This Is What It's Like To Be Lovers [ON HOLD]

1: I'm Quiet Like A Fire

• Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde •

It all happened in the dead of the moonless night. It had to - that's exactly how the young Queen had planned it. She had told her courtiers that all she wanted to do was slither into the tyrant's quarters, and slice his throat in his sleep. So quietly, with a cautionary hand on his mouth, so that the Empress beside him would not even stir.

But when she and a few of her compatriots reached the formidable iron gates of the Paláti tis Metensárkosis - Palace of Reincarnation - an army double their size was waiting for them. She knew somebody had snitched, somebody among her courtiers.

The young boy of fifteen that the Queen had placed inside the palace as an infiltrator was gone. All that remained of him was the head that Emperor Laz II picked out of a bucket placed near his feet, holding it up by the hair, while streams of blood still gushed from it.

The Commander of the Queen's army hissed at the spectacle and Jade shut her eyes tight. The Queen had personally promised that boy's mother of his safety.

What would I tell her now? She gritted her teeth.

"May he rest in peace," the tyrant's voice sounded through the empty, silent space between the two armies. "The one who died because of your lack of judgment and pretty commendable courage. You thought you could kill me?"

When Jade did not reply, he continued. "If you're not just a doll in a breastplate, I have a proposition. Return the land you took from me and join my troops as a soldier, and I'll pardon your misdemeanor right this moment."

The air was almost still that night, cold fog curling towards and settling around the monarchs, their troops, and their horses. The cold months would be here in a few days, a week at best and it would snow here. The palace would be white, and a vision to look at, the hundreds of glass paintings on the windows and doors would glitter under the winter Sun.

And Queen Jade would be miles away from here, in her forestside realm with her tall trees and furred beasts and the omnipresent scent of moss, the lilting of cicadas, and showers after showers of rain. At least that's what she had planned.

"The land I took from you is my homerealm," she finally spoke, and with a voice of determination and fearlessness, the voice of her people. "And you were exploiting my people. I have no intention of returning it, let alone join forces with you."

The Emperor sighed. "You are just a doll then, you bitch."

"As much as you're an asshole." She shrugged.

"You know who I am right?" Laz asked again as if giving her another chance.

"I am Laz II, highly favored by the Arcana. Did you come to fight without knowing anything about me? I have deals with both Death and the Devil. You can't kill me and even if you do, I'll just come back."

"We'll see about that, Emperor," Jade's voice rumbled through the still air, not faltering as she unsheathed her newly forged claymore and held it in the air.

On cue, her troops did the same. Laz laughed out, the sound of it coming in bellows, his golden teeth shining in the flames of the nearby lamps. Jade only leered at him, knowing full well that her next words will shut him up.

She said, "If you thought Jan was the only one I infiltrated your staff with, you have to reconsider who the doll with the breastplate actually is. Now!"

Her word was a command. To charge towards the palace, to assassinate the tyrant, to betray fellow soldiers. The last line on Laz's side was formed of Jade's people - invaders. They waited with daggers in hand, and as soon as she cried out, they slashed the throats of the ones standing in front of them.