Inara rose from her throne as her retinue of warriors entered the great hall. All manner of her people in pieces of armor, in pieces themselves for some, and yet the came in quietly. Still honoring the ways of the court. Their footsteps barely sounding against the black marble floor. Those that would have threatened to sound their entrance with dragging weapons were disarmed, as the few strong, the veterans, the most skilled among them were over armed.

She could hear the princess, the living and breathing alliance, stiffen in her seat. Her breath held. Inara already knew her son was not down there. That would be the only reason the hall would fill with those that should be about the business of war.

With a simple wave of her hand, the heavy blue and gold curtains were drawn. The gathering of those too rich and privileged, and old to fight, left through another passage. Inara walked slowly down the stairs. All heads were bowed but one. The commander, her friend of many years, lifetimes it seemed, looked her in the eyes. Tears threatened his composure. The slightest of nods from her gave him permission to take a deep breath, for a single tear to fall, for there to be no need to deliver that news. She relayed to the princess what she already knew without even looking her direction, along with the scene she divined for herself as she took the offered sword her son once wielded. The grey lines in the marble began to lighten and go white. There was a singular thought in the room – just don’t glow.

The princess met her mother in law at the final step and took her hand.

Inara looked at the young woman, kissed her on the head, and watched her body slump to the floor. Dead.

“The alliance was broken. A son for a daughter. What did the traitor say,” the queen asked with no emotion in her voice.

The commander handed her the missive. The flat, palm sized device had a familiar script etched into it. A rejection of their trade in technology was clear by the crude work of the etching. The king was dead. The battle was sign of that. The treaty meant less than nothing. She sighed.

“THE BATTLEGROUND IS MY KINGDOM. THE QUEEN CAN KEEP HER THRONE.” She shouted. Her words echoed throughout the hall and in the minds of all that heard her. Uninjured hands went to the sides of one’s head, trying to stifle the invasion.

“He threatens us. Our peace. Our lives. We will not cower. We will mourn. And we will destroy the fools that dared killed my son, your friends, your family.”

Just don’t glow – was the prevailing thought. Glowing was the least of their concerns, Inara thought as she unleashed her rage. The veins of the marble burst open with light on y tile and pilar that didn’t hold a body. Warmth stung their wounds but restored many, and provided slow healing to others. Missing limbs, phantom in their appearance, slowly filled in anew within the ghostly outline. But the rest converged into a massive rope and shot through the curtains, lighting up the night sky as though the sun had risen, and throughout her kingdom.

“Mourn,” Inara whispered. “Mourn. Let them believe they have won. Let us see this sign but never see us coming.”

Her people fell to their knees, on their faces. Tears fell, and voices sounded throughout the hall.

In the distance the spectacle awed the soldiers on the ground. Their King exited the tent to investigate the hush that claimed the cries of celebration and excitement that graced his ears only a moment before. He smiled. She’d fight. She’d have no choice not to. And then the world that should have been his, would be his alone.

“See, Father,” he said to the severed and rotting head on the pike outside of his tent, “The world could be ours again.”

D. Ondria

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