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 below 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.
Because something had shifted that night in the chamber when the past breathed through ink and shadow. Something had taken root inside her; not just knowledge, not just memory; but a shape. a legacy sown in blood and stone. And she had cried; and cried, breaking against the image of a mother's grief so ancient, it stained generations after her.
But grief was a flame.
And flames doesn'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 finally turned. Her eyes were quiet beneath the dark arch of her brows. She had changed, Sakina realized. Not just in posture, not just in the way she walked now like the floor was merely a thread she could slice in half; but in something else. 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."
Aeryn didn't answer immediately.
"I was tired of his mouth," she said finally. "And his hands were too close to the servant girl."
Sakina's breath hitched.
And then she nodded. "Good."
But the court had not taken it as a small act. They had taken it as proof. Proof that their queen was not just grieving and brilliant and dangerously composed; she was something else. Something born of water and fire and blood that no man had ever mastered, and no woman had wielded without consequence.
And Aeryn knew: she had crossed a threshold. There was no going back.
"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 said.
"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. "They want a performance?"
Sakina nodded.
Aeryn turned fully.
"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, the sound of her steps swallowed by the stone halls.
Aeryn remained still, hands resting on the balcony rail. Beyond, the city sprawled beneath the pale dawn, rooftops glistening with frost, smoke rising from chimneys like muted prayers. She could almost taste the pulse of the streets; the beating of countless lives, their fears, their hungers, 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 beard neatly combed, his eyes already set with the arrogance of a man too long untouched by consequence. 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 across the marble floor. 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, though his head remained bowed. "I speak only for the realm, Your Majesty. For its peace."
"Peace," Aeryn echoed, tasting the word as though it were ash. "And yet your peace has teeth. 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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