ONE DARK QUEEN ❖ (A Three Dark Crowns Tale)

CHAPTER FOURTY SEVEN: UMBRA

None of her supporters likes it but they are all confident having seen her ability at Beltane. But Cierra is not convinced. She continues to berate Arwen's 'weakness'. Perhaps Arwen is not as cunning, ruthless and politically savvy as the Radurons, despite her years of Cierra's tutelage but she still thinks she would make a good queen, she wishes to make the island a better place. Rid it off of the corruption at last.

But the promise of her reign brings the promise of Cierra ruling the whole island in everything but name after she inevitably pressures Arwen into appointing her as the Head of the Black Council and then installing other Radurons and shadows - Arwen would not be surprised if Cierra made the Black Council a completely shadow dominated government.

Everyone with different gifts and opinions would be silenced. Cierra ruling worked in Umbra to a degree, they all share her gifts and her goals but the rest of the island would not like her or her methods of ruling. And the island certainly don't trust them, they have heard of the Radurons and they are fearful. Rightfully so.

The people may revere Arwen because of her gifts and Quickening performance but they are still wary, ironically they fear her the most though Arwen is perhaps the kindest. Carina and Nalani have more common and known gifts, they are more predictable, they promise safety and security. Even with the mistrust of poisoners from years before the shadows trump them in that department now.

Before Arwen's birth some people even thought the shadows had simply become a myth as tales passed from generation to generation and fact soon became fiction. Nobody really understands what Arwen even is, even some shadows in Umbra don't even truly know due to her strength - there are so many aspects to the shadow gift a person can have and Arwen mostly has all. Who knows more affinities could develop later. Ones thought lost to time. Nothing is impossible on the island.

"Neither do I," Arwen replies, sighing, "my future is very uncertain, I will constantly have to watch my back for poisoned food and the like and of course Nalani's famous flames, I can't say I particularly like the idea of me being burnt to a crisp or poisoned and then you possibly marrying one of my younger sisters, one of whom could be my murderer, it wouldn't exactly be the most harmonious match."

"It will never happen," he says instantly, shaking his head, "I can't comment on Nalani but I've met Carina, her and that giant viper of hers scare me a little," Klaude finishes which makes Arwen chuckle," and you aren't going to die, I love you too much to let that happen."

Love. So strange. So sudden. Like her and Klaude's relationship. She has never felt like this before. And even with the beginning of the Ascension and the dangers she faces, she can only focus on him.

Sometimes Arwen forgets she is a queen because of being around him, for better or for worse. It's not wise, that she's allowed herself to be utterly consumed by a man rather than focusing on the task at hand. At slaying her way to becoming queen crowned, saving her own life and being able to rule the island, the first shadow queen since the Queens of Old to rule from the Volroy. Permanently uniting the elusive Umbra and Fennbirn once again.

There's pressure in that as well. No shadow queen born to the island has ever been slain in the Ascension - they have all reigned victorious. All five of them. It is documented well in the Raduron's personal library, as well as Umbra's enormous library in Tenebris Avenue.

Queen Dominique, Queen Clio, Queen Reyna, Queen Morana and Queen Ondina. So the Radurons and the citizens of Umbra expect her to do the same, they expect victory and strength. Nothing more nothing less especially as they view her as a chess piece, one that will got them more power politically and in terms of their gifts.

The shadow gift used to reign far superior over the rest, Arwen has heard Cierra tell her tales of the age of the shadow queens. Such glory and undiluted power. From those tales it sounds like shadows were barely even mortal, the sheer strength of their gifts made them sound like goddesses and gods.