Chapter Text
Miranda wasn’t lonely.
Anyone who thought otherwise was simply forgetting their place. She did not succumb to such juvenile emotions. She was the Queen to the throne, and to be lonely was a feeling entirely unbecoming of her position. The palace was at war, and Miranda had far more important things to worry about. She had to send more troops to guard the gates, hold meetings to enhance her army’s defenses, and maybe—if she was as prepared as she believed herself to be—they could win this war, and her people would finally know peace.
The rise of the Crafted had rendered many nations of the Land of Kaleidan completely helpless. Miranda, for one, thought crafting—as people referred to the practice of engineering a new form of life in the exact image of humans—was foolish, a testament to mankind’s greediness to play god. The Crafted had since grown their own consciousness; they had harbored vengeance, making it their sole mission to eviscerate the race that had kept them as hostages.
So, no. Miranda really didn’t have the time to be lonely.
“Your Majesty,” Nigel said, bending one knee to greet her, his head bowed low to pay his respects. He was Miranda’s most loyal man. A cut above the rest. “The bordering kingdom has sent you a gift.”
Miranda watched Nigel raise himself, squaring his shoulders as he awaited her response.
The King of Rojo had long been wooing Miranda, seeking her hand in marriage. He claimed they would hold more power if they were to join forces—which, in all honesty, Miranda believed to be true. Perhaps it was due to the fact that all the other kingdoms considered Ceruleo, Miranda’s empire, weak for having no king and no heir in succession.
But Miranda simply wasn’t interested in becoming a footnote in another man’s conquest.
“Return it,” Miranda said, waving her hand in dismissal.
Nigel asked no questions. He bowed his head once more and exited the throne room to deliver the news, which Miranda was certain she would hear about from her gossiping staff come morning.
Miranda was tired, but she wasn’t lonely. What kept her awake at night was the gnawing fear of losing her reign and leaving her people in measly, incompetent palms. It wasn’t that she longed for warmth in her massive bed. Miranda didn’t yearn—she had long accepted the fact that everything was fleeting, and there was no point in holding anything too dearly when the future was so uncertain.
People who surrendered themselves to such vulnerability were ignorant. She would know because she once fell prey to it.
Miranda’s nights went by as usual—a strategy meeting with General Ravitz, a bath assisted by Handmaiden Charlton, and a silent dinner alone. She did most things by herself but still, she wasn’t lonely
Once she was finished with her meal, she would take a few minutes out of her schedule to walk around the garden.
Ceruleo took pride in having the most eye-pleasing garden in all of West Kaleidan. It was one of their most guarded properties, covered by a glass dome that allowed sunlight without being completely open to the toxic ash of the outer lands. Miranda wanted something to remind Ceruleans of life’s many beauties. A little mercy, if you will.
General Ravitz found the notion absurd; he believed the kingdom needed more than resilience. He had insisted that gathering alliances was the only way to ensure the kingdom would survive the threat of the Crafted. Miranda didn’t really take his words to heart; he had been appointed by the late King George, and so, she knew his loyalty lay with him. General Ravitz made no effort to hide the fact, speaking of her late husband as if the crown had died with him.
The moon was bright tonight, bearing witness to the stillness of what was once a kingdom full of life and love.
Miranda wasn’t lonely, but how she missed hearing laughter in the distance, how she hoped to hear the familiar soft patter of small feet running around the garden paths.
It had been five years since the war started—five years since she last heard of her daughters, Caroline and Cassidy, who had been—at the young age of six—captured by the Crafted. The rebels had arrived in the kingdom demanding the crown. King George had died protecting the throne, and the Crafted left Ceruleo with the heiresses, never to be heard from again.
Miranda had been led to believe that the princesses were dead, executed to serve as an example to those who continued to defy the new order. She still held onto a sliver of hope, however, that her daughters were alive. And when the time came, when peace was finally restored, Miranda would reunite with them. Thus her desperation in keeping Ceruleo exactly as it was when they left.
Miranda’s flowers had long bloomed, withered, and bloomed again, but her hope hadn’t once faltered.
Letting out a sigh, she took another glance at the moon and turned on her heel to resign for the day. Tomorrow would present more pressing issues, and she had to be rested to tend to them.
Passing by a cluster of moon-flowers, Miranda heard a sharp rustle from the shadows. She halted, catching the attention of her guards standing by the palace doors. Pests roam the night, the gardener had mentioned to her in passing once. She would have this matter sorted out first thing tomorrow. She couldn’t have moles eating away at her plants, lest the twins returned to find no flowers left to look at.
Responsibilities seemed to never leave Miranda alone.
Miranda woke to a soft shaking from Emily.
