned to coughs. Limbs jerked. Bodies twisted. The fire in their palms sputtered as they reached for her and found their own blood working against them. Hawasa didn't scream. She didn't rage. She simply stared... and bent them.

The cell had become a womb for vengeance.

The first blood weaving was not a weapon. It was a scream. A scream that shattered a lizard's spine. A scream that would one day become a legacy.

They called it evil.

But Aeryn, her face pale and tear-streaked, could not find the strength to call it anything at all. Because for Hawasa, it had not been born from darkness. It had been born from survival.

Aeryn was weeping by the time she reached that part. Not gentle tears, but aching, breathless cries that clawed from her throat. Her hands gripped the edges of the book as if it might anchor her. The horror pulsed in her blood.

This broken soul was not a villain. She was a wound that never scabbed.

Aeryn pressed her forehead to the book, sobbing soundlessly. Rage consumed her. Not pity, but a bone-deep, soul-wringing fury that tasted like iron and fire. The voices in the wall had not been echoes.

They were screams, sealed in time, begging to be heard.

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn returned from the hidden chamber carrying the weight of ancient trauma. The truth of her power was not a gift, but a legacy born of rape, fury, and a dynasty built on vengeance.

The book closed with a soft, final sigh of old pages. Hawasa's cries, the blood-soaked cell, the stolen child, the memory still clung to Aeryn's skin. She rose slowly from the stone pedestal, her body shaking, eyes wide and haunted. The revelation had thickened the blood within her.

Staggering across the corridors, she finally reached her private chamber. Sakina was waiting by the hearth, her back straight, her gaze patiently fixed on the flames, as if she'd known Aeryn would come.

Aeryn entered silently, her foot streaked with ash and dust, and sank onto the couch. She did not speak. Sakina, having seen the look in the Queen's eyes, did not ask.

After a few tense minutes, Aeryn looked up, her throat dry, her voice barely a whisper. "She was raped." The word was foreign and violent on her tongue. "She tried to kill the child... and they took it. She never saw her child again."

Sakina closed her eyes, her expression unreadable. "Yes. That is the truth buried beneath the years. The one they tried so hard to keep from you."

Aeryn's voice rose, edged with fury. "Why? Why was this hidden? Why does no one speak her name? Why me? Why Now? Sakina, why?"

Sakina turned toward the hearth and tossed a handful of black powder into the flames. The fire shifted to an eerie, pulsing blue, casting sharp, strange shadows on the walls.

"Because power rooted in pain is often feared," she said. "And this power, your power, is not only old. It is cursed. Twisted through generations. You, Aeryn, are the first to carry all three veins of it in nearly a century. They thought it had extinguished. That it had died."

Aeryn blinked. "Three veins? Died?"

Sakina nodded slowly. "There are ancient blood magic tomes buried deep beneath the citadel. Hidden by women who once ruled when men could not comprehend the depth of magic they wielded. Your ancestors. Hawasa's daughter was one of them."

………………

"You mean... Hawasa's child? She survived? What happened to her?" Aeryn's breath caught.

"Yes. The child lived. She was named Anya," Sakina revealed. "The guard who stole the baby was killed for his knowledge. Anya was raised in secret by a concubine of the Imperial Cinder Hegemony who claimed the child as the King's. When Anya came of age, the concubine, in a moment of malice, told her the truth: that she was the illegitimate child of a rape victim who had fled."

"Anya did her own research, found out the full truth, and discovered the gift, no, the curse, of Haemomancy ran in her very veins. She went mad with the pain, wrecked havoc, and became a monstrous sanguine artist. She played with blood, vein, and life and soul. She was recaptured."

"Did she ever meet her mother?" Aeryn asked, fear gripping her throat.

"She tried. She finally had the spirit to come face to face with her. But when Anya was close, Hawasa died. Without ever knowing her own blood and flesh was alive, carrying the legacy she had started in torment."

Sakina paused for emphasis. "Anya, fueled by inherited pain and fury, founded Sahirra and this Dynasty. She unlocked the art her mother had begun in torment, shaping a power so raw, so terrifying, that three nations knelt before her. She didn't take a throne. She built it."

Aeryn held her head tightly. "I don't understand. How did Hawasa escape in the first place?"

Sakina's expression darkened, the blue fire casting sharp lines across her face. "She waited until she had mastered her art in secret. Then, one full moon, she broke free, killing the guards who tried to touch her again. She vanished, hiding in plain sight as an innkeeper in a quiet village."

……………………

Aeryn listened, barely breathing. "Then why was she re-caught?"

"Your highness, she ran away, but she never forgot," Sakina said. "Her pain had grown so sharp it no longer recognized innocence. Every full moon, she used her gift to kidnap villagers. She dragged them to a cave, imprisoning them. She told herself it was justice. Revenge. For the chains they once bound her in."

"And then?"

"Then she met a girl," Sakina said, her voice dropping. "A young hydromancer from the Southern Azure Tribe. Hawasa, perhaps seeking connection, entrusted her secret to this girl. The girl, horrified by the art of Haemomancy, refused it. Until she was forced to use it against Hawasa herself, to save her friends."

Aeryn frowned. "Who was this girl?"

"She was the one who studied Hawasa's curse, modified it, and then buried it so deeply that no one knew she held the forbidden arts. She feared it would destroy more than it could protect. After their battle, the village captured Hawasa. She was sent to the Southern Azure Dominion, exiled with the condition she never leave Wolf Cove."

"So she lived?" Aeryn whispered.

"For a while. But veterans of the Hegemony, still bitter with the scars she had left behind, ambushed her on her journey. She was old, and they eventually captured her again. She died in their custody, of old age, quietly, forgotten by most."

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn, reeling from the traumatic history of her ancestor Hawasa, now confronts the terrifying truth of her own lineage. She is the chosen vessel for a power the kingdom tried to bury, and the blood has finally found a heart worthy of its rage.

Aeryn looked down at her hands, remembering the night they turned red in the firelight. Not from a wound, but from an awakening.

"And Anya found this all out?"

"Yes, she did. Her indecisiveness, which cost her the chance to save her mother, only fueled her fury, making her more determined and more powerful."

"What about her father? Who was he?"

"Her father was the king's son. He was killed in battle days after the prison incident."

Aeryn looked at Sakina, overwhelmed by the sheer scope of Anya's identity: "She was a pyrokinetic, a flow weaver, innately adept in dark sanguine art, blood lore danced at her will, and most of all, she was royal!"

Sakina nodded, sighing as if she knew the weight was too much for a teen queen to handle.

Aeryn rubbed her chest, feeling the pressure.

"Anya knew all of this. Though grief-stricken, she was too intelligent to be paralyzed by it. She used every facet of her history in her favor. And no one ever crossed her again or tried to use anything against her," Sakina added.

"I don't know what to do with this, Sakina," Aeryn whispered. "Why do I even have to know about Hawasa, her daughter! It's history, yes, and I understand I share the power, but…" She looked at her with a squinted, confused gaze.

"You embrace it," Sakina said firmly, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. "Not to become her. But to finish what she began. A century later, you are the continuer of a legacy long buried beneath shame and fear. Aeryn, she is your great-great-great-grandmother."

……………..

Aeryn looked up slowly, her irritation visible. "How do you know all this?"

"You don't believe me," Sakina said with a faint smile, stepping back.

"How can I, Sakina!" Aeryn cried.

"Your Highness, this is your past, your legacy, and your beginning. I won't say anything more, but you can go to the outskirts of the capital or talk to any senior minister. They all know about Queen Anya, enough to prove what I've just told you is true. My family has always been loyal to the monarch. My great-great-grandmother served your great-great-great-grandmother. We have a link, and I have a responsibility. We were always taught to be vigilant in case a powerful monarch arose in the dynasty, whose power no one could rival."

Aeryn felt like the walls were spinning. "Why did no one tell me this? Not even my father? Why was this hidden from me?"

Sakina's eyes darkened. "Because your father had no such power. He was a ruler only by the blood of royal men, but it is you who carries the fire of Hawasa's rage, Anya's legacy, and their collective silence. You are the first daughter in a century after Anya. Your father feared that. Feared what he could never control. He tried everything, experiments, scrolls, forbidden rites, to awaken it in himself. But the blood rejected him. Every man after Hawasa was cursed. No man could bear the weight of it."

………………….

"Then why me?" Aeryn's voice cracked. "Why didn't I feel powerful since birth? Why did my parents never see it?"

Sakina's voice softened. "Perhaps it was grief that buried it. Or perhaps the gift was waiting. Waiting for the moment when your heart cracked open like Hawasa's did. Maybe it was the night you buried your parents with your bare hands. Maybe it was pain that unlocked it. Or maybe…"

She leaned in, her voice a profound whisper, "…maybe blood remembers."

"And now," Sakina continued, her voice lowering as if touching something sacred and feared, "you are the first of her line to awaken all three veins again. Blood. Fire. Water. The forgotten trinity. The royal inheritance that no man could bear."

Aeryn looked up slowly, her brow creased. "Why? Why couldn't a man bear it?"

Sakina exhaled, the silence before her answer speaking louder than words. "Perhaps it was a curse. A silent oath whispered by the blood of every woman who had suffered. From Hawasa... to Anya… to the hundreds whose names we no longer remember. The pain they carried was not only of war or captivity, but of betrayal. Men broke them. Burned them. Took from them what could never be returned."

Aeryn's heart pounded, connecting the abuse to the power's dormancy.

"After Anya, the line continued, but only sons were born. Almost a hundred years of silence. No daughters. No one to carry the weight of that power. No one the blood would trust. And then, after a century, you were born."

Aeryn stared at her own hands, suddenly unsure whether she was blessed or condemned.

"You are the first daughter of a queen in a hundred years," Sakina whispered, her voice like trembling flame. "The blood has waited. It would not answer to men. Not after what was done. Perhaps it refused to pass into hands that did not bleed like theirs did, or cry like theirs did in silence."

Aeryn swallowed hard. "So I… inherited their rage."

"No," Sakina said. "You inherited their truth. Their sorrow. Their fire. The blood sings in you now because it finally found someone who could understand it. Not use it for conquest, but carry it with honor... or vengeance, if that is what you choose."

Aeryn's question lingered in the still air between them, demanding final clarity. "But… My father… his brothers… all the heirs before me. Not even one? How is that possible?!"

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[accuscripter]

Sakina looked up, her eyes shadowed with something older than memory. "Your Highness, because the power never belonged to them," she said. "The trinity, blood, fire, and water, it was never a gift to be inherited like land or titles. It was born from suffering. Birthed in pain. Forged in the wombs of women who were broken and still dared to rise."

She paused, fingers brushing over the embroidery on her sleeve, tracing threads of the past. "When the curse took hold, it did not scream. It did not leave marks. It simply turned its face away. The trinity refused them."

Aeryn's brow furrowed. "Refused?"

Sakina nodded. "One by one, the male heirs were born hollow. They had the bloodline, but not the fire. They could command soldiers, but not water. They could light common flames, but never with the intent that shaped destiny. They ruled… but the blood did not obey them."

