The Real Queen

Chapter2: Ashes Don’t Lie

I don’t know how long I lay there.

The rain fell endlessly, cold and cruel, washing the blood from my hands but not the memory from my mind. Cruze’s voice still echoed inside me

You have to live so that we can live through you.

Live.

How was I supposed to live when everything I loved had burned?

I pressed my palms to the earth, trembling, and pushed myself up. My body screamed in protest. My shoulder throbbed where the arrow had grazed me. My dress was torn, soaked through, heavy with mud and smoke.

The forest was silent except for the rain. No birds. No wind. No dragons.

Caladan’s dragons.

Gone.

My heart cracked wider.

He had said they would protect the realm. That the dragons’ fire would turn the tide of war. That we would be safe. But their absence now felt like they never flew our skies. Even though I saw them right before my family and I left to the "safe house"

And then came the thought I didn’t want. The one that slithered through the fog and sank its claws into me over and over again

Where were Caladan's guards?

They were supposed to keep watch. To protect us. But when the war came…

They attacked.

My breath caught.

The memory was jagged—shouts, the smell of burning, my father’s sword flashing, Cruze screaming for me to run. And those insignias… that unmistakable crest glinting on their armor Caladan’s royal sigil.

No. No, I must have seen wrong. I had to.

I stumbled forward, clutching at the nearest tree, my fingers slick with rain.

“Caladan wouldn’t…” My voice broke. “He couldn’t…”

But the truth didn’t care about my denial. It sat heavy and cold in my chest.

He’d promised safety. He’d promised to protect me.

And I had believed him.

When dawn came, the forest was a graveyard of mist. Smoke rose like ghosts between the trees, the remnants of the fire that had devoured the manor.

I forced myself back toward it, step by step. The earth was soft beneath my feet, soaked with rain and ash. My body wanted to turn away, but my heart wouldn’t let me.

The safe house or what was left of it was a blackened ruin. The air reeked of death and wet wood. The roof had collapsed, the great hall now just a mound of charred beams.

“Mother?” I whispered, though I knew she couldn’t answer.

Silence.

I stepped through what used to be the doorway, the mud sucking at my feet. The heat had faded, but smoke still curled lazily in the air. My father’s sword lay near the entrance, the blade cracked in half. I fell to my knees beside it.

My fingers brushed the hilt. It was still warm.

That was when the sob finally tore free. Loud, broken, unrestrained.

I didn’t care who heard. There was no one left to hear.

Cruze’s words replayed through the roar of my heartbeat.

If you die along with us then there will be no one to remember our names.

I dug my nails into the dirt. “I’ll remember,” I whispered hoarsely. “I swear it. I'll never forget you"

I don't know how long I stay there for. Just staring at nothing my eyes sunken from the tears. My hands and body shaking. I wanted to die right along with them. But I can't.

I made a promise and that is the only thing keeping me going. If not, I would had thrown myself into the closest dragon so that it could burn me whole. But I force myself up and keep walking to nowhere in particular.

By nightfall, I’d found a small stream running through the forest and followed it north. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to move, had to survive. My stomach was empty, my throat raw. The rain had stopped, but the cold had sunk into my bones.

Every sound made me flinch, the snap of a branch, the distant cry of something winged. My father once told me the woods north of Elaris were enchanted. Some fae built illusions there centuries ago to keep humans away.

But the war had broken everything, even magic.

I came upon a clearing where moonlight spilled through the canopy. I sank to the ground, pressing my back against a tree, and tried to still my shaking hands.

My wedding ring caught the light. Silver, carved with the same pattern as Caladan’s crest. The sight of it made my stomach twist.

Had he known? Did he send those soldiers?

I wanted to believe he hadn’t. I wanted to believe love was stronger than politics, stronger than bloodlines and crowns. But then I saw Cruze’s face again, his final breath, the arrow in his chest.

The ring suddenly felt like poison on my skin.

I tore it off and threw it into the darkness.

It landed with a dull thud somewhere in the wet grass, swallowed by the forest.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of voices.

I jerked upright, heart pounding, scanning the trees. Fae soldiers three of them were making their way along the stream, armor glinting faintly.

I froze, pressing myself into the shadows.

“…reports said the humans didn’t make it out,” one said. “Orders were clear, no survivors.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the second replied. “If any did, they won’t last long out here. Not without magic.”

The third snorted. “The king’s problem, not ours.”

My breath caught. The king.

Not the soon-to-be king. Not the heir.

The king.

My pulse roared in my ears.

They’d already crowned him.

Caladan had won the war.

And he’d buried me and my family to get there.

I waited until they passed, my body trembling from the effort of staying silent. When the last sound of their boots faded into the forest, I finally let myself breathe again.

So it was true. Everything Cruze feared, everything my parents died trying to protect me from it was all real.

Caladan wasn’t fighting for peace. He was claiming it.

And we were the price.

As the sun rose, I found the stream again and washed the soot from my face. My reflection in the water looked nothing like me, pale, hollow-eyed, hair tangled with ash.

“Elia,” I whispered to that broken girl staring back. “You’re not dead. Not yet. You made a promise to your brother and parents and you will honor it!” I say brother because that is exactly what Cruze was to me. My brother.

The words felt foreign. But speaking them made something inside me shift.

A small, fragile ember of purpose flickered to life beneath the grief.

He had taken everything, my family, my home, my crown. But Cruze’s last words wouldn’t let me drown.

You have to live so that we can live through you.

I looked north, toward the faint glow of dawn over the mountains. Somewhere beyond them lay Aerithen, the heart of the fae kingdom, and the truth waiting behind its gilded walls.

If Caladan did win this war. That is where he would be. In Aerithen. The fae capital.

I wrapped my arms around myself and started walking.

Step after step. Through the cold. Through the pain. Through the ruins of the life he’d burned.

I would survive.

And when I reached him, when I stand before Caladan again

He will finally see what his betrayal had created.