"Completely destroyed, they say. Guess who did it?"
"Don't tell me… the Queen herself?"
"Exactly! After wiping out Mordune's army, she went wild. Insane. She slaughtered everyone left inside the fortress. Every last one! Not a single survivor."
"That's a lie, right? Impossible… Our queen couldn't be that cruel."
"I saw her with my own eyes! She killed a woman just because the woman stared at her too long!"
"Yeah! You know how she did it? She just stood there. Silent. And then… the woman exploded."
"She is a monster."
"Where do you think her power comes from? Must be from the devil himself."
"What else would you expect from someone who turned on her own bloodline to seize the throne?"
"Monster... "
Ashtoria did not move. Her face remained blank, betraying no emotion. Yet inside her, something boiled. Her hands clenched in her lap, nails nearly piercing into her palms.
She was used to ridicule, to hatred, to half-truths twisted into cheap gossip. But still, hearing it spoken so casually in a crowded tavern, from people who did not even know the truth, made her blood simmer.
But she restrained herself.
She knew if she lost control, this place would turn into hell. And deep down, she did not want Riven to see that side of her.
A wicked whisper slithered into her thoughts. If I killed everyone in this tavern, how would he look at me then? Would he tremble in fear, call me a monster? Ashtoria did not want to do it. Yet she was curious.
Meanwhile, Riven slowly turned his head.
Until now, he had only half-listened to the conversation. But the moment he caught the words Kingdom of Mordune and the old fortress in the west, his attention sharpened. Then he heard the Queen's name. Then the tale of a massacre, of impossible power, of a woman in a golden helm who made people explode with nothing but her gaze.
And at that instant, his thoughts converged on one person.
He turned slowly to Ashtoria, still sitting stiff, staring blankly ahead. At the moment, Ashtoria was wearing a cloak that hid her red hair.
Her silence spoke louder than words. Riven realized she was listening.
And his mind was dragged into a storm of questions.
So the figure he had glimpsed from afar on that battlefield, the blurred silhouette wrapped in fire and smoke, walking alone among the charred remains of the Mordune army, a presence that had driven an entire legion to despair, was that truly the Queen of Iskandria herself, Ashtoria Iskandrite?
The mad queen they spoke of?
And this woman, now sitting across from him, the beautiful stranger he had first found unconscious and bleeding, the one pursued by what seemed to be Mordune infiltrators who had called her the reincarnation of destruction…
If those people were right, if everyone in that fortress had indeed died, then this woman, the one who had escaped from within, claiming to be a noble…
Riven shook his head before he even realized it. A bitter laugh stirred inside him.
Impossible.
There was no way this woman was a queen.
The thought itself was madness.
Absurd.
He was just a poor scavenger of weapons from battlefields. She was mysterious, yes, strong in ways that unsettled him, but royalty? A throne? A queen drenched in blood and power? No. She was disguising herself, maybe, but a monarch? A tyrant?
He exhaled, trying to convince himself again. But memories began threading together in his mind, fragments of a puzzle fitting into place.
Her words that night, that she was terrifying.
That people feared her.
The way she had annihilated a horde of beasts without lifting a finger. How the swarm had recoiled in terror, refusing to approach.
Riven looked at her face once more. Beautiful yet cold, her sharp gaze heavy with something invisible, as though carrying the weight of countless dead within her.
Once again, he told himself it was impossible.
And once again, something inside whispered, But what if it is true?
He had always heard the rumors. Dark tales of Queen Iskandrite never stopped following him. Every town, every village, every camp along the road, her shadow was always there.
He had never cared. It was not his concern. Queens and kingdoms were not his world. Politics and noble games meant nothing to him. But the stories were too loud to ignore.
The gossip said the queen was cruel, her hair red as blood, her face scarred, her age past forty. A tyrant who slaughtered friend and foe alike. And whenever she appeared before the public, which was rare, it was only on battlefields, her features hidden behind a terrible golden helm.
Riven now looked again at the woman across from him.
Her face was clean. Unscarred. Beautiful. Almost too flawless. No lines of age, no jagged wounds. At most she looked twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven. Mature, yes, but not in the way the stories painted.
And though she carried a quiet, suffocating presence, there was a strangely innocent side to her. A disarming contrast that startled Riven enough to want to slap himself for even noticing.
He sighed, letting his doubts settle like dust.
Aria… Ashtoria…
No. She was not a queen. Could not be.
Because the very idea was laughable.
The thought faded, though it never truly vanished.
He glanced around the table. Melly, still happily chewing her meat, oblivious as always. Ashtoria, motionless, her gaze locked onto nothing. Somewhere along the way, the air had grown heavy. Cold.
Riven did not know what she was thinking. He did not want to know. But if this was to be their last meal together before parting ways, they could not let it end in silence.
So he finally spoke. His tone was flat, but something within it trembled, confusion buried too long.
"When I fought that beasts… I thought I finally discovered something."
Ashtoria turned, her crimson eyes fixed on him.
"I felt I could cut anything with my blade," he said, a faint, self-mocking smile curling his lips. "A few days earlier, I fought a white tiger. I cleaved it in one strike. It felt aligned. My body and sword as one. Balanced. For a moment, I thought I had found my affinity."
He paused. His fingers tightened on his thigh, then slowly eased.
"But when I tried again against another beast, it was gone. Same technique. Same movement. But nothing. No feeling. I was lost."
The words lingered. Melly stopped chewing. Ashtoria did not answer at once, her eyes distant, as if replaying his confession in her mind.
Finally, she spoke. Her voice low, cold. "So what do you believe your affinity is?"
Riven shrugged, gaze hollow. "I don't know."
He drew a long breath. "I thought it was cutting. Understanding of division. Separation. But now I am not sure. It feels like trying to relive a dream, you remember the details, but you can never recover the feeling."
A dry laugh escaped him. "Maybe I was just lucky that time."
His laugh faded as a faint sound split the air. A brittle, dreadful crunch, metal crumbling.
He turned.
Ashtoria held a spoon in her hand. Or rather, what was left of it. The utensil had twisted, warped, mangled into a knot of crushed iron between her slender fingers.
Riven swallowed hard. His eyes shifted from the ruined metal back to her face. Calm. Composed. But in her voice, in her gaze, he sensed something breaking free inside her.
She spoke. Her tone sharp as a blade, steady, terrifying in its certainty.
"My affinity is destruction."
Riven froze.
"In other words," she continued, unflinching, "I am destruction itself. And that's not some metaphor."
The words filled the space between them like a slow-rolling fog.
"I believe in that fact and I accept it," she said, her voice quiet but merciless. "If I want something to break, it will break. If I wanted everyone in this tavern to be destroyed…" Her gaze swept across the room. "…then I believe they would be destroyed."