Aeryn's chest tightened as she absorbed the chilling truth.

"The blood remembers," Sakina continued, her voice soft now, reverent. "It remembers the men who broke Hawasa. Who laughed while she bled. Who held her down while her soul shattered. The blood remembers the kings who silenced Anya. The princes who sought to cage her gifts. It remembers every cry that went unheard, every blade that carved pain into women's bodies."

She met Aeryn's eyes. "So the blood turned away. It whispered only to daughters. But no daughters came; not for a hundred years. Only sons. As if the blood itself was waiting. Maybe it was mourning, refusing to speak."

………………

The silence that followed was thick with the weight of generations.

"Your father," Sakina began, her voice turning solemn, "he believed the prophecy spoke of him. He had his fortune told years before your birth: that the trinity would return to the bloodline. Blood. Fire. Water. All three veins in one pure soul. And he thought... it meant him."

Aeryn's breath caught. "He thought he was the chosen one?"

Sakina nodded slowly. "He was born with influence, a descendant of royal mothers, and raised in the palace where symbols of ancient power whispered. He was a strong man. He commanded armies, ruled the realm. But no matter what he tried, no flame obeyed without struggle, no water weaved without fury, and blood? Blood never once listened. The court obeyed and the people loved him, but only he knew he was nothing."

The old woman's gaze deepened. "And he tried everything. Rituals. Seers. Forbidden rites from burned scrolls. All in secret. All to awaken something that was never meant for him. But he never knew... the power was never his to take. Because the trinity… refuses men."

Aeryn swallowed hard, as if the truth itself burned her tongue.

"Pain has a memory, Your Highness," Sakina said, her voice nearly a whisper. "The first awakening of the trinity was born not in triumph, but in torment. Hawasa's suffering. Anya's silence. Their power came from a place no man has ever understood, let alone earned. It remembers the ones who bled for it. Who bore the cost of its birth."

She reached out and gently touched Aeryn's hand.

"For generations, only sons were born. No daughter came to claim the inheritance. And so the trinity stayed quiet; buried in bone and ash. The men grew powerful in title, but the blood stayed still. It was waiting."

"For you. You, Aeryn, the first daughter in over a century. Born of the old blood, under the eclipse, with eyes that see beyond veils. The trinity woke not because someone claimed it… but because someone deserved it."

Aeryn's voice trembled. "He never knew…?"

Sakina shook her head. "No. Not until the very end. Not until he realized he had reached for a crown the blood would never place on his head. His greed took his life. He thought he had the power, and everyone was scared of him. That is why the darkness planned against him and took him away. He never knew that the legacy he hungered for and wailed for was not sleeping within him, but growing inside the daughter he gave birth to."

………….

Aeryn looked down at her hands, remembering the night they turned red. Not from a wound, but from awakening.

"I don't know what to do with this," she whispered, grasping her head once again.

The fire burned brighter in the hearth, stirred by the blood in the room. And somewhere deep in the castle walls, the voices that had once wept now watched in silence, finally calm that their legacy was no longer forgotten. It finally had a new name: AERYN.

Aeryn was visibly disturbed. Sakina started again, "Your Highness…."

"Be Quiet, Sakina!"

"But…Your Hi…"

"It's an order!" Aeryn cried. "I don't want to hear another word!"

"Yes, Your Highness." Sakina bowed her head.

"Go away!"

"Your Highness…" Sakina tried again, gently.

"SAKINA! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME BE! I WANT TO BE ALONE FOR A WHILE! PLEASE!" she pleaded, her voice quavering and her red eyes welling up with tears.

Sakina, though she did not want to leave the Queen alone at this moment of intense emotional upheaval, had to obey the final, tearful order.

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn's hands were trembling when she again said, "Stop. Please… don't say anything more."

Her voice cracked, not from anger, but from a profound, brittle fragility. The weight of every broken legacy she had just learned had shattered something delicate inside her.

Sakina paused. Words of warning pressed against her teeth, but the look in Aeryn's eyes silenced her. She bowed her head and stepped away without another word. The heavy wooden door shut, sealing the tower chamber in silence.

Aeryn turned her face to the hearth, letting her eyes lose focus as the flames crackled and danced. She stood utterly still, stunned by the flood of truths that had just reshaped her blood, her name, and her very soul. Firelight licked the stone walls, throwing shadows across her face.

Then, suddenly, something caught her attention.

A scent.

It was faint at first, like blooming myrrh and spiced rosewater carried on the wind. A warmth that was not fire. A breath that was not hers.

She blinked, startled, and turned.

There, just beyond the edge of the firelight, stood a woman. Beautiful, regal, and royal, with a presence that made the air feel dense. She looked to be in her early forties, her crimson hair cascading down in soft waves, her hazel-brown eyes soft yet endless. Her dress shimmered like dusk silk threaded with sunlight. There was something hauntingly familiar about her face.

Aeryn gasped. Her heart lurched.

"I-It's me?" she breathed aloud in disbelief.

The figure laughed softly, covering her mouth with the most elegant and maternal gesture.

Aeryn stood up, frozen between wonder and dread. The woman walked forward slowly, and before Aeryn could react, she was pulled into an embrace.

It was warm, strong, and safe. Aeryn's strength instantly collapsed. She couldn't resist. Without needing words, she buried her face into the woman's gown, clinging tightly. Her body began to shake with loud, messy, aching sobs, and the spot beneath her cheek was quickly soaked.

The figure said nothing. She simply held her, one arm around her back, the other gently stroking her hair like a lullaby. The pain that had built inside Aeryn since childhood, the ache of not knowing, of losing, of being called cursed, poured out of her like a storm that had waited too long to break.

When her sobs quieted, the woman eased her down and sat beside her on the velvet couch.

"Aeryn…" she said softly. "I am your mother."

Aeryn's eyes flew open. "No. You are not," she said, shaking her head in fierce denial.

"Yes, I am, love," the figure said with a quiet smile, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"My mama had black hair!" Aeryn insisted, her voice a sharp whisper of disbelief.

"I know, love. But you are my daughter," the woman replied. Her voice was neither defensive nor accusing, only filled with impossible sadness and love. "I am your mama Anya, Aeryn… don't you recognize me?"

Aeryn stared. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Her hands moved on their own, reaching forward, grasping the woman's hands tightly. Her own fingers trembled as her eyes widened, wild and glassy. She didn't know if she felt grief, joy, or horror, but her body knew. And her heart knew.

The figure, Anya, cupped her cheek with one hand and ran the other through her hair again, soothingly.

"My love," she said, her voice dropping, heavy with sorrow. "I don't want you to suffer. The Trinity… it ruined us. All of us. We got it without our consent. I tried all my life to get rid of it, but I couldn't. And when I saw that none of my children inherited this hideous power, I was relieved. I was happy. I stopped trying to get rid of it."

Anya paused. "I thought even though it ruined me, if it dies with me without affecting my children, that's all that matters. But seeing you now… my heart is in pain, Aeryn. I didn't want to pass it down. I didn't want to inflict pain and suffering upon my children. Never."

Aeryn didn't speak. The lump in her throat prevented it. The tears came again, quiet now, slipping down her cheeks.

"Aeryn! My love!" Anya's voice broke slightly. "This is not power. This is a curse. A memory of pain and suffering. But we have to break the cycle. What happened… happened. It was meant to be this way. But we cannot allow it to ruin our future. Can we?"

Aeryn, lips trembling, nodded silently.

Anya's hands gripped hers. "Aeryn," she said, with that same softness, "protect everyone. But do not protect everything, okay? This is not a power, it is a curse born in pain. Don't let it burn you, blind you, and then consume you!"

Before Aeryn could answer, the figure began to shimmer, her edges going faint and glasslike. The light around her dimmed. Her outline blurred like wind scattered across water.

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[accuscripter]

"No! Don't leave me!" Aeryn cried out in anguish, trying to hold onto her hands.

Anya's voice cracked with tears. "Promise me, Aeryn! You won't let this curse ruin you! Promise me that the future generation won't go through the same cycle of misery, revenge, and pain that me and my mother Hawasa passed!"

"No, please! Don't leave me!" Aeryn sobbed, her hands slipping through empty light.

"Promise me!" Anya cried, her fading figure shining with grief and urgency.

Aeryn dropped to her knees, her forehead pressed to the cold stone floor as tears spilled freely.

"I promise! I PROMISE!" she wailed. "I won't let anyone face the calamity that you faced!"

A hard knock echoed through her skull. Her eyes shot open. She was on the velvet couch. The fire still burned in the hearth, quiet and real.

Was it… a dream?

She wiped her face. Tears stained her cheeks, damp and warm. Her hands were shaking. But the promise, the warmth of the figure, and the crushing weight of Anya's sorrow still lingered inside her, ringing like a bell that could never be unrung.

She stood up and walked slowly to the door. She stepped into the hallway, the heavy door groaning shut behind her, sealing the chamber's secret.

Outside, the torches flickered low. The castle was silent, cloaked in the kind of hush that only followed grief, revelation, or devils.

She paused, then turned; and there, just to the right of the door, sat Sakina. Curled into herself, elbows on her knees, face buried in her hands. Her shoulders shook in silence, not from tears, but from a sorrow too heavy for sobs. The woman who had been her anchor was quietly unraveling.

Aeryn knelt beside her. "Sakina?" she said gently.

Sakina lifted her head, eyes red and rimmed with exhaustion. She immediately stood. "Aeryn! My apologies, Your Majesty!"

Aeryn let out a soft chuckle, brushing her hand across her eye. "No apologies. Get up, Sakina; we have things to do."

She reached for Sakina's arm, helping her up, and led her back into the chamber.

The New Command

They sank onto the couch beside the fire. Aeryn leaned back, gaze thoughtful, the last traces of grief replaced by fierce intent.

"I want to train girls," she said simply, without preface. "In secret."

Sakina blinked. "What?"

"I want to train them," Aeryn repeated.

Sakina looked aghast. "Why?" she asked, breathless. "Why would you want to do that?"

Aeryn smirked playfully, cocking her head. "Sakina, are you… questioning me?"

Sakina's back snapped straight. "I wouldn't dare, my Queen!"

Aeryn burst out laughing. "I'm joking, Sakina! Lighten up, would you?" She nudged her gently. "So the plan is…"

She started to explain: the location she'd scouted in a dream, the old stone sanctum on the edge of the Ashfen cliffs where no one dared go. The scrolls buried beneath Hawasa's chamber. The whispers of water, fire, and blood that followed certain girls like shadows, waiting to be named.

She spoke with fire in her voice now, brighter than the hearth. But Sakina wasn't listening to the words. She was watching her.

This can't be Aeryn! she thought. She was devastated moments ago! What happened to her so suddenly? Sakina was watching the light in Aeryn's eyes, the way she imagined a future not built on vengeance but rebuilding. The way her hands moved, urgent, tender, strong. There was a grace to her pain now.

Sakina, caught between fear and devotion, was completely smitten. It had been so long since she had seen such hope and valor in the young woman she had raised.

Aeryn didn't notice. She kept talking, voice alive with ideas.

