"It is not iron that binds me,
But the too-polished gold of their promises.
I smile in silk,
But my heart groans in stone.
Everything that glitters here
Is just another way to chain me."
SCENE 1: Awakening in Gold
Sérenya opened her eyes in a room too vast for a single body.
The sheets were imperial silk, woven with silver and embroidered flowers. But beauty here had the taste of cold.
She got up. Her nightgown rustled against the silence.
Her left wrist, still adorned with the golden wedding chain, felt heavier than the day before. She tried to take it off. She couldn't. The clasp was invisible.
"You don't take off the wedding bands of Amayélé. They melt into the skin."
The voice came from Kamintha, already seated near the fire, a steaming cup in her hands.
- I'm not a jewel.
- No. You're a symbol. And symbols don't escape.
Sérenya sat down slowly.
- Then I'll be the kind of symbol they'll regret choosing.
SCENE 2: The Hall of Dead Queens
By order of a mute servant, Sérenya was led through a long vaulted corridor, the walls lined with portraits of women.
All queens of Amayélé.
None of them smiled.
"They were beautiful, strong, alone."
"And dead too soon."
Kamintha walked at her side, like a loyal shadow.
- Look closely, Sérenya. This is where faces are buried, before the bodies.
She stopped before a painting. A woman with features much like Sérenya's. Brown skin, proud neck, distant gaze.
- This one? She came from the island too.
- Tsaravina?
- Yes. She too wore the lily. She too stood tall, to the end.
Sérenya clenched her fists.
- Then I won't be a painting. I'll be a storm.
SCENE 3: The Council of Silences
The grand hall of the Imperial Council was bathed in gold and hypocrisy.
Around an obsidian table, noble faces paraded: cold, polite, sharp as blades.
And him.
Sylus.
The Emperor.
Seated at the far end of the room. Silent. Motionless.
His eyes fixed on an invisible point on the ceiling. He moved only to breathe.
Sérenya entered, flanked by two Silent Guards.
The sound of her steps echoed like defiance.
"The Queen is among us," a neutral voice said.
No one welcomed her.
Not even him.
She bowed. He didn't look at her.
A counselor spoke. He mentioned supplies, uprisings in the provinces, marriages to negotiate.
But Sérenya wasn't listening.
She was watching him.
The man of stars.
He seemed elsewhere. Trapped. But not absent.
As if he clung to his skin to avoid vanishing completely.
"You are here. And yet you flee. Show yourself. Say something. Anything."
She thought she saw a tremor pass through his hands. But that was all.
SCENE 4: The Silent Confrontation
After the Council, she followed him.
Without thinking. Without warning.
In a stone corridor, she caught up with him. He stopped. Slowly.
Turned around.
Their first eye contact.
His eyes were darker than she had imagined.
But they burned with a sick fire. A sad fire.
She spoke softly:
- I am your wife. I am not a shadow. Say something to me.
Silence.
Then his voice, hoarse, low:
- You are not ready to hear me.
She stepped closer.
- Then teach me. Or I will leave.
He smiled without joy.
- You have nowhere to go, Queen of the Empire.
Then he walked away.
And she remained.
Alone. Chained to a crown that did not want her.
SCENE 5: Return to the Palace
Night fell over Feulène.
In the chamber, Sérenya paced. Her ceremonial dress lay on the bed like a dead skin.
She thought of her sister back in Tsaravina.
Of her mother, gone too soon.
Of the songs from the harbor. Of Kamintha's laughter from long ago.
She thought of Sylus.
Of his motionless hands.
Of that thing in his gaze a silent anguish, violent, beautiful, and terrifying.
She wrote in her journal:
"He is a riddle carved in flame.
And I am the water he refuses to drink."
Then she pulled at the golden chain. Again.
She tightened it. Until the skin marked.
She screamed.
Kamintha entered.
- You cannot break it.
- No. But I can make it sing.
In the silence of the palace, a servant ran.
A scream had been heard in the north wing.
The King.
He had burned from the inside, they said. A seizure. A fall.
And she, the Queen, was summoned in the middle of the night.
Next Chapter:
Chapter 3 : The King Who Burns
"He was born under the constellation of Efama.
They say those ones live between two worlds.
Tonight, she will see his fire.
And perhaps, lose herself in it."