The Real Queen

Chapter 4: A Kingdom in Chains

Dawn came like a hurricane over Thalrien.

The air was gray, and heavy. From the cottage window, I could see the faint outline of the border wall a massive structure of black stone and faint gold runes, separating what was left of the human territories from Aerithen’s reach.

Except the reach didn’t end there. It was everywhere now.

Magic shimmered faintly in the mist not natural, not ours. The fae’s magic. It had begun to seep into everything, the air, the soil, even the water. It was said to make the crops grow faster. But everyone whispered it made people slower. Weaker. Easier to rule.

I wrapped the thin blanket around my shoulders and turned from the window.

Metra was already awake, grinding herbs by the fire. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked without looking up.

I shook my head. “Nightmares.”

She didn’t ask what kind. Maybe she didn’t want to know.

Selene stumbled in next, yawning. “You’ll get used to it,” she said, pouring hot water into a cup. “The nightmares. Everyone has them here.”

“Do you?” I asked softly.

She gave me a small, crooked smile. “Every time I see a torch in the distance, I think it’s the fae patrol coming to collect someone.”

Moore entered then, as silent as always, her presence enough to still the air. She had that way about her, calm and watchful, like she’d seen too much and survived anyway.

“Martina,” she said, her tone brisk. “Eat. Then you’ll work.”

“Work?”

“You’re not a guest,” she replied simply. “We don’t take charity here. Everyone contributes.”

That was fair. Honest, even. I nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

Metra’s lips twitched with a faint smile. “Hope you’re not afraid of mud.”

By midmorning, I found myself kneeling in a patch of overgrown soil behind the cottage. Metra worked beside me, humming softly as she replanted seedlings. The garden was a disguise. From the road, it looked ordinary. But beneath the layers of herbs and roots were plants the fae had banned, nightshade, ashvine, fireroot.

Human medicine.

The fae claimed such herbs interfered with their magic. Maybe that’s why Moore and her sisters grew them anyway.

I dug my fingers into the dirt, letting the earth cling to my skin. It felt strange comforting and brutal at once. It reminded me of my mother’s hands after tending her roses, of the afternoons she’d hum old songs while I pruned the palace garden.

That was before Aerithen. Before dragons. Before love turned to ash.

Metra broke the silence. “You’ve got steady hands.”

“Used to work in gardens,” I said. This was not a lie. “My mother taught me.”

“She must’ve been good,” Metra said. “The plants listen to you.”

I smiled faintly, the ache in my chest tightening. “She was.”

We worked in silence a while longer before Metra spoke again. “You’ve got the look of someone who’s lost everything. Don’t worry that makes you one of us.”

I looked up. “One of you?”

She nodded toward the street, where a small group of villagers were hauling crates past the well. “Everyone here has lost something. A husband, a job, a home. The fae say they brought order to Thalrien. But all I see is pain where laughter used to be.”

Her voice dropped low. “We don’t speak of it often, but there are still those who fight. Small groups. Scattered. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” I asked.

“For someone to remind us we’re still human.”

Her words stayed with me long after we finished.

By afternoon, the village square filled with noise the weekly inspection.

Everyone was required to gather when the fae patrols arrived. They came to “collect tax” though what they took rarely had to do with coin. Food. Livestock. Sometimes people.

Selene gripped my arm as the bells rang. “Stay close. Don’t look any of them in the eye.”

The square was a sea of bowed heads by the time the fae soldiers appeared.

Their armor glowed faintly with blue light. Their faces were beautiful and empty, their eyes too bright. Each bore the crest of Aerithen a dragon wreathed in flame. My heart lurched.

Caladan’s symbol.

I forced myself to breathe evenly, to keep my face blank. If any of them recognized me if even one fae saw the truth behind the dirt and the torn dress it would be over.

The captain dismounted, inspecting the villagers like cattle. “Taxes have doubled this cycle,” he announced. “King Caladan demands tribute for peace.”

Peace.

The word made me taste bile.

Moore’s hand pressed against my back, steadying me. Her grip said Don’t.

I swallowed hard and kept still.

The fae collected what they wanted. Two sacks of grain. Three chickens. And a young man barely eighteen who had apparently spoken out of turn last week. They said he was being “reassigned.” No one ever came back from reassignment.

When they were gone, the silence was worse than the shouting had been.

Selene exhaled shakily. “Peace,” she muttered. “That’s what they call this?”

Moore’s face was stone. “Careful. The wind carries more than sound.”

But I wasn’t listening anymore. I was staring at the crest on the captain’s cloak. The same crest that had glowed on the armor of the soldiers who murdered my family.

My vision blurred, my heart pounding too fast. I had to turn away before I screamed.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The others were quiet, breathing slow and steady. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, watching the faint blue shimmer of fae wards outside the window.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Cruze again, his last smile, his blood on my hands.