Then, suddenly, Sakina reached forward and hugged her, tightly, fully, as if something inside her had broken loose and could no longer be contained.

Aeryn stiffened in surprise. "Sakina?! Are you good?"

Sakina didn't answer. She just held her, arms trembling, her face buried in Aeryn's shoulder, breathing in her strength, mercy, command, and pain.

When she finally let go, she stood upright, her eyes wet but determined.

"My queen," she said, her voice steady now. "I don't have to know. I will obey whatever you say. I am confused by this sudden change in you, but even if you are preparing to die, I will not stop you. Instead, I will follow you, without a question!"

"Sakina, I want to train them," Aeryn repeated, slower this time. "I want to protect them."

She looked at the fire. "Because I've seen what happens when power is buried instead of taught. When girls carry pain in their bones and have no name for it. When no one tells them they have a right to exist, to resist, or to fight back."

"I want to protect what matters to me. And that means ending the cycle. No more girls like Hawasa, used and broken. No more daughters like Anya, hiding who they are. No more queens like me, forced to carry the weight of blood and fire without knowing where it began or where it ends."

"I don't want revenge," Aeryn concluded. "I want something better. I want to gather girls from every nation and teach them to master what's inside them, not fear it. Because the echoes of pain are still alive, Sakina. They live in the boiling blood under the earth. In the memories passed through veins. In the hatred that simmers quietly until it burns down cities. I want to stop that."

Listening to this, Sakina dropped to her knees.

"My Queen! I will begin preparing for the journey."

And just like that, she stood up and disappeared through the doors, her light, quick footsteps determined and loyal.

Aeryn stayed seated, her fingers lightly brushing where Sakina's embrace had lingered on her arm. The fire crackled quietly. She closed her eyes.

And a smile came on her face.

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[accuscripter]

The morning broke over the high towers of the palace with a strange, breathless stillness. The air carried a sense of shifting tides, of forgotten truths stirring awake, of bloodlines rising after a hundred years of quiet.

Inside her chamber, Sakina moved quickly and deliberately. Scrolls were folded with care, ancient silk-wrapped maps placed into crates, herbs tied and sorted. Her hands never hesitated, but her mind wandered far ahead, toward the hidden truth she had revealed, and the girl she had sworn to protect.

She did not hear Sasha until the girl was already standing in the doorway. Sasha, sixteen now, was like a quiet breeze, soft, observant, and never intrusive, with curls braided neatly down her back. But today, the palace felt heavier. And Sasha knew.

She stepped inside. "Mother," she said gently.

Sakina looked up, startled. "Sasha," she exhaled softly.

"You are leaving?" Sasha asked.

"Yes. At dawn." Sakina attempted a small smile. "You should be resting."

"That's why I came." Sasha's fingers twisted in her tunic. "The guards are packing. Everyone's whispering. You're going somewhere important… and dangerous."

Sakina set the scroll down a little too slowly. "It isn't dangerous. You do not need to worry."

"If it wasn't dangerous," Sasha said, stepping closer, "you wouldn't leave me behind."

Sakina was about to offer an excuse, but Sasha continued, her voice growing steadier. "It's about Aeryn, isn't it?"

Sakina stilled. "She is her royal highness," she corrected automatically. "You cannot call her by, "

"She's changing," Sasha didn't let her finish. "I haven't seen her closely in years, but I remember her. The quiet girl. The one who stopped talking. And now everyone whispers her name with fear. They call her the Witch Queen." Her voice was aching, confused. "How did that child become this? What changed her? Why is she acting so strangely?"

Sakina sat down. "I remember Aeryn when she was ten," she said quietly. "She laughed easily then. But the court, and its poison, stripped things from her, piece by piece. She stopped smiling. Stopped trusting."

Sasha listened without blinking.

"They thought she was going mad. But I was there the first time her power broke through. A drop of blood, Sasha. One drop. And the earth trembled. She cried for hours, but the court never forgot the day they realized she wasn't just a child." Sakina took Sasha's hand. "She didn't change. She remembered."

"Remembered what?"

"Her blood," Sakina said softly. "Her fire. Her water. Her pain. And everything it cost the women before her. Something inside her simply refused to forget."

"But… how is that possible?"

Sakina gave a faint, almost bitter smile. "Take a child, kill its parents before its eyes, and then try to force it into submission. Some break. Some… break differently."

"Some break and some break?" Sasha echoed, frowning.

"Some break themselves trying to submit," Sakina explained. "And some learn to break others before they can be hurt again. Aeryn is… both. And neither." She looked toward the window, where storm clouds gathered slowly. "The blood in her remembers pain as a weapon. The fire remembers loss as fuel. And the water; it remembers everything."

"The court fears her because she cannot be bent. Not until she stops yearning."

"Yearning?"

"Yearning for a home," Sakina said. "For a family. For a life that wasn't stolen from her." The simplicity struck Sasha deeply.

"But why are you leaving? Where are you going?" Sasha whispered.

Sakina looked at her hands. "She's going to find others. Girls from the Azure Dominion, the Cinder Hegemony, the Vesper Plateaus… those with something hidden in their veins. She wants to train them. Protect them."

"Train them in magic?" Sasha asked.

"In truth," Sakina corrected. "In power. In the arts meant to stay buried. She wants to make sure no girl ever suffers what Hawasa did. What Anya did. What she herself survived."

"She's not doing it for power?"

"She's doing it despite power," Sakina murmured. "Because she knows what it does when greedy hands reach for it. Her father tried to hold it. But the trinity refused them. It found her instead. The first daughter in a hundred years."

Sasha clenched her hands. "Then… why not let her carry it alone?"

Sakina gave her a sharp, silent look, The answer is obvious, child.

Finally, Sasha said, her voice trembling but her eyes fixed: "I want to go with you."

"No." Sakina stood immediately. "Absolutely not. You are not trained for this."

Sasha rose too. "You taught me everything so I could help you one day. Isn't that day now? If there are girls out there suffering because of what they carry… I want to help them too. Please."

Sakina stared at her, then cupped her cheek. "You are braver than I was at your age," she whispered. "But the road ahead is cruel."

"Then teach me to walk it."

Silence stretched, tense and decisive.

"Alright," Sakina finally breathed. "But if you come, you obey her highness. Always. Without question."

"I will," Sasha promised.

"Go. Pack only what you can carry. We leave before dawn."

Sasha rushed out of the chamber, heart pounding. Left alone, Sakina allowed herself one small, tired smile. The journey ahead was terrifying, but Aeryn would not walk it alone, and neither would she.

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn had awakened something they feared; and something, deep within her, that feared itself.

She stood on the balcony of the High Keep that morning, veiled in wind and red silk, staring down at the marble courtyard where noblemen gathered with stiff backs and tightened lips. She didn't need to listen to know what they were saying. She could feel their unease in the way they shifted, how they whispered just out of her reach but within the burn of her awareness.

Something had shifted that night in the chamber when the past breathed through ink and shadow. A legacy had taken root inside her, sown in blood and stone. She had cried, breaking against the image of a mother's grief so ancient it stained generations after her.

But grief was a flame. And flames don't stay soft for long, unless extinguished.

The fire in her chest was calm now, cold at the edges like the glow of iron before it strikes. Her gown was layered in deep crimson and black, embroidered with twin phoenixes across her shoulders. Her crown sat untouched on the table behind her; she didn't need it anymore to command a room.

Sakina entered without knocking. "My queen," she said, slightly breathless, "they've sent another petition to dissolve the southern council;"

"Let them send parchment," Aeryn replied without turning. "They can bleed ink all they want."

Sakina lowered her gaze, though a smile touched her lips. "And if they gather steel instead?"

"Then I'll bend it," Aeryn said, a small tugging at her lips. She was sounding sarcastic.

She finally turned. Her eyes were quiet beneath the dark arch of her brows. She had changed, Sakina realized. Not just in posture, but in her silence. In the shadow that came with her, trailing like an old memory.

"Is it true?" Sakina dared ask. "They say… you moved the blood of Lord Taven's son. That he dropped to his knees without a wound on him."

"I was tired of his mouth," Aeryn said finally. "And his hands were too close to the servant girl."

Sakina's breath hitched, then she nodded. "Good."

The court had taken it as proof: their queen was not just grieving and brilliant, but something else. Something born of water and fire and blood that no man had ever mastered.

"I am not a girl anymore," she whispered. "And I am not a weapon."

"I am not afraid of what I carry," she said aloud. "I will shape it. I will choose what becomes of it."

Behind her, Sakina spoke. "They've called for another trial, my queen. They want to test your loyalty to the realm. A demonstration."

Aeryn looked back over her shoulder. "Demonstration? like a performance?"

Sakina nodded.

Aeryn turned fully. "hmmm…Then I'll give them one they'll never forget. Call Lord Vael and his daughter Lady Vienna to me."

Sakina hurried from the chamber, her steps swallowed by the stone halls.

……………..

Aeryn remained still, hands resting on the balcony rail. She could almost taste the pulse of the streets; the beating of countless lives, their fears, their voices, all threading into the hum of the realm.

When the summons was answered, the chamber door opened with a groan of iron hinges.

Lord Vael entered first; broad-shouldered, draped in indigo velvet, his eyes set with arrogance. Behind him walked his daughter, Lady Vienna, an epitome of nobility and grace, no more than twenty. Her hair fell like pale silk against a gown of river-blue. She did not meet Aeryn's eyes.

They bowed, stiff and shallow.

"My queen," Vael began, his voice low and careful, "I am told we are summoned in haste. May I ask why?"

Aeryn did not answer at once. She descended from the dais slowly, the train of her gown trailing like a dark flame. Her silence pressed into the chamber like a second presence, a weight that made even the seasoned lord falter.

When she finally spoke, her words cut clean. "You have been loud in council, Lord Vael. Louder than most."

Vael's jaw tensed. "I speak only for the realm, Your Majesty. For its peace."

"Peace! Hmmm…" Aeryn echoed, tasting the word as though it were ash. "And yet your peace has teeth lord vael. It gnashes at my decrees and gnaws at my throne."

Her gaze slid past him, to Vienna. The girl's hands twisted in the folds of her dress. Aeryn felt the tremor in her veins before she saw it, the small, silent plea tucked into her pulse.

"You want a demonstration," Aeryn said softly. "Of my authority, I presume."

"Very well."

She lifted her hand.

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[accuscripter]

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[accuscripter]

The air thinned. The torches in the chamber guttered low. Then, Vael stiffened. His hand flew to his throat as if choking on something unseen. His knees buckled, his breath rasped. His blood obeyed her call, tightening inside his veins like an iron clasp.

Vienna gasped, rushing forward. "Father!"

But before the girl could touch him, Aeryn lowered her palm, and the weight shifted.

Vienna froze, wide-eyed, as her own body stiffened. She did not choke, but her hand lifted against her will, then lowered again, slow, precise, like the movement of a puppet's string.

Gasps filled the chamber from the guards and scribes witnessing the event.

Aeryn's voice cut through the silence. "Do you see?" she said, stepping closer, her gown whispering across the marble. "I could spill the blood of your father with a thought." She looked at Lord Vael. "I could make your daughter kneel at my feet."

