Short Stories

Glory

The Queen of Krynsla shoved open her two suite doors with such force that they bounced off the polished wood of her walls. The chandeliers drooping from the ceiling rattled at the impact, the gentle chime of crystals echoing in her ears as she marched into the waiting room of her suite, her bedroom behind the plush leather sofa adorned with fur blankets, and stared as her suite doors closed with a click. 

Alone in her rooms, she let out a roar of frustration so loud her throat was hoarse for a moment. Clenching her hands tight, fists forming and stretching the light scarring over her knuckles, she tried to collect herself. 

Her rough fingertips pressed against her temples, her skull weighted down by the heavy circlet that felt clamped in place. The headache forming eased at her touch, she always knew where to press to inflict peace as well as pain, and she stared at the thick rug tickling her shoes. 

The council meeting she'd just left in a fit of fury hadn't gone as she wanted it to. 

Looking at her bedroom doors, the queen's sigh shook over her wobbling lips as she slowly walked over. She ignored the embers in the fireplace, the boxes of pastel presents in the corner, and gently entered her chambers. The two doors swung wide and she stood there in the archway, seeing her room bathed in her silhouette, but couldn't feel comfort nor peace. 

A hesitant step. She kicked off her shoes and found some relief in having her bare toes on the varnished, detailed floor. The rings on her hands seemed to pull her down, beckoning her to curl up on the plump mattress that had been neatly adorned with fluffy blankets and feathered pillows. Luxury and glory she had every right to sleep on, after all she'd endured, but she couldn't rest now. 

The queen had already had her adventurous life. She had journeyed across the lands far from her original home, braved desolate sands and flourishing forests. She had vanquished her greatest evil and she was meant to be living her peaceful, happily ever after. 

It was how the stories went, wasn't it? The heroine defeats the villainess and she lives happy ever after. 

They don't write about the torment, the trauma, the pain that follows. The storytellers don't write about the gritty, bloody, moments and when the heroine crumbles every so often in the shadows with naught but the moon to witness. 

They keep it pretty, luxurious, and ignore the devilish details. But they had one thing right - that the heroine gets her happily ever after. The queen had that. She had it in her hands, bundled up in a beautiful blanket, with a crinkled smile that matched her husband's. She had her life planned. 

But her villainess seemed to have arisen once more, and stole her happy ever after. 

The queen's castle was in uproar at the theft of the baby prince, and her husband had called council immediately, his elders and spies and assassins bringing him any news of the thief, of anything out in all the lands of the kidnapping of the heir of Krynsla. 

When one of her husbands spies handed him a note, she had paled. It wasn't the tea-stained hue that alerted her, or the swirling calligraphy telling of a writer with expert precision and extreme patience. The seal in the bottom right corner caused her alarm, her fury, because it was the same seal as her old villainess - the double headed lion wrapped in pale green silk. 

One of her protégées was trying to conduct her mistress's old plans, and dared to steal her newborn from her. The note was for ransom, and the price was too high for her husband to pay. 

Her fingers brushed the smooth timber of the empty crib, the queen's head bowed in sorrow at the blanket that was left abandoned at the end. Staring at the rings on her hand, their glimmering stones blinding anyone looking from seeing the rough scarring and calluses, she trembled at the sight of the façade.

Luxury was not jewels or trinkets. Glory wasn't in the trophies of war. It was in her son's little hand curling around her finger, how his head perfectly fit in the nook of her arm. She thought she knew luxury and glory but then she saw her baby.

The queen turned away from the crib as her fury exploded through her body, marching to the side of the bed and yanked off the rings. The tokens of her husband's land tinkled together in the little shell bowl by her bedside, removing all but her wedding ring. 

The circlet over her intricately woven hair came away easily, as though it never truly fit her in the first place, and placing it on her pillows allowed her to finally draw her shoulders back and lift her chin. 

Piece by piece it was gone; the gold earrings that dropped to her collarbones, the thick jewelled cuffs that wrapped around her forearms and biceps. The anklets looping over her calves unlatched and were gone in one swoop of her arm, and soon she was a crownless queen in a gown of finest silk. 

But slowly, the pretty wrapping was unfurling to reveal the sharp sword beneath, buried under tokens and trinkets, luxury and glory, to hide how she came to her husband's side. 

They were in love, that was true, but how they met was not how the storytellers and bards sung it to be. She was no fair maiden under guard of dragon that gave the golden hoard of the beast and her maidenhood to the then prince when he saved her life - it was not the truth at all. 

She was the dragonslayer. She earned the golden hoard. She met the Crown Prince of Krynsla journeying back with her wealth in hand and they locked eyes over a tankard in the nearest inn. They recognised each other, soul to soul, of glory-seekers and hunters in different ways. He hunted power. She hunted beasts. 

The queen became a queen officially when she wed the crown prince, his father stepping down as his son had finally found a fierce wife. She had ruled and loved his people and his laws, learned his etiquette and court, but he could not learn hers. 

She was a huntress, a famed dragonslayer, but her deeds were forgotten to the lands as she was plastered with gold and wealth like a trophy room - let the lands see the glory of Krynsla, the jewels said, let the people see their rule. 

Her deeds were forgotten, yes, but her old villains also forgot what she was capable of. 

Her hair unbound down her bare back, her royal garb thrown across the neat bed carelessly, the queen ripped out the wooden slats at the bottom of her large wardrobe to grab the secret sack of her old huntress attire. She always kept it, her own armour as her husband wore jewellery, but she hoped she would never need it again. 

The raggedy trousers still fit, if a little tight across her still swollen belly, and the shirt was still stained with remnants of ale from her days at the rickety taverns across the lands. The holsters strapped over her shoulders had to be adjusted, her daggers resting under her breasts. She had her jacket still but her thick, long cloak that allowed her to blend in with the shadows was amongst her favourite things. 

It still fit after all those years hidden away, and it felt like she was finally home. 

The bottom of the sack, after she adorned her thick leather boots still scuffed from her journey into the marshes to defeat a fierce river beast, were her prized weapons. Two long daggers with dragon-tooth hilts, their blades a strong steel that glimmered in the fading light in her chambers, but then there were her green-tipped feathered arrows with sharp metal points, and her beautiful bow. 

It all fit. Her quiver resting over her cloak on her back, her bow hooking over her head and shoulder. The soft curve of her longbow was the weight she could live with, because it wasn't a trophy, but a promise. 

She was once a dragonslayer, a famed archer in the lands of Astathi, before she was queen to the northern Krynsla. She was once more than her crown. She was a hunter of beasts. 

Setting her hair in place, a braid long yet hidden under her cloak, she threw up her hood and embraced the darkness again. 

She was still the heroine of old stories and tales, and the queen would clash with her villainess again to keep her happy ever after alive - for there was no glory like winning a victory twice.

~

Meet the Hunter Queen... she's kind of a badass.