Queens of Sorrow & Shadow

The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. The dawn sky tore asunder, revealing violet lightning piercing through a gathering dark. The light of dawn was snuffed out by spiraling clouds, and the land around the city of Allure quaked and shook with a violence that toppled brick towers and crumbled tavern walls. Parts of the city that used to be upriver now became victims of a hundred year flood in the wake of the waterway's sudden reversal, carrying away people, houses and livestock.

It seemed to the people of Allure that the world itself was at its end - and perhaps they were right - for the only solution to their suffering was perched on a fence on the opposite side of the roiling river, watching as their queendom unraveled.

The figure was alone, cloaked in a deep blue cape with a hood that was drawn over their head, keeping their features in shadow. The hem of the cloak was lined in bright silver thread in a pattern of runes and ravens - a garment that normally would garner attention from the commonfolk running around them had it been a normal day.

The natural shadow the figure cast around their dangling feet suddenly shuddered and moved, becoming a part of their physical space and forming a solid, humanoid mass. In mere moments, the shadow transformed into a woman in black and silver armor kneeling in the dirt beside the fence.

"My Queen, your absence is becoming...troubling." The woman's voice was thin and weary with a slight rasp that lent it to the shadows she materialized from. "We should depart for the throne at once."

The Queen of Allure lifted her chin, her hood falling back just enough to reveal her eyes of black and cobalt. "I will not return to that prison they call a throne, Vesper."

Vesper lowered her head, her thick brown braids curling around her neck. "I understand, your majesty, but the people may not."

Screams echoed around them like a manifestation of the Queen's confession. Fires erupted on the other side of the river as lightning struck tinder, jumping from one thatch roof to another. With the river flooded and the other side of the city hemmed in by a mountain chain, there would be no escape for those in the heart of Allure.

The Queen's jaw hardened into a severe line, her eyes reflecting the terrible dance of the orange flames. "Then we must continue with my plan and not falter until it is done."

The armored Vesper stood up from her kneeling position, her expression becoming determined in the face of her Queen's resolve. "As you command, my Queen."

The Queen slid down off the rickety fence, her cloak pooling around her feet. She was much shorter in stature to the lithe Vesper, betraying her youth to the soldier at her side.

She opened one side of her cape, lifting it up with her right arm. "Come, Vesper."

Shadows gathered around Vesper's body, cloaking her as she shrunk down into the size and distinct shape of a raven and flew into the opening in the Queen's cloak, vanishing into the fabric.

Then, the Queen swept her cloak about her and turned her back to her city, trekking through the dirt roads and pushing through streams of panicked people until her footprints vanished in the coming downpour.

___________ . . . ___________

The Temple of the Shadow Martyr rose like a colossal, black marble titan in the forest on the outskirts of Allure. Its towering columns and pointed roof were heavily cracked, but each imperfection had been filled with the purest silver and polished over, creating a historic latticework of damage the temple had accrued over the millennia. It was unlike anything else built on these lands, for it was rumored to be far more ancient than the very mountains surrounding them.

The Queen paused before the stone steps leading up to the entrance and opened her cloak. The sound of gentle, dark feathered wings announced the return of Vesper from the embrace of the magical cape. It flew up over the young monarch's head before gingerly landing on her left shoulder.

Violet lightning suddenly streaked high above, casting purple light upon the marble surfaces of the temple. Dark clouds had followed the Queen and her companion all the way here, and more phenomenon - natural and unnatural - would soon begin here too.

Vesper the raven made a shrill cry, flapping her large wings urgently until feathers spiraled off her body. The Queen flinched, reaching over with her hand to pat the bird's head until it calmed.

"Shh, Vesper. It will be over soon," the queen whispered, casting her gaze up the steps of the temple. "The Shadow Martyr will hear my plea, and perhaps too the Gods."

The raven shuddered and made a harsh, grating sound before the same shadows that had transformed it returned it to human form in front of the Queen.

Vesper began to speak. "My Queen, you - "

The monarch raised her hand, shaking her head. "I will not hear anymore protests. It's either this or the throne, and we both know what the throne will bring."

Vesper kept her gaze level with the Queens'. "Is forsaking the throne really worth it? All of this?" she asked. The raven soldier motioned up at the strange sky, the clouds overhead swirling faster and closer to the ground than before. Lightning thundered and cracked loudly around them, causing the earth to shake with each strike.

The Queen followed her companion's gesture with her eyes and then lowered them in the same breath. "Hundreds of generations, Vesper," she said, her voice thick and gravelly. "Hundreds of my blood serving the whims of that damned throne world instead of their people. Our sorrow cannot be ignored, not even for the destruction of Allure."

