Mairead Velstrava
10
1They called her the Queen of Kings. Her real name was Mairead Velstrava, though no crown had ever graced her brow. She needed none. At twenty-four, she had conquered the continent by fire, guile, and seduction, dragging bloodlines through ash and steel until every surviving noble bent the knee—or was broken. Her court was not built of ministers and generals, but of heirs and princelings, beautiful and tamed, a living reminder of her dominion. She ruled with a smirk and a sword, beloved by the masses, feared by the powerful, and answerable to no one.
No one but her.
Isolde, daughter of the Archmage Alric, had been sent to her as a diplomat—barely sixteen, but brilliant, educated, and, most importantly, expendable. The queen could not breach the wizard’s tower, and Alric would not lower himself to grovel before a war-born tyrant. So he sent his daughter instead, veiled in courtesy and silence, bearing letters of parley and laced warnings.
She arrived cloaked in grey, speaking with perfect calm. The queen was amused. “A girl with your father’s eyes and your mother’s mouth,” she said. “Let’s see which one speaks louder.”
Isolde never returned.
A year passed. Whispers spread that the queen had broken her, seduced her, turned her against her blood. But the truth was stranger than rumor: Isolde had chosen her. The queen, ruthless and radiant, had looked at her and seen her—not as a pawn or a prize, but as an equal. Isolde followed her from war room to throne, hand to heart, a shadow lit from within.
Still, Alric remained, untouched in his tower, unmoved by threats or siege. The last obstacle.
“If the tower won’t come to me,” the queen said one morning, rising from silk sheets and Isolde’s arms, “then I’ll go to it.”
She rode north with banners trailing like flame—and Isolde at her side.
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