Queen's Light

Demons in the Night

"Ma'am?"

"Make it quick."

"A Northern scout, ma'am. Caught just outside the city walls."

Her quill's scratch faltered. "Show me."

She stood, following the young messenger to the dungeon, where a lad was bound in irons and surrounded by soldiers. The scout couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. Tear tracks were visible through the dirt caking his face. He was lithe and lean, a perfect candidate for a job of stealth. She flicked her wrist, and the soldiers stepped away.

She crouched before him, noticing how he flinched away from her advance. "What's your name, son?"

The scout peered at her through frightfully youthful eyes. His lips trembled, but he grimaced and shook his head, seemingly bracing himself.

"Oh," she said softly, berating him, "don't be like that. Keep up that attitude, and this will be much harder for you. Now won't you tell me who sent you?"

"Ma'am," another soldier from behind her. "This letter was on him."

She held her hand out, never breaking eye contact with the scout. She skimmed the scrawled handwriting. The letter answered every question she had been meaning to ask. She folded it, tucking it inside her robes.

Sheer terror reflected within the scout's gaze.

"Thank you for your assistance," she said. "But, as it happens, we've no further use for you. And, as you may have heard -- "

Quick as a flash, her dagger was in her hand and had swiped across the lad's neck, leaving a trail of crimson in its wake.

" -- we take no prisoners."

Silence fell. For a moment, there seemed to be shock amongst the men.

"Dispose of the body. Burn it, if you must. Tomorrow, I expect, they'll begin their attack. We must be ready."

It was rare to have a dream of an event that took place in the past.

Rhiannon suppressed her memories. It was the only way she could keep herself smiling day after day. So she buried them. Didn't think of them. Forgot. Became someone new.

On very special occasions, she had a dream. A memory of who she had been, resurfaced. Almost as if the universe were reminding her of who she really was. Reminding her of her own mask.

The Queen was a myth. A character she had built years ago to keep herself sane. To keep from remembering...herself.

Rhiannon Bathory was a warlord. She was ruthless. She was vain. She murdered for murder's sake. She relished the heat of flame. She pricked the tips of her fingers with the end of her quill to watch her blood mix with the ink. She spent hours breathing in the smoke of blood petals, thinking it her solution to the sleepless, tortured nights spent alone.

Handprints. There were handprints on her walls oozing with black ink and scarlet blood. And a heartbeat. Pulsing, beating, struggling to live as though it sat within the very claws of Death.

As though it were being held by her.

Lady Rhiannon, the vicar of death. A name even her own soldiers knew her by.

The petals of the blood flower, native to the southern regions, were toxic when consumed. When ground into a fine powder and mixed with a few other ingredients, they made for a popular and profitable fragrance. But when burned as incense and inhaled, they caused an intense sensation of calm, occasionally having been known to cause hallucinations. "The opioid of the south", it was called.

There were times when she tried to remember, tried to peel back the layers she had built around herself to remember what she once was, but couldn't. But when her mind drew them to her back in her sleep, she was powerless against them.

She spent the day in her chambers. Only after much prodding from her servants did she finally bathe and dress. But even then, she sat by the window, staring out into the courtyard, mind empty, a thousand miles away.

Strange how she had felt so much joy only a day ago. How had that felt? She didn't know.

The journals she kept in a locked case underneath her bed were not ordinary journals. In them were her most recent string of prophetic dreams, as she remembered them upon awakening. When she first began journaling her dreams, she vowed never to read them back once written down.

The key to this chest she wore on a thin chain around her neck. She only used it when her current journal became full and had to be put away.

Now, it seemed, she'd be using it to break a vow.

I am wandering through the castle. It is in ruins. The courtyard is overgrown and demolished. The willow tree near the fountain is barely beginning to wither away. Nestled beneath its boughs is the tattered remains of what appears to be a once brightly colored hat with bells at its ends. A breeze blows past, bringing with it the scent of iron and smoke. It is jarringly familiar.

The book slipped from her hands. Without warning, her legs buckled and she collapsed to the floor. Rhiannon blinked, and a single tear wormed its way out of the corner of her eye, streaming its way down her temple to burrow in her hair.

How long would she lay there? No one could say. Would one of her servants find her? Perhaps. Would one of the other misfits happen to visit and find her strewn across the marble of her own floors? Maybe. But for now, she lay, a hollow shell of herself.