The Queens Game
1270 Words
The club looked different in daylight.
Zariah stood outside it, arms wrapped around herself as traffic hissed past and the morning sun blinked off wet pavement. It should’ve felt familiar the routine, the scent of old liquor and spiced perfume that clung to the walls but it didn’t.
She hadn’t come to work.
She came because her chest still glowed faintly beneath her shirt. Because the flower mark had pulsed all night. Because she needed to understand why her world cracked open the moment Raye looked at her.
Inside, the bouncers let her pass without a word. She stepped into the empty club, the silence heavy around her like velvet. Everything was too still. Too quiet. Even the air felt staged, like it was waiting.
Then she felt it.
That same pressure not painful, but undeniable behind her ribs.
And then: “You shouldn’t be here.”
Zariah turned slowly. Raye stood at the top of the stairs, her white suit changed to a long black coat, gloves off. Her hair was tied back, sharp and clean like the blade Zariah imagined she carried beneath that calm voice.
Zariah’s heart kicked hard.
“I need answers,” she said.
“You need to go home.”
Zariah took a step forward. “What am I?”
Raye’s jaw tightened, but her voice remained even. “You’re not ready for that.”
“Stop saying that. You keep talking like you know me, like I’m some prophecy waiting to explode. So explode me. Tell me the truth.”
Raye descended the stairs slowly. She didn’t rush. Raye never rushed.
“Your name is Zariah Vale. Your bloodline is extinct. Your family was wiped off the map before you could even walk. And what you are? You’re what’s left.”
Zariah flinched. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Raye stopped inches away. “It will.”
The silence between them buzzed like a live wire.
Zariah stared into those gray eyes and felt something deeper than fear. Something older than memory.
“You were sent to kill me.”
Raye nodded once. “I was.”
“Why didn’t you?”
A pause. Raye’s lips parted, but for once, she didn’t have a quick answer. Her gaze dropped, just for a breath.
“Because I don’t follow blindly,” she said at last. “And when I saw you… I knew it wasn’t time.”
Zariah swallowed hard. “What happens now?”
Raye stepped even closer. “Now? We play the Queen’s game.”
They sat across from each other in Raye’s private lounge a velvet-draped room above the club, filled with decanters of expensive liquor and weapons disguised as decor. A chessboard sat between them.
Zariah stared at it.
Raye poured two glasses of something dark and bitter.
“What is this?”
“Your first lesson.”
Zariah raised an eyebrow. “In chess?”
“In war.”
Raye moved the first piece a black queen.
Zariah narrowed her eyes. “So I’m your enemy now?”
“No,” Raye said simply. “You’re the wild card.”
They played in silence for several moves, the clink of glass and the soft scrape of wood echoing around them.
“What do you want from me?” Zariah asked finally.
Raye didn’t look up. “I want to see what you’ll become.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the only one left who gets to choose.”
Zariah moved her bishop without thinking. “You talk in riddles.”
“And you ask too many questions.”
Zariah smirked. “That’s not an answer.”
Raye looked at her. Long. Quiet.
“Your blood remembers things your mind doesn’t.”
Zariah’s hand froze over the board.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not crazy. The dreams, the cracks, the power they’re echoes. Shadows of what you used to be. What you could be again.”
“You keep saying I’m not ready,” Zariah whispered. “Then make me ready. Train me.”
Raye’s eyes burned. “You think this is a movie? You think I’ll hand you a gun and teach you how to kill?”
Zariah didn’t flinch. “I think if you wanted me dead, I’d already be dead. So what’s left? Help me. Or step aside.”
Raye stood slowly. “You want to know what you are?”
Zariah nodded.
“Then come with me.”
The car ride was silent.
Raye drove. Zariah watched the city blur past, the sky darkening as storm clouds rolled in. She didn’t ask where they were going. She wasn’t sure she cared. All she knew was that for the first time, someone knew more about her than she did. And that terrified her.
They stopped at a mansion on the edge of the city gates carved with strange symbols, stone lions at the entrance, ivy crawling up the pillars.
“This was yours,” Raye said.
Zariah frowned. “Mine?”
“Your family’s estate. Burned. Buried. Forgotten. But it’s still here.”
They walked through halls covered in dust and silence. Zariah’s boots crunched on broken tiles. And then, they entered the library.
It was massive. Books lined the walls, many ruined. But the air felt alive here like the room itself was holding its breath.
In the center stood a mural.
A woman. Crowned in flame. A bloom on her chest. Veins of gold in her hands.
Zariah stepped closer. Her fingers trembled.
“That’s her,” she whispered. “That’s the woman from my dreams.”
Raye nodded. “That’s your ancestor. Firstborn of House Vale. The original Bloom.”
Zariah felt the floor tilt beneath her.
“She burned down three kingdoms. Brought peace to the underworld for twenty years. Until the others got scared and erased her bloodline.”
“And I’m what’s left.”
“You’re more than that. You’re the return.”
Zariah turned to face her. “Why do you care?”
Raye’s jaw flexed. “Because I was raised to kill you. But everything I was taught… it feels wrong now. And I don’t ignore my gut.”
“So what now?”
Raye crossed the room. For the first time, she looked almost unsure.
“Now… I break every rule I was raised on. And I keep you alive.”
Zariah swallowed. Her heart thundered.
“Even if it means war?”
“Especially if it means war.”
Their eyes locked.
And something shifted between them not just heat, not just danger. But recognition. Like two pieces of a blade sliding into place.
That night, Zariah stood alone in the mansion.
Raye had gone to make calls. To start pulling strings. Zariah wandered the halls, letting her fingers trail over old memories that weren’t hers.
Then she heard it a whisper.
“Zariah...”
She turned. No one.
But the mirror at the end of the hall shimmered.
She approached it slowly.
Her reflection blinked.
And then the flame-woman appeared again. Only this time… she smiled.
“It’s time to remember,” the woman said.
Zariah gasped.
A flash of gold. A surge of heat.
And she collapsed.
When Raye returned, she found her on the floor, the bloom on her chest glowing like fire.
Raye knelt beside her, eyes wide.
“s**t. Zariah”
Zariah’s eyes flew open.
They glowed.
The mural on the wall cracked.
And from her skin, faint lines of gold began to spread.
“I remember,” she whispered.
Then everything went black.
- Writer