The redhead had already drawn the curtains open, and the morning light poured through the ajar windows. Miranda stretched her arms, trying to blink the sleepiness from her eyes. It was far too early but there were too many things to be done, and if she wanted to make a dent in her mounting list, she had to start the day early.
“I’ve already prepared your bath, Your Majesty,” Emily said, her head hanging low, her voice barely a whisper in the cavernous bedroom.
No one dared to look Miranda in the eye, and she liked it that way. It made no difference anyway; people often regarded her with apprehension. She was only the dead King’s wife. And while she was rightfully deserving of the throne, some people seemed to think she made no real use of her position—that she was nothing but a gorgeous face meant to be looked at, to be paraded, not listened to.
Stripping herself of her clothes, Miranda made a beeline for the bathroom. The scent of jasmine already filled the air, and as she dipped herself into the warm water, the steam began to smell like her, too.
Emily waited a few feet away, ready to be at the Queen’s beck and call. Miranda sometimes wondered if she deserved this level of loyalty from people whose King she had failed.
If only Miranda had been in the same room that fateful day.
Shaking the thought from her head, she lathered herself with soap, scrubbing away the dirt of yesterday’s regret to prepare for today’s mistake.
Miranda, clearly, had seen it all.
“Where are we with our inventory?”
Miranda leaned back in her chair, scanning the room of various men whose names she could barely recall. She dreaded these gatherings. The late King used to remind her of the importance of showing her face, of letting their subjects know that the crown was always working on something.
Miranda hadn’t really learned to rule as well as her husband had. She hadn’t thought she would ever have to.
“We are yet to receive the shipment from Verde, Your Majesty,” a man said—Paulus, if Miranda remembered correctly. “Rojo has once again implemented increased tariffs for passing through their border, and they have requested we settle the fee before we can dock.”
Miranda fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course Rojo did just that.
Since the war began, trading had become far more complicated than it ever was before. Ceruleo, a kingdom on the further west edge of the land, relied heavily on neighboring realms for its resources. Rojo provided them with access to shipments and trading routes across nearby lands, Verde provided them with crops, and Amarillo provided them with weapons—all of which Ceruleo needed desperately. And whenever these kingdoms deemed a rule should be changed, Ceruleo was forced to give in.
General Ravitz had mentioned that this conflict could easily be resolved by a marital union, but Miranda hadn’t reached that level of desperation just yet.
“We have no choice but to comply, do we?” she asked.
Paulus blinked. “Unfortunately not, Your Majesty.”
“How much are they asking for?” Miranda asked, looking right at where Emily was standing. The redhead quickly walked over, her hands swiftly fishing for a fan, swaying it gently for her Queen’s comfort.
“A hundred more Kaleidan coins, Your Majesty.”
Miranda tilted her head, her fingers twisting in frustration under the long conference table, her nails digging into her palm.
“That’s ten times more than the last time.”
Paulus nodded grimly.
Miranda bit the inside of her cheek, contemplating the situation. To abide by Rojo’s absurd demand meant increasing taxes on her own people. It hadn’t been long since the last increase was implemented, and Miranda could already imagine the Ceruleans' outcry.
Miranda, however, didn’t have much of a choice. For now, it was the only way.
“I heard rustling last night. Might it be one of those pests you mentioned?”
Come evening, Miranda watched the gardener move around the bushes to check for an animal whose appearance she didn't even know. As the young boy continued to comb through every crevice of the right wing, Miranda figured she could go to the opposite end and do some checking of her own. Not that she knew exactly what she was looking for.
What did a mole even look like?
Certainly, they were supposed to be small in size, looking more like an animal than a human with big brown eyes, crouching just a few inches away in the dark.
Miranda froze. Those weren’t the eyes of an animal. They were human. There was a human hiding behind Miranda’s queen of the night flowers.
She took a step back, her legs colliding with a nearby bush. She stumbled, falling hard on her behind. Her scream came seconds later, tearing from her dry throat at a terrifying volume.
“Intruder!” a guard bellowed, alerting his peers.
The royal guards scrambled into the garden where Miranda was, weapons drawn and gearing up in defense to protect her. Ceruleo could not afford to lose another ruler.
Miranda watched as a guard reached into the foliage, grabbed a handful of hair, and dragged a figure out into the open courtyard. With a sickening crack, the blunt end of a spear struck the stranger’s spine, and the intruder’s face finally came into the moonlight.
It was just a young girl. Her clothes were shredded rags caked in dried mud. She looked completely lost, but her eyes, while wide with terror, just stared at Miranda. She stumbled as she was pushed roughly to the ground, a heavy boot pinning her down by the neck.
“Hold her down!” Nigel’s voice roared over the din.
