The Queen's Ladies

♛ 2

Silky, black hair drops to her back. A blinding diamond crown sits perfectly on her noble head. Necklaces with jewels too rare to touch. A white chiffon dress all the way to the floor, fitted just right. Porcelain skin glowing against the light. Deep, black eyes piercing into theirs. Not one mark of imperfection. The Queen.

She confidently gets up from her polished, silver throne, which sits on top of a platform with a few white stairs leading up to it. 

The Queen walks down the steps towards the girls, who stand in a well postured row before her, each of her steps more impactful than the last.

"Ladies." The Queen's voice booms across the almost empty throne room.

Yeji hears her heart pound louder against her rib cage, but keeps her composure. She glances at JinSoul, who always feels worse about these surprise meetings than her. While full of beauty and elegance, The Queen is equally as intense and intimidating. She is the ruler, the higher power, the boss. Nothing gets past her.

But the fear is motivating.

"Yeji, Karina, Lia, Wonyoung, and JinSoul." The Queen stops on the last step, listing their names in the order they stand in.

The Queen pauses in her speech and curls her lips into a half smile. "Your mission today was-"

"We're so sorry, Your Majesty!" Wonyoung interrupts with a sorrowful voice, talking rather quickly. "We didn't know who he was or where he came from. But at least we captured the original target, I-I mean Mr. Bancroft."

The air thickens with tension as the girls carefully look at The Queen, who has a blank expression on her face.

Lia laughs nervously. "Aha ha, what she meant to say was..."

"It's quite alright." The Queen smiles with both her lips and her eyes. She gestures to Wonyoung to get up with her hands, each finger covered in rings with nails shaped like daggers.

"What I was going to say was that you did good. But, yes, that boy from earlier today wasn't supposed to be there. Even my commanders and I didn't know about him." For a split second, Yeji catches The Queen looking worried.

The Queen  furrows her brow and starts slowly pacing in front of them. "It's not unlikely for members of the Storm to want to come here. I can't imagine the horrors that they are trying to escape out there... But this boy, we have reason to believe that he was on a mission of his own."

"What did he want?" Karina asks.

The Queen walks past them to the middle of the throne room. She presses a button on a nearby pillar, which causes a small part of the floor to rise up and reveal a glass case. Inside were a few diamond crowns, emerald necklaces, and other expensive items.

"Oh...my...god..." Wonyoung gasps in amazement.

The Queen presses a number into the keypad and unlocks the case. She pulls out the crown at the top of the case, gently balancing it with her fingertips. The crown was covered with tiny, white diamonds and silver embellishments. "He wanted this."

"Yeji, please stay. Everyone else...leave," The Queen says, still caressing the beautiful crown in her hands.

The girls look at each other, confusion shadowing over their faces. "But-"

"That was an order." The Queen stares down at them, her voice stern and harsh.

"Your Majesty, why did you dismiss everyone else?" Yeji asks.

"Because, they aren't ready for what I'm about to tell you." The Queen gestures to Yeji to come closer to her and the crown.

"This is the oldest crown we have here in the Queendom. It's the one I wore at my coronation, and so did the Queen before me. The boy from the Storm... he was looking for it. It's valuable, so of course those thieves would love to get their sticky hands on it."

Yeji tilts her head. "What? But why would he look there? Isn't it obviously here?"

"To someone on the outside, it's not so obvious. That information is classified, which is why he snuck into the databases of Charles Bancroft, the man you and the others captured. He was able to pinpoint where the exact location of this crown is, right here."

Yeji's eyes widened. "He's probably on his way here now."

"I doubt it. My soldiers are out looking for him everywhere," The Queen carefully sets the crown back on the top shelf of the case and locks it away. "I need you to keep a look out as well, and let me know if anything happens, understand?"

Yeji nods quickly and watches as the Queen walks out the large doors of the throne room and disappears into the hallway.

"Damn." Lia curses out loud. The word echoes across the hallway they stand in.

"You guys have to promise to act like you don't know, okay? I wasn't even supposed to fill you in." Yeji feels her pulse quicken.

"And you're supposed to be the loyal one,"Karina snickers.

"So, the crown's being transported to another area?" JinSoul asks. "Won't that just make it easier for that boy?"

"I don't know, Her Majesty seemed pretty confident." Yeji glances at Karina as she speaks. Karina leans against the wall of the hallway away from the others, quiet and resentful.

"What's up with you?" Yeji asks, noticing her strange vibe.

Karina rolls her eyes. "What's up with me? Hmm, let's see. How about the fact that the four of us are always left out of these conversations?" Karina replies bitterly. She stomps toward the throne room and says a few unrecognizable curse words.

Karina flings open the doors of the throne room, where it was dark from nighttime. She starts searching for the button for the glass case from earlier.

"What the hell are you doing, Karina?" Yeji questions with nervousness.

The glass case rises up from the floor once again, the diamonds inside lighting up the dark room. Karina looks at the keypad and then at Lia.

"I know you remember the numbers she put in, Lia. What are they?" She isn't asking, she's demanding. Lia hesitates for a second but then gives in to Karina's fiery glares. She dials four numbers into the pad, and the case clicks open.

Karina takes The Queen's coronation crown and places it on her head. It was heavier than she expected, causing her to take a step back.

"This is childish," Yeji shouts from the back. "Seriously...put it back, Karina."

Karina smirks towards Yeji, knowing that it would piss her off. She takes the crown off her head and pretends to almost drop it.

Wonyoung covers her face in anxiety, picturing what would happen if the crown collided with the floor. "C-come on Rina, just leave it."

"Oh, Wonyoung," Karina sings her name. "I know out of everyone here...you want to try it on..."

Without even thinking about it, Wonyoung dashes towards Karina like a kid seeing candy for the first time. Her eyes sparkle brighter than the crown itself as she plops it onto her brunette head.

Yeji loses her patience and angrily rushes towards the two.

JinSoul walks towards the tall, arched windows. The moonlight seeped into the throne room, giving her skin a bluish tint in the process. She looks out one of the windows and into the distance. "Guys..." She says unsurely.

"Are you two deaf or some shit? Why are you ignoring me?!" Yeji is furious, but only because she's afraid of what The Queen would do if she came through those doors right now.

Voices of irritation and anger overlap each other as Karina, Yeji, and Wonyoung each try to get their hands on the crown.

"Guys!" JinSoul yells, which is rare for her. Everyone goes silent as they watch JinSoul point her shaky finger to whatever lies outside the window.

The gloomy clouds of the Storm grow bigger and bigger by the second. It was never this noticeable from the palace windows before. Never this close.

Thunder shakes the Queendom violently, as yellow and blue lighting bolts streak the sky. Yeji exhales loudly, watching as the clear night sky shifts into a depressing gray.

The doors of the throne burst open, and a gun shot echoes through the room.