"Does it mean you no longer want me in your army?" Aeloria asked, voice small, the last scrap of pride clinging to the words.
Nyxelene did not answer at once. She simply watched the kneeling woman with those empty crimson eyes until the silence itself seemed to stretch on forever.
Then, finally, she spoke.
"At first light tomorrow, go to the royal army's training field on the western side of Ohlm. Find a man named Orin. Tell him exactly this:
'Worms of the earth should not gaze above; the filth of the soil is where their sight belongs.'
He will know what to do with you."
She turned her gaze toward the great steel doors of the throne room, as though Aeloria had already ceased to exist.
Aeloria lifted her head. "I have one question, my queen. Why do you want me in your army? I am not of noble blood. I was never blessed with extraordinary talent. I am sorry, but I fail to see the reason behind your offer."
Nyxelene rose from the throne in one fluid motion and began walking toward the exit, black gown whispering across the marble.
"Be it from a wealthy family or a poor family, every child comes into this world owning nothing," she said without looking back.
"Some grow up doing things others their age cannot imitate. Trying to walk the same straight path as everyone else will most certainly end in failure. Not all roads run forward; some twist backward, loop, climb cliffs, crawl through mud, before they ever reach the summit. Wealth, fame, talent: none of them have a single person's name written on them from birth. In the end, only those who pursue them without pause will ever possess them."
She reached the towering steel doors. The guards pulled them open without a word.
"Nothing in this world will be handed to you because you need it or because you deserve it," she continued, pausing on the threshold. "What some achieve through opportunity and natural gifts, others seize through sheer will and relentless effort. And some take through corruption and deceit. It has always been this way, and it will remain so long after we are gone and new generations arise.
In conclusion: it is never about how deserving you are. It is always about what you are willing to do."
She stepped through the doorway, then stopped one last time.
"Your first test, before you meet Orin tomorrow," she said over her shoulder. "Walk down this hallway to the royal kitchens. Make them cook for you. Without killing a single person."
With that, Nyxelene was gone, the doors closing behind her with a soft, final boom.
Aeloria remained on her knees a moment longer, staring at the empty space the queen had left.
"She really is as dangerous as they say," she whispered to the silent hall, rising slowly. "Even more so. She carries every evil record in the kingdom, yet she wears them like spotless white. It's as if she is holy, as if every decision she makes is flawless and just. That is one of the most terrifying things about her. Even if you wanted to hate her with every fibre of your being, you would find no single piece of undeniable evidence to stand on."
She walked toward the doors. "The way she sugar-coats absolute cruelty makes her a deadly force in negotiations."
The guards at the threshold ignored her completely. Aeloria pushed the heavy door open herself and stepped into the corridor.
She asked three separate servants for directions to the royal kitchens. All three pretended not to hear her and hurried away.
So she walked alone, boots echoing, until she finally stood before a pair of massive oak doors from which drifted the smells of roasting meat, fresh bread, and spiced wine.
She pushed them open.
The vast kitchen fell silent.
Dozens of chefs, scullery maids, and servants froze mid-motion. Knives hovered over vegetables. Ladles stopped stirring. Every eye turned to the intruder.
"Hey… isn't that the rumored cannibal?" one burly chef muttered, wiping flour from his hands.
His friend, sleeves rolled high and arms dusted with seasoning, gave a nervous laugh. "Hell, I've got rosemary and butter all over me. Reckon I'll be the first one she eats; I probably smell delicious right now."
Laughter rippled through the kitchen, sharp and forced, the kind meant to hide fear.
Aeloria stood in the doorway, thin, hollow-cheeked, and utterly calm.
"I want food, please," Aeloria said, voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Anything with meat is fine. Chicken would be better. I'm hungry, and the queen said—"
A heavy iron pan, still sizzling with fat, flew straight at her head.
It struck her temple with a sickening clang. Her head snapped back; hot oil and blood streamed down the side of her face.
"You demon!" the thrower snarled. "Using chicken as an excuse to eat us!"
"Get out of here, you heartless monster!" another shouted. "How can you even live after eating your own child?"
The words dealt a deeper damage than the pan ever could. Each insult landed like a fresh wound on her heart.
The pain in my chest just became unbearable, Aeloria thought.
'It hurts so much.' She clutched her chest.
'If a cannibal is what they'll call me… then a cannibal I will be.'
"Yes," she said, tears rolling down her blood-streaked cheeks while her lips twisted into a broken, terrible smile. "I ate my child."
She took one slow step forward, then another, until she stood in the only doorway leading out. Every hand that had reached for something to throw froze mid-motion.
"What makes you think," she asked softly, "you are special enough for me not to eat you?"
The kitchen went dead silent. A pot boiled over unnoticed. Meat charred black on the spit. No one moved.
"I'm hungry," she continued, voice trembling with tears and rage. "I haven't had anything decent in days. The first person to throw something at me will be the first person I eat."
Fear rippled through the room like wind across water.
"I'll bow to the devil himself before I cook for vermin like you!" a young sous-chef screamed, hurling a long carving knife.
It whistled past her head and buried itself in the doorframe.
Aeloria moved.
She crossed the floor in three strides, seized the man by the collar, and bit down on his ear. Cartilage tore. He shrieked. She chewed once, twice, swallowed, then kicked him away.
"For a chef, your meat tastes terrible."
He collapsed, clutching the bleeding ruin of his head, sobbing.
"The queen said I shouldn't kill any of you," she announced, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Blood smeared across her cheek like war paint. "That's all she said."
She looked around the terrified room.
"So tell me, honourable chefs and maids of Runevale… are you going to give me my chicken?
Or are you going to be the chicken?"
Pots clattered. Knives fell from shaking hands. Within seconds every burner blazed, every spit turned, every set of hands flew to obey. No one wanted a part of their flesh in another person's mouth.
Aeloria walked slowly to the nearest preparation table, picked up the same hot pan that had struck her, and cradled it against her chest. Tears still poured down her face.
She had listened to her daughter cry for two entire weeks after birth.
Two weeks of hunger, of weakness, of a tiny voice growing fainter every day.
Her newborn had been so strong, clinging to life with impossible will.
In the end Aeloria had ended the suffering herself, because she could not bear another hour of those cries.
She had to survive. How else could she atone for the sin of killing her own child?
So she ate the flesh and drunk the blood to silence the hunger and thirst.
By some dark miracle, every wound from the ambush had closed overnight. Strength beyond any woman's had flooded her body. It was as if her child was keeping her strong from within.
She had walked back to Runevale carrying that unbearable truth, ready to be punished, ready to die if that was the price.
Even when the people threw stones and filth, she had accepted it.
She deserved it.
"But the sin is not mine alone to bear.
It belonged also to the noble father who had ordered the ambush, who had wanted both me and my unborn child erased so no inconvenient bastard could ever claim his name." She whispered.
Aeloria sank to the cold stone floor, still clutching the burning pan. The heat seared her palms; she welcomed the pain.
"For every minute this food is not ready," she said, voice cracking, "I will hit this floor fifty times with the pan… and then I will have to eat something else. Someone else."
Everyone was so terrified they refused to make a mistake.
'Look at how she's holding the pan we used multiple layered wolf gloves just to touch it like it's nothing. She really is a monster.' A chef thought as he hurried to stir a mixture of garlic, ginger and a few herbs.
She lifted the pan high and brought it down with all her strength.
Clang.
One.
Clang.
Two.