Chapter 23: The First Smith Girl
The summons came without a seal.
No guards. No horns. No signature.
Just a plain scrap of parchment left on Nyra's pillow.
"The Queen Mother requests you."
No threat.
No warmth.
Just a statement that felt more like a knife.
She tucked the paper into her boot and dressed in silence—deep green silk, a color of control.
Let them think she was calm.
Let them think anything they wanted.
She was done bleeding for them.
The Queen Dowager's chamber was a cathedral of shadows.
No mirrors. No servants. No fire.
Only thick velvet curtains and a single chair draped in wine-red fabric, where Elaria Kings sat like a judge before the guillotine.
Her silver hair coiled like a crown. Her posture flawless. Her cane, unnecessary, rested in her lap like a sword waiting to be drawn.
"Sit," the Queen said.
Nyra didn't.
"I'll stand."
Elaria tilted her head. "Stubborn. Like your mother."
The air thinned.
Nyra didn't blink.
But inside, something cracked.
Don't say her name like you earned the right.
"From who?" she asked, voice smooth as glass.
The Queen met her eyes without blinking. "Rina."
The name landed like thunder.
Nyra's heart betrayed her—one heavy thud she couldn't silence.
A flicker of memory: dark hair, warm hands, a voice that once sang to the moon before it vanished into chains.
You're not afraid of wolves, her mother once whispered. You're one of them. You just haven't learned how to bite.
Above them, something shifted.
Nyra's gaze darted once—subtle, sharp.
A shadow curled high on the rafter beam.
Too still to be dust.
Too precise to be accident.
A figure.
Slender. Watching. Listening.
A spy.
No doubt placed by the Council. Maybe not even human.
Elaria noticed too—but didn't flinch.
She kept her eyes trained on Nyra and continued as if they weren't being hunted by their own court.
"She was brilliant," the Queen said. "Too brilliant. She made people feel too much. Especially one man who shouldn't have."
Nyra's throat went dry. "Who?"
Elaria gave a soft smile.
The cruel kind.
"You already know."
The Queen stood.
Not slowly. Not weakly.
She stepped forward with the silence of someone who had buried empires.
"You're not the first Smith girl to wear silk in this palace," she said. "But you might be the last."
Nyra stood her ground.
"Then you remember what happened to the others."
"Oh, I do." Her voice dropped. "We buried them."
Nyra returned to her chamber with her jaw clenched and her skin humming.
Bryant wasn't there.
The halls were too quiet.
She opened her wardrobe, half-expecting another note.
And found something worse.
A ribbon.
Blue. Torn. Frayed at the ends. Dried with something dark.
Wrapped around a bone-handled dagger.
And below it—another scrap of paper.
Not the Queen's handwriting.
Something older.
She wore this the day she died.And she smiled until the end.
Nyra didn't scream.
She didn't cry.
She simply tied the ribbon around her wrist.
And whispered to the dark:
"I remember now."
[End of Chapter 23]