She turned her back and continued, "I could bend you both like reeds in the storm. This is the power you whisper about in your halls."

Vienna trembled, tears gathering in her eyes as Aeryn's unseen grip released her. She sank to the floor, clutching her hands together.

Aeryn turned her gaze back to Vael. He was pale, sweat beading at his brow, but he forced himself upright, his earlier arrogance replaced by stark terror.

"I do not need a sword to command your obedience," Aeryn said, her voice sharp as steel. "Nor a crown to remind you who I am. I am the blood that remembers. I am the fire that does not extinguish. And if any among you thinks to test me again, "

She let the silence hang, filled with the echo of his rasping breath.

"…they will find their veins answering to me before their lips can speak treason."

The chamber was quiet. Aeryn lifted her chin. "You came here for a performance. Now you've seen it. Leave my sight."

Vael bowed low this time, his arrogance gutted, his daughter clinging to his arm. They retreated quickly, the heavy doors slamming shut behind them.

……………..

The doors had barely stopped quivering when Aeryn's voice cut the silence again.

"Stop."

Lord Vael and Vienna froze mid-step, slowly turning back, confusion and raw fear painted across their faces.

Aeryn descended the last step of the dais. Her gaze fixed not on the lord, but on the girl who clung uncertainly to his arm.

"Lord Vael," she said, her tone measured, regal, "the reason I called you today was not only to silence your mutterings, but to entrust you with something greater."

Vienna's eyes widened. Vael frowned, wary. "My queen?"

"I am preparing an expedition," Aeryn said, her voice carrying to every ear. "Beyond these walls lies old power, waiting to be uncovered. But while I am gone, the realm will not govern itself. Someone must hold the regency."

Vael straightened, his pride swelling. "If it is Your Majesty's will, I will, "

"No."

The word cracked across the chamber like a whip.

Aeryn turned her gaze to Vienna. "Your daughter will serve as regent, in my absence," she declared. "And you will guide her; not as lord over her, but as a father. Mind that I know how you've ignored her, how you've treated her as less than your sons. That ends now. You will stand behind her, and she will stand before this council in my name."

A ripple of shock spread through the room. Vael's face drained of color.

"My… daughter?" he stammered, as though the word itself had never quite belonged to him.

"Yes," Aeryn said, her tone cold but steady. "Vienna. She will bear the crown of regency while I ride into shadow. She will speak with my authority, and the council will heed her voice as they would heed mine. You, Lord Vael, will teach her what she must know; but you will not control her. You will not silence her. If you do…"

Her eyes narrowed, a glint like steel catching fire.

"…then you know what I can do with a single thought."

Vienna's lips parted in astonishment. She looked from her father to the queen, waiting for the jest.

"I…I don't understand," Vienna whispered, trembling.

"You don't need to," Aeryn replied, stepping closer until the girl was forced to meet her gaze. "Not yet. You will learn. You will rise." She tugged a loose strand of Vienna's hair behind her ears, her touch gentle but absolute.

"You will see what it means to hold power, and to wield it without shame."

Then, softer, almost too soft for the others to hear, she whispered in her ear:

"You are my first. I will not let another girl be forgotten."

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[accuscripter]

Vienna's breath caught in her throat, her hair raised on her back and arms, as aeryn's warm breath danced funny in her ear.

Vael bowed stiffly, his face a mask of pride and humiliation, his voice strangled. "As… as you command, my queen."

"As I command," Aeryn said, turning from them. "Go now. Prepare her. The council meets at dawn, and she will stand in my place."

The heavy doors shut behind them, leaving only the echo of their departure.

Aeryn stood in the center of the chamber, her heart a steady drumbeat against her ribs. This was not just vengeance, not just a display of fear. It was the beginning of something larger.

The court had wanted proof of her loyalty to the realm. She had given it to them; but on her terms.

Not through submission.
But Through transformation.

The chamber had fallen into silence again, but it was not long before the sound of hurried footsteps echoed against the stone. Sakina reentered, her brow tense. She bowed quickly, then lifted her eyes to Aeryn, the words spilling before she could still them.

"Your Highness," she said, her voice tight with caution, "why Vienna? She is Lord Vael's daughter! You know what he is. He will try to shape her, to manipulate her into being nothing but his mouthpiece. I don't think this was a good idea."

Aeryn had been standing before the tall window, her fingers trailing the edge of the cold stone sill, her reflection faint in the glass. At Sakina's words, she turned, slowly, with the faintest smile curving her lips. It was not a mocking smile, nor cruel; it was the kind of smile that belonged to someone who had already thought ten steps ahead.

"Sakina," she said softly, though her tone carried a sharp edge, "I am the Highness of this realm. Do you question my decision?"

Sakina immediately bowed, her head lowered until her forehead nearly brushed the polished stone. "Never, my queen."

The air tightened. Sakina immediately bowed low, her forehead nearly brushing the floor. "Never, my queen," she whispered, her throat constricted. She held the bow longer than necessary, waiting until Aeryn's silence permitted her to rise again.

Then Aeryn moved, her gown whispering against the floor as she approached the balcony doors, her eyes on the horizon where dawn's faint light threatened the night. Then she moved closer. Her smile did not fade, but her voice deepened.

"Lord Vael, he won't do anything of the sort," Aeryn said at last. "He thinks he will, of course. Men like him always do. But Vienna is not her father's shadow. She is the light he has tried to snuff out. Sakina! vienna is a pure noble in bearing, yet down to earth in spirit. An embodiment of best behavior, not because he taught her, but because she had to teach herself what he denied her. Being ignored in her own house gave her a privilege most lords' daughters will never know; the knowledge of the overlooked, the strength of the forgotten, the heart of those who have always been silenced."

Sakina frowned, unconvinced. "But ignored children often break. They grow bitter. Resentful."

She turned her head slightly, her profile sharp against the fainting dark.

"And so did I," Aeryn replied sharply, her eyes gleaming. "Yet here I stand." She let the silence weigh heavy before she continued. "Vienna have a privilege far greater than Vael understands: the privilege of seeing the unseen. Of walking among the downtrodden without looking down on them. She knows what it means to be silent, to be pushed aside, and still to endure. That is strength. More than any councilor with a silver tongue or a noble son with polished boots could ever possess."

The conviction in Aeryn's voice wrapped the room like iron bands. She paced once around the dais, her hand brushing the carved arm of the throne she had refused to sit upon.

"She is more capable of holding this position aeryn finished, "more than anyone else in the court. That is why I chose her. Not because she is Vael's daughter; but because she is the only one who is not him.And if Vael thinks he can shape her to his likings, he will learn that this daughter of his was not raised in shadows for nothing. She will outgrow him and his sons he was so proud of."

Sakina's rigid stance softened. She inhaled, then exhaled slowly, as though releasing her resistance. At last, she nodded and slowly lifted her head. She studied Aeryn for a long moment before finally nodding.

"You see what others cannot, my queen," she said, the words part confession, part admiration. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Vienna will rise."

Aeryn tilted her head, a small, approving flicker in her gaze. "Not perhaps. She will. I will see to it."

"You're right," she murmured. "Perhaps she is the one the council will least expect. And the one they'll most underestimate."

"Which makes her dangerous," Aeryn replied simply.

The two women stood in silence, the air between them taut with unspoken understanding.

At last, Sakina drew in a careful breath, her composure returning. "Your Highness…"she started gently, "all preparations are done and complete. The horses are saddled, the guards handpicked, the maps drawn, the banners packed, the provisions secured. We will leave tomorrow morning."

Aeryn's smile deepened, though it carried no warmth; only a quiet certainty.

"Good. Tomorrow, then." she murmured, her voice distant but steady.

She continued after a while

"Don't announce my departure to them, let vael handle them."

"Yes your highness!" Sakina said.

Aeryn stepped back to the window, looking out at the black expanse of sky where clouds rolled like boiling smoke across the moon. She pressed her hand lightly against the glass and lifted her gaze toward the paling sky, as though addressing not Sakina, but the blood itself that pulsed through her veins.

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Aeryn couldn't sleep the whole night. She kept staring into the dark vastness beyond her window, a sky that seemed to know no bounds, as if the shadows themselves stretched without end. Her mind was restless, her blood alive with something burning and unyielding. The world felt like it stood on the brink of boiling over, and she alone was meant to decide whether it would simmer or burst.

Just before sunrise, a knock sounded against her chamber doors. She did not move from the window at first.

"Come in," she said quietly.

The doors creaked open. In stepped Vienna, draped in a dark velvet gown, her figure swallowed in shadow. She moved with hesitant grace, closing the door gently behind her before pulling back her hood. Golden hair spilled down her shoulders like a sudden burst of light in the dim room.

Aeryn smiled faintly at the sight. There was visible perplexity in Vienna's eyes, a flicker of fear beneath the noble bearing.

"My apologies, Your Highness," Vienna stammered, bowing her head. "I did not mean to interrupt your rest. This is… this is not a good time. I will come later."

Aeryn shook her head slowly. She raised her hand, halting Vienna's retreat with a single motion, and gestured toward the table. "You are at a great time," Aeryn said, her voice calm but heavy with meaning. She moved to sit, motioning the maid who was already there arranging the tea service.

Vienna obeyed reluctantly, lowering herself into a seat, her hands tightening around her gown. Aeryn's gaze drifted not to Vienna, but to the maid, who bent over the brewing tea with meticulous little hands, her movements precise, almost reverent.

"You see, I love this girl," Aeryn began suddenly.

Vienna startled, her eyes widening as she blinked toward the queen, then toward the girl, who poured the steaming liquid into a glass kettle. She had been staring blankly at the rippling water, watching the brown liquid deepen as the leaves bled their color.

"My queen," Vienna whispered at last, her voice breaking. "I am scared."

"I know," Aeryn said simply.

"I cannot handle this…"

"I never asked you to handle," Aeryn replied softly, her words a knife wrapped in velvet. "If I remember right, I presume."

Vienna looked at her desperately, searching her face for mercy, for release, but Aeryn gave her none.

The maid poured the tea and, at Aeryn's nod, offered it to Vienna. The young noblewoman took it unwillingly, her hands trembling around the delicate porcelain.

"Your Highness…" Vienna began again.

Aeryn raised her cup, sipping calmly, and a small frown flickered over her brow at the taste. The silence thickened.

The maid broke it, her voice cutting through like a whip: "My lady, Her Highness does not like to talk while having her tea. Please refrain from speaking."

Vienna froze, silenced, her lips pressing together in shame.

When the last drop of tea left her cup, Aeryn stood, her figure outlined by the pale light of morning now breaking through the shutters. The sun had risen; the world was stirring.

"You can leave now," she said.

Vienna rose to her feet, but as Aeryn turned away, she took one hesitant step forward, as though reaching for something she did not have the right to touch.

The maid moved at once, swift as a shadow, her small figure cutting across the room. Her bright eyes flashed, her hand pressing subtly against the apron where steel was hidden. The warning was clear: one more step, and Vienna would regret it.

Vienna stopped dead. Tears welled in her eyes as desperation cracked her face. Without speaking, she turned toward the door.

