Flashback(Ten Years Ago)
1114 Words
The scent of roses mingled with the stench of ruin in the throne room.
Luda stood in the centre of the ruin, her bare soles felt the icy touch of the marble floor, and the weight of silence bore down on her heavier than any crown. Her baby pink satin gown was a display of peace, purity and maybe her upcoming engagement which made it all the more ironic it was ripped at the sleeve and soaked at the hem in blood she could not explain. Every meticulous fold of the fabric betrayed her and each silken ribbon reminded her how delicate appearances could be.
All around her, the court whispered, their voices curling and twining through the air just like smoke.
The prince Fillion is dead—poisoned on my watch.
Luda readjusted her chin, trying to find composure, but her hands trembled regardless of her accountability. She looked towards her mother, Queen Elloda, who sat high upon her silver throne with a regal poise that did not shine but did not break. There was no flicker of softness. No hint of doubt, only judgment, only expectation.
“Tell them the truth,” Luda first whispered to herself. She then expunged the frayed thought and said it in a mode loud enough that it quavered in a semblance of authority to be heard. “I didn’t kill him. I found him….I tried to save him,” she protested.
The queen replied coldly and precisely, her voice echoed from where she sat high above the vaulted chamber, her voice felt like deftly wielded blade raking through silk.
“Silence.”
In response, Luda flinched, her voice curled at the edges, and diminished down into the void of silence.
“I can’t explain how the poison managed to get into his food. But I swear, I didn’t touch it.” Her eyes scanned the room, looking for someone who could see reason, or even simply understand. She saw guards, nobles, advisors—everyone’s face was set, painted with feigned ease, not one face showing even a glimmer of faith. “Why would I kill the prince of Valleria? We had decided to ally ourselves…”
“He was supposed to become your husband,” the queen said, snapping cruelly, her sharp tone cutting through like shards of ice. “And now he is found dead in our guest chamber, he took his last breath right into your arms, Luda .Do you know what that looks like?”
There was a pause and silence hung in the air. A breath was so slight that it could easily have been a gust of wind sweeping through the hall.
“What more would you have us do, Luda? Defend you? To protect a murder in our kingdom?
Luda’s throat constricted. Her voice evaporated. “What do you mean, .. you believe that I killed him ? Mother, do really believe I could kill my fiancée?”
“Maybe your precious guard will believe that you aren’t capable of killing your supposed husband,but who knows ..maybe you did it to escape the marriage and marry him instead .He is your lover right?” said Queen .
Then her gaze slid past Luda, gliding over the gold carvings that embellished the room, coming to rest at a tall figure on the fringes of the room. Luda turned slowly, a dreadful weight knotting in her stomach.
There at the door entrance shoot Kain, impossibly straight in his dark outfit. He was immaculate in his pose, startling in his stance, and yet the warmth she had always met him with hung stilted and cold.
She moved towards him, the agony feeding on her heart. “Kain, you know me. You know I would never-“
“I was told to protect the crown, not its disgrace.” he said with a cold and unyielding voice —he didn’t even flinch.
Those words hit harder than any blade. They sliced through her barriers, through her hope , through the delicate trust she put into him.She couldn’t believe that he could utter those words like he had always believed that she is indeed a disgrace. She looked at him intensively as if she wanted to believe he is not her Kain, that he just wanted to see her reaction , she wanted to see his emotions but she fought nothing —just a blank face .
She watched him as he looked off in another direction, her heart completely shattered when he didn’t defend her when the guards came for her. He didn’t say anything when her crown was removed from her head, lifted as if it was too heavy for her to carry ,as if it was a burden for even her grace to carry. He didn’t even blink when her name was erased from the royal registry, the name she had always been known as, the name she carried with pride.
And finally, when they pulled her past the nobles that had once revered her as the light of the realm, the next queen they adored , and now there was no hope and adoration in their eyes but instead they looked at her with disappointment, and disgust.
There was no empathy. No mercy. Only judgement. Only treachery.
That night, exiled and devoid of a title, Luda stood barefoot at the kingdom’s outermost edge. The wind raised small bumps on her skin, the cold biting at her ankles but she did not cry. Not when the massive gates of her home slammed behind her. Not when her title vanished like smoke. Not when even the stars seemed to look away from her.
She pressed her palms to the earth, grounding, feeling the life pulse of the land beneath her feet. Her fingers pooled in the frozen, frosted soil and felt like it was burning, but it told her she was alive, that her spirit was far from extinguished.
In that silence, with her bitter solitude in exile, she made a promise, a vow that was deep and dark and burning in her chest:
They will remember me.
They will regret what they’ve done.
The memories of the man she loved , the man that took an oath to pretect her with his life, the weight of the crown she had lost, and the judgment of the court ministers who had abandoned her melded into a burning fire, a flame she refused to risk dying out. She would not fade away into memory. She would not bend a knee and be judged by those who had turned their backs against her.
No.
She would rise,
And when she did, the earth would quake.
- Writer
