The Real Queen

Chapter 6: The Crown has another Queen

Today is the day I leave to Aerithen.

Mist hung low over the fields, veiling the village in pale silver light. The world felt suspended the crops were dying. The fields were empty. Aerithien was not protecting Thalrien at all.

Moore stood by the gate as I approached, her cloak pulled tight against the wind. Her expression was unreadable, the way it always was when she was about to say something she meant to say.

“You’re really going, then,” she said.

I nodded. “I have to.”

“I figured as much.” Her eyes narrowed, studying me not with suspicion, but with a kind of quiet understanding that felt heavier than judgment. “I don’t know who you are,” she said at last. “Or what you’re hiding. But I do know this, you have a purpose. I can feel it since the day I first met you.”

Her gaze held mine. “So go. Do what you must. But don’t lose yourself in the process.”

The words struck deep like she saw through every layer of my disguise, through the dirt and the magic and the new face Ziyi had given me. "Is that why you decided to help me?" she nodded silently.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

Moore’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “Don’t thank me yet.”

I turned before she could see the tears in my eyes.

The road to Aerithen was long and winding, carved through forests that had once belonged to humans. Now they bore fae sigils burned into the trees bright marks that shimmered like wounds.

A small caravan carried the recruits north. We rode in silence, packed into wooden wagons. Around me, faces were drawn, cautious. Some looked frightened. Others looked hollow, as if fear had already burned itself out of them.

The fae soldiers escorting us rode ahead, silent and gleaming, their eyes as still as mirrors.

I kept my hood low, my thoughts lower.

Every mile felt heavier as though I was walking backward through my own memories. I recognized the bends in the road, the curve of the river, even the faint scent of honey and smoke from the border markets. I have only been to the fae capital once. We did not live there. It was only for true Kings and Queens. Now that Caladan is the fae king, he lives there.

Once, this was the road I had traveled as a queen not a captive.

Once, Caladan had ridden beside me.

“One day,” he’d said, “these two kingdoms will be one. No more walls. No more fear.”

And I’d believed him.

Now the walls were higher than ever. And fear was all we had left. He never respected nor liked humans. It was all a lie.

We reached the first checkpoint by noon a fae outpost at the edge of the Thalrien border. Soldiers in black and silver armor moved among the wagons, inspecting papers and faces.

When it was my turn, my pulse quickened.

“Name?” a fae officer asked.

“Martina,” I said evenly.

He scanned my forged papers, eyes flicking up briefly. “Occupation?”

“Herbalist.”

He grunted and stamped the parchment with glowing ink. “Proceed.”

I exhaled slowly, stepping back into the line.

Beside me, a young woman whispered nervously. “They say Aerithen’s beautiful,” she said. “That the palace walls shine like starlight.”

I managed a faint smile. “They do.”

“Have you seen it?”

My throat tightened. “Once.”

We traveled for three days. Each night, we camped beneath the stars, and each morning, the sky seemed to grow a little less human. The colors changed first brighter, richer, as though the world was painted by another hand. The air itself shimmered faintly with magic.

Fae lands were always like that too perfect. Too alive.

On the fourth day, I saw Aerithen.

It rose in the distance like a dream carved from glass and flame. Spires of white stone pierced the clouds, their edges catching the sunlight until the whole city seemed to glow. Dragons circled high above, their shadows sweeping over the fields like slow-moving storms.

Everyone gasped in awe.

They are breathtaking, and I saw more dragons than ever before.

I couldn’t look away from the towers or the dragons.

My towers.

The place where I was supposed to live as his wife as the queen. Loved. Cared for.

The gates of Aerithen opened with a low hum of magic. We were herded inside, the streets lined with banners bearing Caladan’s sigil the dragon and the flame, stitched in gold.

People watched from balconies fae nobles in shimmering robes, humans in plain tunics, all moving carefully around one another. The illusion of unity was everywhere.

We were led to the outer palace courtyard, where a woman in crimson stood waiting.

At first glance, I thought she was fae. Her hair gleamed like molten copper, her skin flawless, her posture effortless grace. But when she turned, I realized no, she was something else.

Fae-touched, perhaps. Mortal enough to age, beautiful enough to be feared.

“Welcome to Aerithen,” she said, her voice smooth, trained. “You stand now in service to the crown.”