But Aeryn's voice caught her before she left.

"I believe you," she said, her tone carrying the weight of both command and confession. "And I hope you believe yourself too. I know you will be just fine."

Vienna turned back, startled. The surprise in her gaze softened into warmth, her desperation eased into something closer to solace. A small, fragile smile tugged at her lips. She bowed, then slipped out of the chamber, her steps lighter than before.

…………………

The palace stirred with commotion. Horses were bridled, cloaks fastened, banners raised. The air smelled of leather and torch smoke, the kind of morning when destiny pressed its weight upon every soul. Aeryn's cloak fell heavy on her shoulders, Sakina and Sasha falling in step behind her. But instead of heading straight for the gates, she turned her steps toward the throne hall.

Whispers rippled through the court as she entered. Vienna stood near the throne, pale but resolute, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Lord Vael stood a few steps below her, beaming with pride that was almost grotesque, his chest puffed, as though he alone had lifted his daughter to this place.

But the court did not beam. Jealousy, malice, and thinly veiled contempt filled their stares. They circled like carrion birds. Vienna's fear showed on her pale face; she looked ghastly, darting glances here and there, her breath shallow.

Then her gaze caught a cloaked figure near the last row. Recognition struck her. Her lips parted.

"My queen…" she mouthed silently.

She moved a step down toward Aeryn, desperate for anchor, but Aeryn halted her with a single raised hand. The queen's command was wordless but absolute. Vienna stopped, trembling, until at last Aeryn gave her the smallest nod.

Vienna inhaled deeply, shut her eyes, and stepped back up toward the throne. When she opened them again, her voice carried like steel sharpened in fire.

"I am regent by the command of Queen Aeryn," she declared, her voice ringing with newfound, chilling authority. "Let any who challenge this decree confront me now. But know this: to question the Queen's will is to commit Treason."

"Your challenge will not end merely with your death. Every wrong move shall result in the destruction of your entire blood relation, your extended families, and every hidden loved one you cherish. All and everyone will be executed for your defiance."

Gasps rippled. All eyes turned toward her father. Lord Vael's pride shattered into shock, his mouth parting as though struck dumb. His daughter's voice did not belong to the meek shadow he had ignored, but to something born anew; something untouchable.

The chatter died suddenly, silence dropping like a blade. Then, one by one, the ministers bowed.

"We accept the regency, my lady," they said as one.

Vienna stood tall, her hands steady now. To the court, she appeared to smile with victory, but her eyes sought only one figure. She looked past them all, to where Aeryn stood. The queen smiled faintly at her, nodding once. Then, without another word, Aeryn turned, her cloak sweeping behind her as she walked away.

Vienna's smile faltered for an instant, her heart sinking at the loss of that gaze. But then, something steadier bloomed inside her.

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The night had fallen thick and low over the camp, the kind of silence that usually hums just before a storm. Aeryn sat by the fire, her eyes glistening, staring straight into the fire, its golden tongue flickering against her armor, the soft crackle of wood a thin comfort. Around her, ten young girls; her recruits; moved between the tents. Some cleaned plates; others tended the horses. Their faces were etched with soot, hunger, and a newer, harder resolve.

For nearly two months, Aeryn had walked this wilder path, seeking the unwanted. Most of her girls were orphans, branded by their own people as cursed, unnatural, or impure. They carried scars invisible to the eye, reflections of Aeryn's own ruin, now pieced together into a shared purpose. Word from the capital was sparse, but she trusted Vienna's regency and Sasha's quiet watchfulness. Her path had led her further from civilization, but her purpose grew sharper with every sunrise.

She leaned forward, eyes half-closed, when a faint sound drifted across the forest's edge. It started low; shouting, crying; then rose into unmistakable panic.

Aeryn's head snapped up.

Sakina looked up from where she sat sharpening her blade. "What is it?"

Aeryn didn't answer. She was already on her feet, pulling her dark cloak around her shoulders and striding toward her horse. The firelight caught the flash of her rings and the cold, unblinking steadiness in her eyes.

She mounted quickly. "Stay here if you must."

But Sakina was already following, cursing softly as she grabbed her sword and swung into her own saddle.

The cries grew louder as they rode; rough voices, angry ones, punctuated by curses and the sound of someone being struck. The forest opened into a small clearing where torches burned in crude circles. A dozen villagers had gathered, their faces twisted in fear and fury.

"Stop!" Aeryn's voice cut through the noise like steel through cloth.

The crowd turned, startled. The sight of a woman who looked nothing less than a noble, with a strong martial bearing, astride her warhorse, silenced them in an instant. The hate in their eyes didn't fade; it merely shifted, now uncertain where to point.

Aeryn dismounted, boots crunching against gravel as she walked forward, her gaze going straight to the center of the mob.

Two girls sat huddled on the ground; thin, barefoot, and trembling. Their arms clung desperately around each other, cheeks streaked with dirt and tears.

Aeryn's chest tightened. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

An old man stepped forward, holding a stick slick with mud. "We're cleansing the village," he said, his voice shaking with pride and urgency. "These are devil's carnations! They bring disease and ruin! We must get rid of them soon!"

Aeryn stared at him. "Devil's carnations?"

He spat to the side. "Twins! Born of the same womb! Bad omens! They bring plague, misfortune, death to every hearth they touch! We would have drowned them at birth if we knew their damn mother!"

Aeryn's voice went cold. "And for that, you strike them?"

The villagers began murmuring, feeding on each other's madness.

Behind Aeryn, Sakina's jaw clenched. She watched her Queen's fists curl tight at her sides. Aeryn's breath came shallow, almost trembling; of course not with fear, but with recognition and zeal.

Twins. Of the same womb. Of the same blood.

Her mind spun back to the vision of the trinity, to the echoes of her ancestors, to the patterns of fate she was desperate to rewrite.

Her voice broke through the chaos. "Don't touch them!"

A man scoffed. "You don't understand… go your way back to where you have come from! another woman to tell us what to do!"

"Don't touch them!" Her voice rose, carrying the force of command that cracked the night apart. She raised her hand.

That was when Sakina stepped forward instantly, coming in front of aeryn, "no my queen!" she pleaded silently; then she drew her blade with a smooth, ringing sound. The torchlight caught the steel and set it gleaming.

"Mind your words, you peasants!" Sakina snapped, her voice echoing off the trees. "You stand before Her Royal Highness; the Queen of this realm! You dare raise your voices before her?"

Aeryn calmed down. And the mob broke. Some fell to their knees; others turned their eyes away, trembling. "Forgive us your royal highness! We didn't know!" some of them said in unison.

Aeryn ignoring them, walked to the twins, kneeling before them. The younger one looked up first, her green eyes wide with terror. The older girl trembled but held her gaze; defiant even through fear, holding her sister even tighter.

Aeryn's hand hovered, then gently touched the older girl's shoulder. "You are safe now," she said softly. "I won't hurt you or your sister."

The girl's lips trembled. "They said we were cursed."

"No," Aeryn whispered, her voice barely more than a breath. "You are blessed."

As the crowd dispersed under Sakina's sharp command, Aeryn stood again, her cloak brushing against the dirt. She turned to the nearest guard who had arrived from the camp. "Prepare food and blankets. They will stay with us."

The man hesitated. "Majesty, they are; "

"They are mine now." Her tone left no room for argument.

The guard bowed quickly and hurried away.

As the twins were led toward the warm firelight, Aeryn lingered in the clearing. Her gaze drifted upward, toward the black canopy of trees and the faint glimmer of stars.

Each step of her journey, she realized, was carving something deeper within her. Her compassion was not gentle anymore; it was forged from fury. Her mercy was a weapon. And the world, in all its cruelty, would soon learn that she was not gathering girls to nurture innocence.

She was building a storm.

And tonight, it had just found two new daughters.

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The Royal Palace, Vienna knew, was a cage built of gold and old resentments, varnished by the blood of the royal ancestors. Two months had passed since Queen Aeryn rode into the shadows, and every day in her absence felt like a slow, careful descent into a political arena where her every move was scrutinized. It was not visible but she was scared. Scared as hell; of her responsibilities, of her adaption to the taste of power and of her father.

Her father, Lord Vael, was a meticulous guard of this golden cage. He was true to Aeryn's command by the way; so he stood behind Vienna, teaching her the labyrinthine laws and whispered protocols of the Council, yet he could barely conceal the contemptuous instruction beneath his loyalty. His compliance was a mix of terrified obedience to Aeryn's magical threat and a deep, unexpected pride that his own blood wore the crown of regency, however temporarily.

He sat now at the head of the long oak table; a habit Vienna was still battling to break; his posture rigid, his gaze sharp and roaming in the room. The Council Chamber was stifling. It was the weekly session where the lords discussed the budget allocations for the Northern Territories, but the true topic was always the same: Aeryn's absence.

"...and therefore, my esteemed colleagues and high ministers," Lord Corvus droned, smoothing his silk doublet, "the necessity of increased expenditure for the Royal Guard is paramount. The rumors of the Queen's expedition, her 'army' of miscreants; they breed instability, that we all know. So I propose that we must project strength at home."

Vienna, seated beneath the heavy velvet canopy of the throne, felt the weight of their unspoken accusations. They didn't say it directly but what they were actually saying under the guise of pretty words was that, Aeryn is irresponsible. A woman cannot lead. They were using Aeryn's actions as a lever to pry open her own authority.

"The expenditure is excessive, Lord Corvus," Vienna stated, her voice quiet but steady. It was the voice of a student meticulously rehearsing a lesson, as if she was talking to herself. Corvus's head turned to her and then he snapped it back and was about to say something when Vienna started again, "The treasury cannot bear a thirty percent increase on standing forces simply to counter rumors. We have a famine brewing in the West that requires resources."

Lord Vael shifted, a barely perceptible motion that drew Vienna's eyes. It was a warning; a silent, familiar tug on her reins. Stay within the established talking points. Don't engage.

Corvus chuckled, then he started again with visible mockery. "With respect, Lady Regent, Queen Aeryn herself would prioritize the security of the capital." tell me ministers, "if am I wrong in anyway? If I am, please don't mind to correct me!"

Every head nodded in agreement with him. Even Vienna couldn't say anything in response. Corvus smiled and continued, "The Queen is gathering strength outside; we must ensure her seat is secure inside. The famine can be managed with existing local resources."

Vienna gripped the carved arms of the throne. Her father's lesson had been clear: during times of uncertainty, the Crown funds the military and lets the local lords manage 'regional issues' like hunger. It was the pragmatic, cynical diplomatic move to keep the court under his fists. But Vienna couldn't stop herself, despite the killing gaze of her father.

"The famine requires a direct tax deferment and the dispatch of royal grain reserves," Vienna insisted, discarding her prepared notes. Her heart hammered, but she remembered Aeryn's cold, confident gaze that morning, the subtle nod, the impossible belief. I believe you.

And here lord vael lost it, he couldn't let this daughter of his, ruin what he had heavly worked on, to gain the loyalties of the ministers and martials for his rule. Yes his rule. Until now, ministers were calling it vael's regency not vienna's and this was the defect that allowed vael to implement what he wanted in the guise of helping her daughter as a subordinate.