Miranda stood frozen, her heart beating wildly against her chest. The girl groaned in pain, but she made no effort to break free. Her body went completely limp as the guards continued to strike her, demanding she reveal her intentions at once.
From where Miranda stood, those brown eyes found hers, boring straight through her soul. How had she managed to get into the palace grounds without being seen? What was she doing there? Who was she?
“Your Majesty,” Nigel said, his hands urgently hauling Miranda to her feet. “Are you harmed? Did she touch you?”
Miranda couldn’t speak, her gaze remained locked on the younger girl—on how her hand seemed to reach out for her, how her mouth seemed to call for her name.
“Your… Majesty...”
Miranda felt a tightness seize her throat, her own hand blindly searching for something to grasp..
“Your Majesty,” the younger girl had said, parting her now bleeding lips—Miranda hadn’t imagined it after all.“I just… I just want to talk to you, Your Majesty,” she croaked. “Please… Your Majesty.”
Miranda watched a boot land squarely against the younger girl’s ribs, pressing hard, and the girl keened in pain.
“Silence,” Nigel commanded, blocking Miranda’s view as though breaking her trance. “Your Majesty, we must get you inside immediately.”
Miranda barely registered what happened next. She felt hands grabbing her, pulling her somewhere else. As Emily guided her back inside, Miranda felt the younger girl’s eyes follow her, tracking her until she disappeared behind the heavy palace doors.
For the first time in five years, Miranda was terrified.
The palace was soon plunged into absolute chaos.
General Ravitz demanded the Royal Court gathered immediately to discuss the matter at hand. An intruder had breached Ceruleo, and she had almost killed the Queen. The latter point was heavily exaggerated, but Miranda had long known that General Ravitz tended to make a bigger deal out of situations in hopes the reward would be just as hefty.
In all of this, Miranda chose silence, sitting still at the head of the long table. She had not yet spoken to the girl. The intruder had been sent to the dungeons for questioning, but all Miranda heard from the guards was that she refused to talk.
No. They said she would be happy to talk, but only if it was with the Queen. She wanted to talk to Miranda.
“Beat a confession out of her,” General Ravitz said, flailing his arms around as if to emphasize his point. “Torture her if need be.”
Miranda tilted her head, her fingers tugging idly on the jewelry around her neck.
“She has repeatedly insisted she meant no harm, General,” Nigel interjected, standing dutifully beside Miranda. “She carries no weapon.”
“No one would willingly infiltrate a palace without a motive,” the general snapped.
That part, Miranda knew, was true. Many people had tried ridiculous things just to secure an audience with her—often far worse than what this girl in her garden had done. This was by no means an isolated case. And it wasn’t as though the girl had actually done anything yet.
Miranda needed to know her intentions. And if talking to her was the way to find out, she thought it was well worth the try.
“Enough. I will go and talk to her,” Miranda announced, earning a chorus of horrified gasps from the gathered crowd.
General Ravitz scoffed—he was the only one who ever dared to behave around Miranda so callously. What her late husband had ever found in this man, she would never know.
“That’s nonsense. If she wanted to talk, she would have confessed to the guards. Why would you be any different?”
The sheer audacity of his tone often baffled Miranda.
“You forget yourself, General,” she said coldly, her voice cutting through the room. “Let me remind you whose kingdom this is. What I say is law, and what I want is to talk to this intruder. Do you have a problem with that, General Ravitz?”
No one dared to look at her then, lest they become the next target for her ire.
“Your Majesty,” General Ravitz jutted his chin out. He was a tiny man, and if not for his ludicrously ornate outfit, he would look completely misplaced in Miranda’s palace. “I only speak for the safety of Ceruleo. King George would have never hesitated with an unidentified threat. He would have hung her from the gates to send a message to anyone watching our walls.”
The mention of her dead husband was an explicit challenge, a dirty tactic meant to diminish her weight in the room—something the General often did.
“The late King is dead,” Miranda countered, her voice almost breaking. “I am now the ruler of Ceruleo and the only one that dictates who lives and dies in this kingdom. The girl refuses to speak to the guards, but she asked for me. Therefore, I will go to the dungeons, and I will find out exactly who she is myself.”
She turned her back on them, her cloak billowing behind her as she signaled the end of the discussion. She then turned to Nigel, nodding her head, and the Marshal got the point across immediately.
“If anyone attempts to bypass my order,” Miranda warned, pausing at the threshold. “I will consider it an act of treason against the crown. And you will find I have far less mercy than the girl in my garden.”
Without waiting for a response, she swept out into the corridor, Nigel falling into step behind her. She would have to arrange a meeting with the intruder, determined to find out her intention.
No one would be foolish enough to trespass into the biggest kingdom in the Land of Kaleidan for no reason at all.