"Not even for the death of your own people?"

The young Queen paused, her eyes of shadow and cobalt gleaming with rage. "Not even for them."

Suddenly, the Queen felt the sturdy arms of Vesper around her, holding her close to her chest in a stalwart embrace.

"Then do this task, Lady Branwen, first born of the White Raven and Queen of Allure," Vesper declared. She pulled back and held the young woman by the shoulders, a grieving smile curling her lips. "Do this so that all who have come before may finally rest, and the people of today may find peace."

The fiery rage within Branwen's cold eyes were doused by Vesper's words, and a small smile of her own grew upon her pale face. "Thank you, Vesper, my most loyal of raven soldiers, and my dearest of friends."

Vesper's bottom lip trembled, but she clamped down on it and stood back. "Your orders, my Queen?"

Branwen unclippled her cloak and removed it from her shoulders, passing it to Vesper. Her shock of white hair flickered between purple and green hues as the storm raged above. "Guard the entrance. No one comes in, and no one leaves."

Vesper tucked the cloak under one arm. "No one leaves, your majesty?" she asked worriedly.

Queen Branwen tied her waist-length hair back into a low ponytail and then turned from her friend, giving one last order before she ascended the stairs.

"No one, Vesper. Not even me."

___________ . . . ___________

Lady Branwen, first born of the White Raven and Queen of Allure, knelt before the crumbling visage of the Shadow Martyr.

Unlike the rest of the silver inlaid temple, the statue of the Shadow Martyr had been left to the whims of time and erosion. A crown of shattered feathers haloed a face in rapture, eyes held aloft to the sky and a mouth hanging open in a cry or scream. Her arms had long since fallen from their upright positions and lay in scattered pieces on the temple floor.

At the Martyr's feet, where Branwen knelt, hundreds of melted wax candles sat unlit and covered in thick dust and spiderwebs. Any herbs or burning incense were nothing more than dried particles mixing with the dirt.

The Queen had no means to light or clean the candles. She would have to rely on her voice for this interaction.

Shadows gathered in the black temple as Branwen spoke. "Oh, Lady of Sorrow and Martyr of Titans, I kneel before this visage so that I might entreat with you."

The darkness in the temple thickened but came no closer to the statue. There was a low growl, or perhaps the shrill, guttural cry of a raven - then all the candles lit up at once.

Branwen jerked back but remained kneeling in front of the statue as a voice whispered into her mind.

"The raven child leaves her nest and expects to fly. Why have you come, little fledgling?"

Branwen raised her eyes to the illuminated stone face of the Shadow Martyr. "My family is enslaved to a throne not of their making, Lady of Sorrow. I seek to free them and all future generations from its burden."

A dark chuckle echoed throughout the temple, and the light of the candles flickered. "It is not just any regular throne you seek to escape, little fledgling. If it were, I would not have bothered to answer your call.

This is a throne world, the very fundament of your Queendom and the natural world that surrounds it.

And you, little fledgling, are its anchor."

Branwen shut her eyes, clenching her fists tightly in her lap. "I'm aware," she ground out. "But serving our entire lives in such a state of existence, unable to leave or live beyond its confines...and the danger it poses to our people! Should the line be broken, all that is happening outside will only be a taste of what could be!"

"Then serve in the throne world, raven child, for that is your duty - your purpose. If you truly care for your people, the solution is simple."

"Solitude and servitude are no solutions at all!" Branwen shouted at the statue, standing up to point accusingly at the visage of the goddess. "You would make us martyrs no different from you!"

A sharp, bitter wind swept along the floor of the temple, blowing out all the candles except one in the center of the platform.

Branwen gasped and stumbled back, looking back up at the stone facade to see that the expression of rapture had morphed into one of anger, its marble eyes lowered to her position on the floor.

"You seek to escape martyrdom, raven child?" the Lady of Sorrow asked.

Branwen breathed shakily. "Yes."

The single candle wavered. "You seek to save yourself - your bloodline - over the lives of the people you and every monarch before you have sworn to serve?"

The Queen of Allure looked over her shoulder, out to the world outside the marble temple that was tearing itself apart; all of this because she had vanished from a throne she hated.

But it was no throne. It was a cage. A spit in the face of the natural world and to all her people had built and would ever build. Why use its power when it threatened so much?

Why had the throne world chosen her family, her bloodline? Why now would she have to forsake everyone in order to save them?

She turned away from them - all of them.

"Yes."

___________ . . . ___________