So,

Lord Vael slammed his hand lightly on the table, the noise echoing sharply in the tense chamber died down. "My lords and dear ministers, My daughter here speaks the wisdom of the treasury. And I know that we cannot cripple our national defense. However..." Vael turned to Vienna, his expression a practiced mask of measured disappointment. "We will, of course, release some local relief. A moderate measure, perhaps. But the Guard's allocation is a necessity. It is the Queen's safety, after all, that we protect. And that we must protect!"

Vael was expertly compromising, saving face for both of them, and pulling Vienna back into the safety of his control. Vienna knew the relief package he proposed would be negligible; just a gesture, not an answer at all.

Corvus nodded approvingly at Vael, effectively dismissing Vienna's original point. The councilors were ready to move on, ignoring the delicate princess's tantrums.

Vienna's mind flashed to the maid in Aeryn's chamber, her bright, watchful eyes, the steel hidden beneath the apron. She suddenly felt that sharp, silent warning directed not at her, but at the lords who believed she was a puppet.

"No," Vienna stood up, her voice now ringing with an unfamiliar clarity. Every head snapped toward her.

Lord Vael stared, his eyes flashing a fierce, immediate message, telling her to Stop. Now.

"My decision is final," Vienna continued, ignoring her father completely. Her hands no longer trembled. They were still and solid on the armrests. "The Royal Guard will receive no increase. Furthermore, the grain reserves from the Eastern granaries will be requisitioned and redirected immediately to the afflicted Western provinces. Lord Corvus, you will personally oversee the transfer and report to me daily on the distribution."

Corvus sputtered, rising halfway out of his seat. "Lady Regent! That is unprecedented! It leaves the capital… you should talk to your father…my lord..." he started, looking at lord vael.

"It leaves the capital secure enough, lord corvus!" Vienna cut him off, her gaze unwavering. "If we allow our people to starve while we hoard grain for an army that isn't here, the threat will not come from outside, but from the streets beneath our own walls. Queen Aeryn did not ride out to save a palace. She rode out to save a realm."

Lord Vael's face was pale, visibly in rapid, internal collapse. The blood drained from his cheeks. His lips were a thin, white line. This was not the compromise he taught her. This was defiance, that he never expected from a woman, his own daughter. He had successfully supported her as long as she was an obedient extension of his political will. Now, she was acting and this was no good.

He opened his mouth to speak; to overrule, to guide, to suppress; but for the first time, Lord Vael met his daughter's ignored eyes and saw not the ignored child he had cultivated, but a Regent forged in Aeryn's cold fire. He saw the potential for the terrifying retribution Aeryn had promised. He saw the very real possibility that, if he silenced her now, Aeryn would return and make him strangle himself with his own hands.

He closed his mouth.

Vienna watched her father's internal struggle; his pride warring with his terror; and a quiet, profound realization settled over her. The crown of regency was not a temporary burden; it was a weight of command. And she could bear it.

"The meeting is adjourned," Vienna announced.

Lord Vael bowed, a motion slow and stiff, but undeniably submissive. As the councilors filed out, she stopped corvus, "better not bring up family issues next time in the court lord corvus," crovus opened his mouth to say something but stunned into silence, he remained for a moment, looked at lord vael who was side eyeing his daughter, and then left.

"this is not the way to do things, Vienna," he finally muttered, his voice low and ragged.

Vienna met his gaze, unafraid. "Perhaps," she said softly.

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A snippet of aeryn's transformation in chapter 25. you can read ahead at patreon.com/accuscripter

 

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"Perhaps???"

"Perhaps!!!" he said again out of sheer disbelief towards his daughter's carelessness. His voice was a low snarl. The moment the heavy doors of the council chamber shut, he took a predatory step toward her, crossing the marble floor that separated the throne from the table. "You have ruined two months of careful work! You have alienated Corvus, who controls the key shipping routes, and you have, for the first time, directly defied my counsel in front of the assembled power of the realm! shaming me in front of everyone!"

"I deferred to the needs of the realm, Father, not to your counsel."

"I am your father! I am the High Lord Minister!" Vael spat out the titles, trying to make her flinch with their weight. "You will respect my guidance. You are just a girl, barely seated on a throne warmed by another woman's fear, and you dare to play the Queen?"

Vienna raised her chin, "I am the Lady Regent. And when we are in this chamber, where I speak with the Queen's authority, you will address me as such. Lord Vael!"

The silence that followed was brutal, heavy with sudden, crushing dominance. Lord Vael stood absolutely still, his mind went numb, calculating the true cost of striking her down. His entire demeanor was now held hostage by the words of a woman who was just few feet away, and by the courage of the very daughter he had always dismissed.

"You believe that pathetic queen's ultimatum is sufficient to reduce me to a state of subservience to you?" he barely managed, his voice trembling and stuttering now, not with anger, but with bewilderment. Afterall Lord Vael, a master of discourse, orchestrator of foreign affairs, and adept practitioner of diplomatic nuance, was soo smoothly felled by his own daughter.

"This is not for you to decide if she is pathetic or not. She made you my shield, Lord Vael, not my controller. I know what she expects. And if I fail to rule with honesty; if I starve the people to feed your political games; she will return, and you know she will not blame me."

Vael finally dropped his gaze, his shoulders slumping. He looked older, suddenly stripped of his protective arrogance. He had traded his political freedom for his life, and now his own child was collecting the payment.

He ran a weary hand over his face. "Vienna…" he started again.

"LADY REGENT, Lord Vael!"

"You are right," he whispered. "You are the Lady Regent." Poison coming back into his tone, "And you have just set us on a course of true war with the Western nobles. Be ready for the consequences. My lady!"

Then, he turned, the once-powerful and cunning minister now reduced to a man who had lost his last shred of leverage. Being forced to call his daughter as lady regent (that was her right) was a public disgrace, a stark announcement that he was no longer in control. It served as a harsh reminder for him to regain composure, and a clear signal that he was no longer required to think of himself as the only leader of the court. With a swift turn, he walked to the door, opened it, and left.

The moment the door closed, Vienna's body went limp, her strength draining away like the last bit of moisture evaporating from a piece of overripe fruit. Her knees buckled. She stumbled backward, catching herself on the velvet armrest of the throne, and then collapsed onto the seat.

Her breath came in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the room from spinning. Her hands, which had been perfectly steady while ordering grain transfers and commanding her father, were trembling violently now. She forced herself to open her fists. Across both palms, crescent-shaped ridges of white and red showed where her nails had dug deep into the flesh. Sweat slicking her brows.

She was the Lady Regent. And she was utterly, terrifyingly alone. But as her shaking eased, the fear was slowly replaced by a cool, strange sense of relief; the knowledge that the heaviest burden, the burden of being her father's puppet, was finally lifted.

……………………………………………..

The morning air was crisp and cool, smelling of pine needles and damp earth. Aeryn sat on a fallen log near the edge of their encampment, the newly rescued twins; still unnamed by the sisterhood, and clinging close to one another; watching from a short distance.

She held a parchment sealed with the small, distinctive mark of Sasha, her spymaster in the capital. As Aeryn read the meticulous detailing of the Council session; Corvus's challenge, Vael's intervention, and Vienna's final, unwavering decree; a slow, genuine smile spread across her face, one of amused satisfaction.

Sakina approached, carrying two steaming bowls of porridge. She watched the shifting expression on Aeryn's face and frowned. "Good news, Your Highness?"

Aeryn looked up at her, her eyes dancing with quiet pride. "Here, see this." She passed the letter to Sakina.

Sakina took the parchment, her face quickly twisting into a dreaded expression as she reached the part where Vienna defied Lord Vael over the grain reserves. She looked up sharply. "My Queen, you have turned them against each other!"

"They were always against each other, no?" Aeryn countered, the amusement lingering in her tone. She took the bowl and let the steam warm her face. "Vienna is the only one who can control her father. Loyal as he is, As long as he controls this habit of his; the habit of kissing up to the nobles; he will go well with his daughter."

Sakina still frowned, unconvinced by the diplomatic risk. "You think Vienna did good?"

Aeryn shrugged lightly, taking a spoonful into her mouth, "She did better than me, in this aspect."

Sakina shook her head, her jaw tightening. "Defiance in the face of political necessity is recklessness, Your Highness. She has made powerful enemies one of them her own father! and left the capital vulnerable for sentimentality! That's totally unacceptable!"

Aeryn set her bowl down. "Vael is not her enemy... he cannot become her enemy, regardless of all the disagreements he can have with her. After all, she is his blood, granting him the honor of being called the noblest of the nobles, leading the court to believe that he is the one holding the reins of regency – the facade he will not tear down out of respect for himself, to preserve his dignity."

"And…" she continued while thinking, he eyes becoming dead, devoid of any feeling, "Sentimentality? Strength? You miss the point, Sakina. I would have bled the court dry, you know it! I would have forced Vael's compliance by stripping him bare, threatening his sons, or making him choke on his own tongue in front of the council." Aeryn leaned forward, her voice low. "And you would be running after me to clean up my mess, you know it! More than anyone! Vienna did not need a physical threat. She simply used the power I gave her. She did better than me. Honestly better than what I had expected."

Sakina opened her mouth to argue the inherent danger of political instability, but before a word could escape, a small shadow approached the Queen.

It was the younger of the twin girls, the one with the wide, terrified green eyes. She moved with hesitant grace, holding out a delicate garland woven from small wildflowers gathered at the forest edge. She did not speak, but offered the crown silently to Aeryn.

Aeryn stopped smiling. Her gaze softened completely, absorbing the girl's trembling gratitude. She gently took the garland and placed it over her own head, the simple, natural flowers a stark contrast to the cold steel of her armor.

"Thank you," Aeryn whispered. She met Sakina's eye, the message clear: I know what I am doing, sakina don't worry!"

Sakina silently bowed her head in acceptance.

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Aeryn had been plagued by voices, sounds, and visceral horrors ever since the day she first wielded the immense power of the trinity, but after the last vivid dream two months ago; the one where she saw the ancient Queen Anya; she had found a brief, unsettling reprieve. But tonight, the psychological pressure returned with a vengeance. After the charged events of rescuing the twins, she was restless, unable to settle. She blamed anything but herself for the tension coiling in her gut.

And even tonight she was still feeling a strange vibe boiling in her gut. She tossed and turned, her ears ringing with a relentless, low buzz she couldn't place. She covered her ears every now and then, pulling the furs tighter, but sleep remained an impossibility. Finally, she sat bolt upright. She took out a polished bronze mirror from under her pillow and looked toward the small, bracing herself for the inevitable vision.

It was the same image, sharp and terrifying: a cityscape of blood-dried bodies and ruined architecture, a landscape of razed cities and utter destruction, as if the dead walked among the wreckage.

With a gasp, Aeryn threw the mirror. The shattering sound was swallowed by the thick canvas of the tent, a small voice of panic escaping her lips despite her rigid control. "This can't be…"

She tried to push herself out of the bed, but glanced down at her hands and froze. They were covered in dark, fresh-looking blood. She tried to wipe it away on the sheets, but it kept getting redder, spreading up her arms, saturating the linen. She scrambled backward on the bed, horrified.

