The reflection of the Queen: Exile

Prologue: Princess of war

She hated and loved the battlefields.

She strolled through the barren plain across which his army had advanced hours before covered with bodies and blood over which a fine drizzle was falling. She chose to think of it as congratulations on his victory.

Her men were busy picking up the corpses wearing obsidian-black armor, the comrades who had fallen that day. The others wore emerald crests on their breastplates, and those they ignored. They would be fodder for the crows. The thought caused her to make a cruel smile, which widened when he reached the camp that his enemies had occupied earlier. Wrecked and burned to the ground, nothing more and nothing less than what those rebels deserved.

She still wore her sword at his belt, along with his black and silver battle suit splattered with blood; she even had some on her cheek, but she didn't plan to do anything about it until they had finished clearing the plain. After all, most of that blood wasn't hers. A long oval mirror floated beside her, following in her footsteps. She glanced at her reflection out of the corner of her eye: her appearance was both brutal and elegant. Her feminine features contrasted with her dark suit and short shiny white hair. A silvery gleam still glinted in her eyes, which showed disdain and pride. Her lips, splashed with red as if she wore carmine, showed a suggestive and perverse smile.

She hated the battlefield for the bodies of her men who ended up burning on the funeral pyres with full honors, but she loved it more than she hated it. She loved feeling powerful, seeing the enemies fall in her path and inspiring the pure fear that was reflected in their faces when, at the beginning of the fight, they understood that they were not going to be able to win. That soon became clear.

The reflection in the floating mirror winked at her, and she in turn bowed her head in appreciation. It was a gesture her mother had gotten her used to: a show of silent gratitude to the power that granted her victories. Though, of course, she also liked to think that they were partly thanks to her own strength. She paused to contemplate the charred remains of the camp. The Insurrection had set up one of its bases in that isolated plain, and they had been making trouble for some time, which was the only thing that bunch of cowards knew how to do. They thought they were rivals for their mother, they really believed they could recover the throne of Ethryant when they had been trying for more than twenty years. She was now responsible for waging a war that began before she was even born, and she did it gladly because it was now her war. The war of her kingdom and her family. A war she had always been destined to win.

That the Insurrection found it hard to accept this was not their problem.

"Your highness."

She turned to find near her a young man wearing obsidian armor and carrying a rapier at his belt, with the stripes of a commander on his shoulder.

"Look at this, Mylod," she said, pointing to the destroyed camp. "The insurgents are stubborn for continuing to defy us."

"That's because your leaders have no occasion to see you fight, your highness."

"Oh, they will, my friend," she replied, lifting her chin. "When we find out where those rebel rats are hiding, they'll see me fight. It will be the last thing they see."

Mylod gave a faint smile, accustomed to the attitude of his fierce Princess.

"We have no doubt. But, until then, we have already gathered the prisoners in the camp and they are waiting to be interrogated."

The young woman's shoulders tensed.

"How many are there?"

"Six. For now. We are looking for more survivors."