Her gaze swept over the group. “You will be assigned quarters and duties. Your obedience will be rewarded. Disobedience…” Her lips curved faintly. “Will not.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

Then, behind her, the great doors opened and every breath in the courtyard stilled.

The fae guards bowed. The recruits dropped their eyes.

I didn’t need to look up to know who had stepped onto the balcony above.

The air itself shifted, heavy with dragonfire and power.

Caladan.

He stood exactly as I remembered him tall, regal, his hair like starlight caught in shadow. But the man who once held me in his arms now looked like a statue come to life. There was no warmth in his face, no trace of the softness that once belonged to me.

He wore armor instead of robes, gold traced with obsidian. The mark of dragons burned faintly along his forearm proof of the bond that made him king.

And beside him…

A woman stepped forward.

She was breathtaking in a way that hurt to look at her, her gown the color of frost, her crown glittering with white flame. Her beauty was cold, perfect, inhuman.

"Who is she?" I thought.

She moved like a shadow of light, elegant, restrained, utterly untouchable. When she smiled at Caladan, he smiled back, the kind of practiced warmth that courts are built on.

The world tilted beneath me.

The murmur of the crowd blurred. I barely heard the fae woman announcing names, duties, assignments.

"my queen" A fae soldier said, and that is when I realized who she was. 'Queen?!' I fell on the floor but someone caught me.

"Do not draw so much attention to yourself girl" the elderly woman that caught me said. But I could not breathe.

Caladan had crowned another.

And she wore my crown.

I forced myself to breathe, my body trembling beneath the disguise. No one noticed they were too busy staring upward, caught in the spectacle of royalty.

But I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him.

Does he know? I thought. Does he ever wonder if I survived?

The new queen touched his arm, drawing his attention. They spoke briefly, and I caught the faintest flicker of something between them: Power. A shared secret that burned hotter than any affection.

I had seen that look before the night he came to my chamber after the war began.

“You don’t understand,” he’d said, voice rough. “There are things bigger than us now. Bigger than love.”

And I had believed him.

I had believed everything.

"Welcome peasants, respect the crown and our rules. If you do not there will be severe consequences." Caladan said nothing. He just let her talk. With that they leave.

As the ceremony ended, we were led inside. The corridors of Aerithen’s palace stretched endlessly, all white stone and gold light. The air smelled of lilac and iron beauty and control, perfectly balanced.

Each of us was assigned a place: kitchens, servant quarters, stables, inner chambers. When my turn came, the fae attendant scanned my file.

“Martina,” she said. “Herbalist. You’re to serve in the apothecary wing under the head healer.”

I bowed slightly. “Yes, ma’am.”

She handed me a small bronze token stamped with the dragon’s crest. “Welcome to the palace.”

The words were meant to be polite. They felt like a sentence.

My quarters were small but warm a narrow room with a single window overlooking the training grounds. I sat on the edge of the bed, my body heavy with exhaustion. There was a small bed along the window. Do I have a roommate?

Through the window, I could see the spires again, the highest of which gleamed faintly even at night.

That tower would had belonged to me. My family and I would had lived here. In Aerithen the fae capital.

I pressed a hand against my chest, my heart pounding with something between rage and heartbreak.

He had replaced me.

He had rewritten history.

There was a knock at my door.

“Come in,” I said, forcing calm.

A young human servant stepped in pale, nervous, clutching a folded parchment. “Message for you,” she said quietly.

“For me?”

She nodded and handed it over before hurrying away.

The parchment was sealed with no crest, only a faint mark the symbol of a serpent coiled around a flame.

I broke the seal and read.

The walls whisper. The king’s crown burns brighter than before, but not all flames are loyal. Watch the Queen. She isn’t what she seems.

There was no signature.

I read it twice, then a third time, my pulse hammering.

The Queen. Arathene.

I looked back out the window toward the high tower, where faint light flickered behind the curtains.

Not what she seems.

The words echoed through me, mingling with everything Moore had said — do not lose yourself in the process.

I wouldn’t.

But I would find out who had.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

The palace hummed with life faint laughter, footsteps, music drifting from the upper halls. It all felt too familiar, too cruelly close to the life I’d lost.

Somewhere beyond those walls, Caladan was with her.

I could almost hear his voice. His promises. His lies.

And I swore, quietly, to the gods that had long since stopped listening...

“I will learn why you did this. I will make you see me again. And when you do, you will wish you hadn’t.”