Then, a voice came. It was the same voice she had encountered in the palace; the low, resonant voice of the faceless, hooded being that haunted her.

"We told you!" the voice echoed, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. "Those who defy the One who created them, cannot help but be razed to the ground. This is His will to protect you from what is not yours. Was never yours to carry."

Aeryn hauled herself off the bed, stumbling away from the phantom blood, her bare feet meeting the cold earth. "Who are you?"

The voice continued, cold and relentless, "Until you forfeit your powers, your misery won't end!"

Aeryn came closer to the source of the voice, which seemed to come from a dark corner of the tent. "I am not doing this to myself! Why should I forfeit? How can I even forfeit?"

The voice, as if deaf to her desperate pleas, kept repeating the tume of ruin: "Greed kills. Envy kills. Pride kills. Possessing what doesn't concern you kills. Let it go..."

Aeryn cried out, "Who are you!" She picked up the water pitcher near the bedside and hurled it weakly toward the shape of the being in the shadows, but the pitcher passed right through the air where the form had stood. The being was anything but solid, it was air, maybe it was only a voice, she couldn't decide, but the voice remained, repeating softly, maddeningly: "Let it go. Let it go. Let it go."

Aeryn's legs gave out. She started sobbing, falling to her knees amidst the scattered debris of the broken mirror. The immense strength and fury she felt in the day had dissolved into helpless, shaking terror.

A frantic, muffled sound brought her back.

"Your Highness!" "Your Highness!" "Your Highness!"

Aeryn opened her wet, stinging eyes to find Sakina stooped over her, holding her firmly by the shoulders. She tried to get up and found that the entire inner circle was there; all the girls, the main maids, servants, and a few close guards had rushed in, drawn by her crying.

"What happened?" Sakina asked, her voice tight with alarm, scanning the tent for a threat.

Aeryn looked around at the faces staring back at her with confusion and tiredness. She looked at her hands, which were blessedly clean. Then, she looked toward the direction where she had seen the hooded being. Finally, she looked at the water pitcher; it was resting innocently on the floor, near her bed, intact, and not shattered. The mirror, however, was in pieces. A clear evidence of the threat being a real entity.

She held her head, which was clammy with sweat, and without looking up at Sakina, she said, her voice strained, "Let them sleep. I am okay."

Sakina motioned them all to leave with a sharp, silent gesture. Once the tent was empty, she sat down by Aeryn's side. Aeryn, without saying another word, put her head directly into Sakina's lap, closing her eyes tightly. Sakina's eyes grew teary, reflecting the depth of her queen's unseen suffering, and she began to softly stroke Aeryn's hair until the tremors subsided.

They remained that way until the first pink light of dawn crept under the tent flap. Aeryn pulled away, her expression now wiped clean of all emotion. She stood. "Sakina, summon the girls, including the twins." Her voice was flat, devoid of its usual royal command, yet infinitely more dangerous.

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[accuscripter]

At Aeryn's command, Sakina had quickly gathered the girls. They stood before their Queen, a tired, ragged line of young women. The early rays of the sun showed them clearly: most were still sleepy, looking haggard and worn from months of marching, fighting, and the demanding pace of their Queen. Their faces held the visible etchings of the torture and neglect they had suffered over the years, now overlaid with the new, raw lines of extreme fatigue.

Aeryn did not stand. She sat on a smooth, flat rock, seemingly indifferent to the damp chill of the morning. She looked at them one by one, her eyes lingering for a moment on the twins, Elara and Lyra, whose small frames seemed almost transparent against the dense trees.

She began speaking, lost in thought, playing with her hands; turning her palms over and over, watching the skin crease. Her voice was low, almost dreamy.

"I am going to create my own army," Aeryn said, her gaze drifting toward the forest line as if envisioning something far beyond their sight. "Not a thousand foot soldiers, but a small group of girls, capable of what others believe is impossible. Capable of what even I, at times, doubt."

She looked back at them, a strange, distant smile touching her lips. "And you will be those girls. I have seen the potential in you that others; the lords, the slave masters, your own families; failed to see. And I want to help you see that power too. It is terrifying, it is consuming, and it is glorious."

She paused, the dreamy quality in her voice shifting to a hard, unsettling indifference.

"But if there is anyone who does not want to be part of this game, this journey into the dark, you must tell me now. I will offer you coin, safe passage, a place and a job in the safest town I can secure for you. I am not binding you with an oath to what even I am not entirely sure of. This path may cost your sanity, or your life, or something far worse."

She straightened on the rock, her posture regaining its royal edge. "So, tell me if anyone wants to leave. We will depart from this place by noon. Prepare your answers by then. Only those willing to gamble everything will go beyond this point with me."

With that, Aeryn stood, her movements fluid and decisive. Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked back toward her tent, leaving the girls to digest the choice she had offered them.

Inside the tent, Aeryn lay down fully clothed on her cot, gazing up at the canvas roof. The faint light filtering through the weave was mesmerizing. She was trying to regain the emotional flatness that was her only shield against the Voice's haunting promises.

Sakina entered soon afterwards, her footsteps silent on the rug. She approached the bed and stood near Aeryn's head, her presence heavy.

"Say it, Sakina," Aeryn murmured, still staring at the tent's peak.

"Hmm?" Sakina said, trying to sound aloof. "Ah… nothing, Your Highness."

"You sure?"

"Hmm…"

Aeryn chuckled. "Say it, Sakina. I know you cannot control it for long. That worry is a physical thing with you."

Sakina's composure broke. She dropped instantly to her knees, the rustle of her skirts loud in the small space.

"Your Majesty, I plead with you, let's return!"

Aeryn instantly sat up, the abruptness of her movement shaking the cot. She looked down at her with a sharp, dangerous frown, her voice instantly hardening. "And what exactly do you mean by 'return?"

"Your Highness, let's return to the Imperial Palace!" Sakina cried, her face earnest and desperate.

"Sakina!" Aeryn's voice was a low growl of warning.

"Please, Your Majesty! This is not sitting right with me! The dream, the desperate pace of the journey, Vienna's success, the girls, and now the twins; and then the terrifying dream again! I am feeling a dark, ominous presence, a reckoning closing in on us."

"Twins?" Aeryn demanded, coming closer, her voice laced with sudden, focused suspicion. "What do you mean by them? Don't play like this with me! Say it clearly!"

"Everything is ominous, Your Highness!" Sakina pressed on, recognizing this as her only chance to speak her truth. "Even the girls you are recruiting are ominous! You know they carry the destructive bloodline, and a rebelling nature but still, you are doing it! Your dream is telling you to forfeit this power; to stop this dangerous path; but against all and everything, you are deliberately going against it!"

"Stop it, Sakina! Get up!" Aeryn said, rising quickly from the cot. She turned her face away, clutching her arms, as if the words were physical blows.

"Your Highness, try to understand! If something happened to you! If you lose control… "

"I said stop talking, Sakina!" Aeryn roared, spinning around. Her eyes flashed, with a deep, furious red.

Sakina was not cowed by the roar, only by the desperate command of the Queen she served. She remained on her knees, her voice a final, tearful whisper of defiance. "Your Highness, I must say it. I will not get up until you heed to what I have to say! My loyalty demands it!"

Aeryn stared down at her, her breath coming in ragged, harsh pulls. The air thrummed with the raw, terrifying power of her boiling blood, ready to snap and lash out. But she did not strike. She did not even touch her. The effort to control the surge of blood magic; which had nearly betrayed her in the night; was agonizing.

"Then stay there," Aeryn finally said, her voice strained with effort.

And then she stormed out of the tent, throwing the flap open and letting it fall shut behind her.

Sakina heard the furious crunch of Aeryn's boots on the dirt, the sharp, angry whicker of the royal mount, and then the sound of the horse being galloped away, fading into the forest silence. She wanted to follow, to apologize, to scream, but the command; don't get up; and the threat in the Queen's eyes held her captive, kneeling on the cold earth, terrified and alone.

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[accuscripter]

Aeryn rode hard until the fury and trapped aggression was spent, replaced by the grim clarity of her mind, of her thoughts and of her path. She returned to the camp near noon. The girls were subdued, awaiting the Queen's final command.

She pulled back the tent flap and stepped inside, then froze.

Sakina was still kneeling on the ground where Aeryn had left her. Her spine was rigid and unnaturally straight, her head bowed, and her eyes were squeezed shut in silent, agonizing submission. The posture had been held for hours. Her knees, even through the heavy cloth of her trousers, must have been numb, and her ankles swollen. The silence in the tent was a heavy accusation.

In her storm of fury, the final, binding word to Sakina had been lost beneath her anger, she had totally forgotten what she had said to Sakina before leaving. She felt a sickening lurch in her gut.

"Sakina."

Sakina didn't move, her silence indicating she was awaiting the lifting of the order.

Aeryn took a quick step forward, kneeling before her. "Rise up."

Sakina groaned, a low, involuntary sound of pain. Her hands, when they moved to push against the ground, were cramped and stiff. She tried to stand, but her legs, frozen for hours, refused the burden. She stumbled, and Aeryn caught her.

"You should not have obeyed such a foolish command, I didn't even remember!" Aeryn muttered, the guilt sharp in her voice.

"My loyalty is to the Queen, Your Highness, even when she speaks from her anger," Sakina responded, her dismay visible in the tight, formal tone of her voice.

Aeryn chuckled, the sound thin and brittle, devoid of true humor. "You are not young now, Sakina, to indulge my whims! That rigid, unmoving obedience is for the new recruits seeking their place, not for the one who has always been my rock. Now stand up quickly."

Sakina, grimacing, finally managed to push up, leaning heavily on Aeryn's shoulder for balance. The brief, tense moment of intimacy was shattered by a furious commotion erupting outside the tent, the sound of sharp shouts and the hiss of magic.

Both women looked at each other with alarm. Aeryn, already wearing her dark, traveling armor and with her sword still belted, moved outside instantly. Sakina staggered after her, holding a dagger, favoring one numb leg.

Outside, the fight was viciously elemental. Two girls were wrestling, one summoning a wild, uncontrolled burst of fire that barely missed the canvas tent, the other trying to douse it with a clumsy surge of water magic. The elements, canceling each other out in steamy explosions, only fueled the frenzy.

Aeryn, dejected and furious at this immediate proof of her failure to instill discipline, raised her hand.

The girls fighting were held fast, frozen by a terrifying, unseen force. They felt as if the air they were struggling to breathe was gathering at their throats but refusing to pass. Their lungs seized, and a suffocating, metallic nausea washed over them. The girls not involved, standing nearby, struck with horror, held their breaths as well, mirroring the pain of their peers.

Aeryn's red-shot eyes bored into the frozen chaos. "SILENCE!" she roared, the sound shattering the illusion of quiet.

They were already silent, but the shout terrified them to the core. Aeryn tightly flexed her hand, the movement causing the bones in her wrist to visibly protrude beneath her skin, tightening her grip on everyone involved in the brawl. The girls fidgeted in their frozen bodies, tears running down their cheeks with horror. Their bodies ran cold, their sweat drying instantly under the overwhelming internal pressure.

