Royal Linkage

Prolouge

My father always said I was destined for great things, not because I was born rich or into a noble family, but because I was an exceptional chess player and he believed that it is a woman with a mind like mine that runs every kingdom.

From behind the throne, behind the fancy gowns and great speeches, behind the men who think they have all the power, behind the curtains and the balls, there is a woman pulling every string, moving every piece on the board.

The true queen.

The silent queen.

She need no crown and will never see the limelight, no one will know her name and no one will sing her song around bonfires reminiscing her greatness, history will never remember these women, but they are there and all wise men know it.

My mother was one of these woman when she was still alive, she worked as the first maiden of the queen and although she was a low-born, nothing but a maid, she had a great influence over these lands and practically ruled this kingdom during its better days.

I was too young to have truly witnessed this majesty at its peak and far too young to understand why she was here one day but gone the next or why she left her 11-year-old daughter alone, too young to comprehend my loss but not young enough to forget the blood, the screams that marry my dreams every night and not young enough to forget how that night left my father but a shell of a man.

I was young but I remember like it was yesterday and I know my mother as though she never left. I remember her and everything about her, her sweet smell and her beautiful voice, small nose, plump lips, fair completion and every curve on her body, every dent, every scar, I remember it all.

I made it my mission to embody her, her spirit, her courage, her intelligence and control but most of all her good heart. She was a brilliant woman who taught me everything I know now, it could have lasted longer but I believe I got most of it, her lessons were my life back then, I took it all in, and now that she is no more, I carry it in my soul and use it as my daily bread.

Every day she would teach me a new lesson, about life and the kingdom, about people and about royalty. She left no stone unturned. Everything she said I took to heart, sometimes when I did truly good she would borrow a book for me from the king himself and teach me how to read and write, how to understand what I'd read and what I should take from the pieces, and being the good student I am, I perfected my craft.

When I turned 17 summers I was going to become a maiden like her and work in the royal house where I too would get to rule from behind the curtains.
I would be a phenomenal silent queen, everything was perfectly planned out and made sense when she was around and now that she was gone, all I had left was to fulfill her prophecy.

But the happy family of a great huntsman and his maiden wife, their daughter and son was so short lived sometimes one would wonder if it happened at all.
All because one gruesome night it ended…

Then another shattered what little there was left.