Chapter 5: The witch queen

Aeryn had stopped sleeping.

Not because she couldn't. But because she feared what sleep would bring. She was having nightmares; days for now.

The dreams had begun just days after the binding ceremony. At first, they came in fragments...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.

But now the dreams were full. And last night, the kingdom had died in them.

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

They walked until they fell. They fell until they cracked. Not a scream among them. Only silence, and the wet whisper of red flowing through unseen cracks in the stone. It seemed as if they were all walking dead. No soul, no expression, no feelings, no nothing.

She woke up with a scream. And when she awoke, her pillow was stained with blood from her nose. She looked at her hand, also blood soaked and trembling.

...

Sakina found her at dawn, sitting beneath the bone-laced arch of the eastern window, knees pulled to her chest, hair uncombed and face damp with sweat and some streaks of dried blood, that were not washed away, even after her meticulous face cleaning.

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

Aeryn turned to her with red-rimmed eyes.

"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." As she said this she looked out of the window into the far distance.

Sakina looked down. Then whispered: "The Witch Queen."

Aeryn nodded slowly, as if she had already known. As if the word itself had been stitched to the inside of her skin and now it simply itched.

"They think I drink blood, don't they?" she said with a faint smile

"They fear you," Sakina said. "And when men fear women, they make monsters out of them." She fell on her knees as she said this.

Aeryn didn't say more. And sakina stayed that way until aeryn left her 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. She had not been here since her coronation. She passed her hand on the wall. Torches lit themselves as she passed. Her power was no openly flickering at her fingertips, uncalled for. The blood in the stone hummed as if it just wanted an opportunity to present itself.

Finally she reached her parents' tomb. Their sarcophagi stood side by side, carved from deep sapphire obsidian, veined with molten silver.

Aeryn knelt down on the graves. Reached a hand toward the script etched into the lids.

Queen Elaira. King Maeron.

But as she did this her fingers froze. She saw that the stone was cracked. Someone had defiled it.

Aeryn's heart thundered in her chest as she scrambled to her feet, eyes scanning the floor.

She cried, "SAKINA!"

But before anyone could hear her, There...burned into the marble in blood-red ink she saw a writing,

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 did not scream, nor did she call for anyone this time.

She straightened her back and turned. Then a figure in grey white stepped out from the shadows 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 not male nor it was female. It felt new. A non-human voice. That was beautiful to hear yet sent a thrill of horror on the listeners.

"A message. That is all." It said

"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. "Then tell me how to save it."

"Let it go."

"I can't. I won't."

The figure began to fade into shadow.

"Then the curse will bloom, red as your crown."

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."

Aeryn had a confused expression, she wanted to ask more but it vanished.

She collapsed there in the tomb, all alone, on the cold marble, the bones of kings and queens pressing their silence into her from all sides. Her breathing was shallow. She don't remember how she got out of the tomb and got to her room, but the crown felt heavier that night when she put it back and looked herself in the mirror.

The next morning, she stood before the mirror again.

Her hair was almost entirely red now. Only the faintest traces of gold remained near the scalp. Her eyes… not light brown anymore. Not entirely. There was something else in them now...an echo of copper, a glint of something ancient.

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

......….

The court tried to pretend nothing had changed. Though the people were vailing their disregard for the queen because afterall this was all started by them and fanned by them and they wanted this to happen. They came in casually their silks and leathers. They bowed with the same guarded half-curves. They delivered reports and requested permissions as though the world was not unraveling thread by thread.

But they spoke softly, and watched her hands. They were using her weakness, her people against her, and this was proving to be more devastating and more lethal than any assassin or poison.

......…..

In the lower quarters of Sahirra, in the crooked alleys and the salt-mines, the rumors had already bloomed and were becoming unstopable. 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 was:

She is not the queen. She is the curse.

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

"no stars tonight, Your Highness" Sakina said while looking up.

Aeryn stood at the center of the chamber, her arms crossed behind her back.

Sakina said. "My queen…"

"Sakina," Aeryn 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 cracked. "Then I will bury it again!"

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

Aeryn's lips trembled. She didn't answer. She already had the answer. She knew it.

she just whispered, "I will save them. Even if I must become what they fear or what I fear."

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