Sakina immediately rushed forward and put her hand on Aeryn's arm. She didn't speak a word, but her gaze was a silent, desperate plea; to let them go.

Aeryn looked from the struggling, terrified girls to Sakina, and back. Her bloodshot, tired eyes seemed as if they would break into tears any moment. With a painful, guttural sigh, she slowly loosened her grip and dropped her hand. All the girls involved collapsed instantly to the ground, holding their necks, gasping and panting heavily.

"What was going on here?!" Sakina roared, turning her anger on the culprits to mask her terror.

"They were fighting, General," stammered one of the onlookers, a girl barely ten years old who was not involved.

Sakina's eyes narrowed. "Come forward, and then speak! You insolent wretch, have you forgotten your manners already?"

The girl trembled, came forward slowly, and stood before Sakina.

"I know there was a fight," Sakina said angrily, stepping closer. "I am asking why they are fighting?! What was so important, that you choose to show poor decorum, breaking rules, even ignoring the presence of Her Royal Highness? Don't you care for your lives?!" she passed her gaze at everyone.

"My lady," the girl whispered, shivering violently. "They were fighting… over Her Royal Highness."

"What were they saying?" Aeryn spoke this time, her voice dangerously quiet.

The girl hesitated, her eyes darting between the Queen and the wreckage of the fight.

Aeryn barked: "SPEAK!"

The girl, shivering and unable to hold back her tears, burst out, "The girls of the Azure Tribe were saying you are losing your mind and that it's no use ruining our lives following you! So the Cinder Fire Hegamony girl was teaching them a lesson!" And here, overcome by the sheer terror of the Queen's proximity, she wet her skirt.

Sakina looked horrified at Aeryn. Aeryn, however, looked only at the young girl, her expression perfectly unchanged.

"Move out of my way," she commanded the shivering girl, and then motioned to one of her guards, who quickly led the sobbing child inside one of the tents to get her changed.

Aeryn turned her attention to the culprits. "You! You! And you at the back; the three of you. Pack your bags. Sakina, handle their passage. And give them what was promised to them. I don't want to see them again!"

Two of the girls, Rissa and Fira, immediately cut into her, protesting and panicking. "Your Highness! What have I done?" cried the girl at the back, terrified.

The girl from the Cinder Cinder Fire Hegamony , Rissa, added, "Your Highness! I was only…"

"Protecting me. right?" Aeryn completed the sentence, then came close to Rissa. The girl looked up at her, and Aeryn held her chin, forcing Rissa's eyes to meet hers. "Do I need your protection?" she asked, her voice a low, burning coal.

Rissa, embarrassed and cowed, tried to look down. Aeryn's grip tightened, pulling the girl's face back up.

"DON'T LOOK DOWN!" she roared, making the girl flinch.

"Look at me… Never look down" she lowered her voice, and said softy in a loud whisper, the tears now visible and overflowing in Rissa's eyes. "You cannot break rules for anyone. Not for the elements, not for loyalty, not for anger. Until and unless it's for you!"

"Not even for you?" Rissa asked with a trembling voice. She was a sweet-looking girl, and Aeryn's heart faltered, seeing the confusion and fear in her face.

"Yes, not even for me!" Aeryn insisted. "If you cannot follow my rules; the fundamental rules of self-control and decorum; how can you carry out my commands as my soldiers? As my army? You traded discipline for vengeance, all unrelated to you."

She let her go and moved to the girl at the back, who was panicking but trying to look inconspicuous. "It was funny to see others at their worst, right?"

"No, Your Highness," the girl muttered, looking down and realizing her mistake.

"I can accept the ones who break rules for misplaced loyalty," Aeryn stated, the judgment heavy in her voice, "but not the ones who have no sympathy or empathy for their fellows. Get out of my sight."

"Please, Your Highness!" the girl pleaded, holding Aeryn's sleeve as she turned away.

Aeryn looked over her shoulder at her. "You want me to get your skirt wet? So you can experience the same behavior of everyone laughing at you?"

The girl immediately let go of Aeryn's sleeve, embarrassed and retreating.

Aeryn then turned to the girl from the Azure dominion, the one who had voiced the doubt about her sanity. The girl was sure she was about to face the worst punishment, so she closed her eyes tightly, holding her head up high, bracing for the blow.

"And you…" Aeryn started.

The girl, still with her eyes shut, began, "Your highness…I won't say that I didn't say it. I said it. I am willing to accept whatever punishment you give me."

Aeryn actually smiled here; a flash of her old, dangerous charm; and put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Ask Sakina if you need anything for your journey, and you have time. If there is anyone who would like to go with you, let Sakina know."

The girl, stunned to even speak, looked at her retreating figure. Aeryn had banished them and the logic was terrifyingly consistent: the disciplined mind was paramount.

Sakina looked at all of them angrily, then hurried after Aeryn toward the tent, muttering, "Insolent fools, you have no idea what you have just escaped!"

She entered the tent only to find Aeryn leaning heavily against a cot pole. Before Sakina could reach her, Aeryn's control broke. A thick, dark stream of blood erupted from her mouth and splashed onto the cot. Her eyes rolled back, and she lost consciousness, collapsing with a heavy thud onto the ground.

Sakina rushed to her side, her desperate grief and fear returning with a crushing intensity.

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[accuscripter]

When Aeryn opened her eyes, the familiar lines of the tent ceiling were obscured by the soft, deep shadows of evening. The silence was absolute. The noise and frantic energy of the day were gone, replaced by the profound yet uncommon quiet of the camp.

Sakina was sitting beside her, her posture rigid even in stillness, her sword, Aeryn's own spare blade, in one hand, her other hand tightly holding Aeryn's.

"Sakina…" Aeryn said weakly, trying to push herself up.

"Your Highness!" Sakina stood instantly, the speed of her reaction revealing the depth of her vigilance. "you are up!"

"Of course I am up," Aeryn said, rubbing her temples and pushing the hair back from her face with a hand that felt curiously heavy.

Sakina's gaze was fixed on her, filled with a deep, motherly tenderness and a terrifying anxiety. Unconsciously, Sakina lifted her free hand and began gently stroking Aeryn's head, smoothing the hair at her temple. Aeryn, confused by the gesture, was about to pull away, but seeing the intense, vulnerable need in Sakina's eyes, the desperate urge to simply hold her, she stopped.

"Sakina… are you well?"

"Yes? Yes… yes, Your Majesty, I am good." Sakina moved back quickly, standing upright and assuming a professional distance, but her hands were trembling. "Are you alright, My lady? Are you feeling any discomfort anywhere?" sakina asked eagerly, looking around her.

Aeryn managed a tired smile and looked around the empty tent. "Yeah! What could happen to me! It's quiet time, I see. I said we would set off at noon… We've wasted too much daylight."

Sakina stunned and only stared at her, the worry in her eyes darkening. "Your Highness…"

"Where are the girls, Sakina? Have they decided if they want to stay?"

"Your Highness…"

"How many girls are staying behind? The one who want to go with me, I mean?"

"Your Highness…"

"How about we set off in the morning? It's getting dark already, and I'm too weak to break down camp."

"MY LADY!" Sakina finally cried, the name a desperate, choking sound as Aeryn didn't let her complete a single sentence. "There are no girls!" she finished, the words laced with anxious finality.

"What do you mean?" Aeryn asked. Trying to stand up, she felt weakness and fell back heavily onto the cot. "No girl?"

"No one wanted to stay?" she said to herself.

Then, without letting Sakina answer, she replied herself, a dark laugh bubbling up. "Right. Of course. After all, who wants to stay with an insane Queen."

Sakina knelt quickly in front of her, clutching her hands again. "I sent the girls away, my lady." She bowed her head.

Aeryn snapped her head towards her, the last vestiges of humor gone. "You did what?"

"I sent them away," Sakina repeated, the words muffled.

"Why? With whose command? With whose permission?" Aeryn's voice was raising with every word, now laced with fury.

"My lady, I sent them to the palace, except the ones you expelled. And I urge you to return! You are not well!"

"Sakina, I am asking you, with whose permission did you dare take command into your own hands? And the ones I kicked out? When did I kick anyone out?"

Sakina looked up, anxiety etched deeply into her face. "You… you… you expelled three girls for losing their decorum! Just before you fell unconscious!"

"I did?" Aeryn looked utterly ghastly, her mind racing, scrambling for a memory that wasn't there.

Sakina, worried sick now, immediately rushed to her side. "My Queen…"

"what should I do?" She whispered this to herself, before looking back at Aeryn. "My Lady, what is the last thing you remember clearly?"

Aeryn closed her eyes, concentrating hard. When she opened them, her pale face was etched with deep, chilling confusion. "I… after I announced we will set off at noon, I came to my tent and maybe I slept away… before the day's heat began."

Sakina's hand flew to her mouth in utter horror. "No, no, no, no, this cannot be. This cannot be!" she was whining.

"My lady, we cannot stay here! Please listen to me! You are getting sick!"

"Sakina, for God's sake! Don't play games with me! I am not sick! And for sending my girls without my permission, you will face the consequences!"

"My Queen, I am willing to face any retribution, any pain, but please, listen to me! You know I have never gone against you, but please, I cannot now! Send me to the dungeons, or kill me, but please listen!"

Aeryn pushed Sakina away, trying to stand up again. "Stop this non-sense."

As she pushed herself upright, her eyes involuntarily caught sight of her reflection in the small, polished mirror resting on a packing crate near the bed. A cold shiver, far deeper than any fear, shot down her spine.

Sakina saw Aeryn's focus and immediately tried to snatch the mirror away, but Aeryn was faster. She pulled it from Sakina's grasp and stared at herself.

There were clear, shocking white streaks slicing through the dark, blood-red hair. The streaks were stark and unnatural, starting at her temples and fading halfway back, a permanent, physical scar of the trinity's final blow. First they were turning blood red, now it was white.

Aeryn pointed to the mirror, her eyes wide with a surreal, surprised smile. "What is this, Sakina?! Who is this? What? Why? How…" She looked wildly between the mirror and Sakina. Her head spinning.

Sakina could only collapse, fresh tears falling down her cheeks.

Through sobs, she stated the whole terrifying situation. She told Aeryn about their disagreement, Aeryn's rage and subsequent ride away, her return, the debacle with the girls, the terrifying blood-binding demonstration, and the three girls Aeryn had expelled. Then she described Aeryn's sudden collapse after spurting blood from her mouth, detailing how she had been unconscious for the past two full days.

"And the hair…" Sakina choked out. "The white… it appeared shortly after you fell unconscious. The power… it's consuming you, My Lady. It is eating the life from your body and the memory from your very soul."

Aeryn was silent and numb, staring into the blank space in front of her. She was mummified, her hands straight by her side, the mirror clutched so tightly her knuckles were white. The silence was the silence of a mind that had shattered and was trying to piece itself back together from nothing.

"Please, Your Highness… please. I beg you. Let us return. Before there is nothing left to save. Please…"

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