Chapter One

What is a Queen without a kingdom? Without the loving song of a country that has known nothing but the promise of freedom. With spindling arms reaching out for the hope cast into the darkness that they have convinced themselves will come to pass.

What is a Queen who lies, but a spectre ready to slink into the cracks of her home, to save herself whilst her people’s voices are crushed, hollowed out by the arching cry of practised swords.

They have come for us, the blood has seeped into the water, that is what Ardour has been known for, it’s lakes that glitter as though spun from the silk of the heavens. The rush and pull of water decreed to remain untouched, for any thirsty traveller to drink from. A kindness that did not account for a different kind of thirst.

The thirst of a King, who knows nothing but the rage that lurks in the depths of where his heart should lie.

As I stand before my court, dwindled in numbers, the crown on my head heavy, only a week old, it’s jewels nothing to me as I see who remains. The blood splattered across each article of clothing in the room, not a shred of fabric spared from dirt or blood.

“We can fight no more my Queen,” Eldora’s voice cuts through my thoughts, her eyes dark and sombre, “Ardour has fallen. There is only one thing the Cascayli will accept, a bargain for the people.”

“I accept,” The words were out before Eldora could finish, her frown deepened as her right hand, Garton, intervened, his large fist pressing an almost torn piece of parchment onto the war table, already sparse from any remaining soldiers. The wooden carvings that used to represent battlements, before they had been decimated, quaked under the force of his action.

“The bargain is you, Adelaide,” in this room amongst these people, I did not care for my title.

I had possessed it a fortnight and my country had fallen.

My heart cracked as I imagined the disappointment fractured in my father’s eyes, the willowy nature of his speech, the assurance in his voice when he had told me I would make a great Queen.

A lie was all that had been.

“I still accept, General Moren,” there was a silent embracement beneath my words. Six pairs of eyes followed my every movement, as I pressed the letter into my palms, the blood red seal broken long ago. The way the parchment was torn, and crinkled beneath my fingertips I knew it was older than my court cared to admit.

“How long ago was this bargain struck?”

“Struck? Nothing has been struck Adelaide, you would be a fool to even consider-“ The only Elder in the room, Eustice, with grey washed eyes spoke, his silver wisps of hair tightened into a low bun that I knew hid beneath the dark navy cloak, he stared at me with eyes two similar to my father’s. Grey and aging, dying.

“How long,” I asserted, “Have you all known? Eloise?” the sister to Eldora was always one who had a lighter tongue. She found the withholding of information an impractical thing, “Two weeks.”

Rage shot through me like a dagger, culling the divots of my spine as I stared in disbelief.

“And how many did we lose in those two weeks?” I could not shout, could not unleash the true frightened child scrapping beneath me. A death I was not prepared for was my fathers, but the Kingdom of Casacaliyia very much was. A war waged on an ill-fitting queen, with nothing but a cabinet of Lords and Ladies, that thought it ridiculous to even consider the prospect of war. For who would go after the girl-queen, with the lost smile, and crying eyes.

They thought it endearing, the tale of a Queen not yet to be.

A child was all I was to them, my 19 years of age nothing compared to the politics they boasted but where were they now? Their corpses cold, littered across the kingdom. Mouths in that one final complacent grin.

“How many,” I asserted.

The silence was a noose gripping onto my neck, tightening at each laboured breath I attempted to trap between my teeth.

Daunte was the only one to answer, his eyes cast over to his daughter curled in the corner, eyes shattered as she lay against her father, whose arms would not let go of her small frame. Freya hadn’t said a word since the war began.

“Seven thousand, two hundred and twenty-four.” His voice was lacquered in an unbidden malice, his teeth ground against each other, as he held his eyes from looking at the grief laced over his daughters once smiling features.

“Seven-“ my throat closed in on itself, “How many remain?”

“That’s unknown,” Eloise cut through, “But there’s no telling that even if you do give yourself up Addy, that he will stop.”

“And if I do nothing, there is no chance that he will ever stop. Ardour is what he wants, the people are also what he wants, he cannot kill them all, not if,” I felt my stomach lurch, cold dead eyes, imprinted in my eyes, the colour of seafoam and poison, waiting beyond the battlements.

That King of Casacaliyia, Rhydian Koen was not a king that would stand behind his regiments. He had a taste for blood, for being with them to see the flesh pressed against metal, to kill as it pleased him.

“You do not know what he will do with you,” Eustice’s voice had softened since he had last spoken, “You will be prisoner of war, or worse, the spoils of war he intends to enjoy.”

I might have been young, but I was no fool, I knew what this could mean.

“There’s no other reason to ask for you,” Daunte’s voice was a whisper, “What else could he want with a Queen without a kingdom?”

“A prize,” Eldora’s gaze shot to each of the men that had spoken, a silent warning I tried to be grateful for, “A prize to show off, there is no reason to believe…” even Eldora could not finish the sentence.

“If he has you, the Queen that used to be the Princess so loved by the people, they will fall in line so much more easily. It’s about control,” Garton’s voice was a gruff with an undercurrent of care, that only showed in times too dire to uphold his unfeeling persona, “Not pleasure.”

Once more my eyes dragged over the ruins of my kingdom. This room, with the last Elder, sister soldiers, a General that followed them, a father and daughter that only knew how to survive. All that remained of my inner council.

Could I condemn my court who had fought to keep me alive, even when the palace fell, even when I heard the hollering cries beyond the gates, the wicked voice that would haunt my nightmares,

“I have won, you have three days to decide,”

I did not know at the time what decision I was to make.

But now with the letter pressed against the table, amongst ruin. I knew what I must do.

The sacrifice I must make.

“We write a treaty, me for the safety of the people.”

“He’ll never-“ in that moment I could not even decipher who had rejected my proposal, their voice fading away, my eyes blurring as I thought, for my people I would do anything.

Even become a prize, an object to be paraded around. A spoil of war.

This was my doing.

And I would do everything to become his undoing.