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

I rolled onto my side and stared at the faint outline of the fire. “I’m trying,” I whispered. “I swear I’m trying.”

The next morning, Selene asked me to help her in the marketplace.

The square was calmer now, though tension clung to the air. Fae soldiers watched from the corners, their shadows stretching too long.

Selene handed me a basket. “If anyone asks, you’re my friend from the marshlands,” she said quietly. “Lost your home in the fire.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

We spent hours trading herbs, bread, and cloth. I listened more than I spoke.

The king had declared a new law.

Humans were f*******n to enter Aerithen without sanction.

Some said the fae were building new cities on Thalrien’s soil.

Others whispered that the dragons themselves had withdrawn, vanishing into the high clouds as if ashamed.

The last rumor made my chest tighten. Dragons didn’t hide unless something was deeply wrong.

“Selene,” I said softly, “when did all this start? The patrols, the taxes?”

She frowned. “When the war ended, I suppose. When King Caladan took the throne of both realms.”

“Both?” I repeated carefully.

“Thalrien and Aerithen,” she said. “He calls it unity. The Crown of Fire and Flesh.”

The words twisted something deep inside me. The title I was supposed to share twisted into a mockery.

Selene mistook my silence for confusion. “They say it was a fair victory. That the humans surrendered willingly.”

“Do you believe that?”

Her jaw tightened. “They have dragons! We never stood a chance!”

That evening, back at the cottage, Moore gathered us around the table. “The fae are sending a royal envoy through the villages next week,” she said. “They’re recruiting for palace service in Aerithen. Maids, attendants, scribes.”

Selene scoffed. “You mean slaves.”

“Call it what you want,” Moore replied. “But it’s a chance for some to get out of here. To live.”

I felt every heartbeat echo in my chest. Aerithen. The palace.

Caladan.

Metra looked uneasy. “You think anyone’s foolish enough to volunteer?”

Moore’s eyes flicked to me for a fraction of a second before she said, “There’s always someone desperate enough to risk it.”

I dropped my gaze quickly, pretending not to notice. But something in her tone made me wonder, does she know something?

Later, when the others went to sleep, I sat alone by the window, watching moonlight spill over the fields.

Aerithen.

The word itself still felt like silk and fire. I can see the fae capital from a distance. I remembered walking its marble halls, hearing dragons roar in the distance, watching Caladan’s laughter light up the dark.

“You don’t belong to the human world,” he’d once told me, his hand tracing the edge of my jaw. “You belong here. To me.”

Lies. All of it.

But the memory still ached.

I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms. “You don’t get to win,” I whispered. “Not like this.”

If he thought he’d buried me, he’d buried the wrong woman.

The next few days passed in a haze of routine. I worked the garden, tended the herbs, learned the rhythm of the village. People began to nod to me in passing. We are all in this together. Humans.

Sometimes, I almost believed the name Martina belonged to me.

But at night, the truth always returned.

The fire. The betrayal. The sound of my family’s screams.

One evening, as I carried water from the well, I overheard Metra and Selene talking again.

“They say King Caladan’s building a new fortress near the mountains,” Metra whispered. “To protect his throne from rebellion.”

Selene snorted. “Rebellion? What rebellion? He burned it out of us.”

“Still,” Metra said, “Moore thinks something’s coming. She’s been talking to travelers. Rumors of unrest in Aerithen itself.”

I kept walking, pretending not to hear but my heart was pounding. Unrest. In Aerithen.

Maybe the gods weren’t finished with him after all.

That night, Moore stopped me as I passed her room. “Martina.”

I froze. “Yes?”

Her eyes studied me, unreadable. “You’re not like the others here.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She tilted her head slightly. “You move like someone who’s been trained to hide. You listen before you speak. And when the soldiers come, you hide.”

My mouth went dry.

She smiled faintly. “Don’t worry. I don’t need your story. Everyone here has ghosts. Just… be careful which ones you wake.”

She turned back into her room, leaving me with more anxiety.

I couldn’t sleep after that. I sat by the dying fire until dawn, staring at the window.

The light crept slowly over the horizon, soft and gold. Somewhere beyond it was Aerithen the kingdom that had stolen my home, my family, my life.

And now, they were coming here. Recruiting.

A chance. A doorway.

I didn’t know if it was madness or fate, but I felt it in my bones, the pull toward the place where it all began.

If the fae thought Thalrien was broken, they were wrong.

I was still here.

And I was going to Aerithen.

Not as Elia, the forgotten queen.

Not as Martina, the broken survivor.

But as the shadow of what they created. The ghost that would walk through their gilded halls and make them remember what they’d done. What HE did.