The Golden Eagle's Decree: “They Tied The ‘Ugly’ Princess With Wedding Ribbons Before The Entire Court, But When A Golden Eagle Landed On The Executioner’s Axe, The King’s Face Turned Bone White.”
CHAPTER 1
The cold bite of the cobblestones seeped straight through the thin linen of my dress, chilling me to the bone.
Above me, the sky was a bruised, heavy gray, promising snow before nightfall. But the weather was nothing compared to the freezing stares of the hundreds of nobles gathered in the castle courtyard.
My wrists throbbed.
They were bound tightly together, not with iron chains, but with thick, white silk ribbons. The very ribbons that had been meant to hold my wedding bouquet just an hour ago.
Now, they were my restraints.
“Look at her,” a woman whispered loudly from the crowd.
“The ugly princess. Finally getting what she deserves.”
“It’s a mercy the King didn’t throw her in the river years ago.”
I kept my head down, letting my dark, messy hair fall forward to hide my face. I dug my fingernails into my palms, praying for the strength not to cry. If I cried, they won.
For twenty years, I had been the ghost of the royal palace.
I was Elara. The daughter of the King’s first wife, a woman who died under mysterious circumstances when I was only a baby. I had no memories of her. I only knew that the King had remarried within months, placing the crown on the head of a vain, cruel woman who despised my very existence.
My stepmother made sure everyone knew I was a disappointment.
I wasn’t beautiful like her own daughters. I didn’t have their golden hair or their delicate, perfect features. I had a jagged, faded scar across my jaw from a childhood “accident” in the stables, and eyes that were too dark, too watchful.
They called me the ugly princess. The cursed child. The stain on the King’s glorious reign.
And today, they had finally found a way to get rid of me.
“Elara!” The King’s voice boomed from the stone balcony overlooking the courtyard.
I flinched, but I didn’t look up.
“You have disgraced this family for the last time,” he shouted, his voice echoing off the high stone walls. “Lord Aris offered you his name. He offered to take you away from this court, to give you a place in his keep. And you dared to spit on his boots at the altar?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, remembering the sickening smell of the old lord.
Lord Aris was a cruel, decaying man. He had already buried four wives. Everyone in the kingdom knew he beat his servants and locked his wives in the high towers of his mountain estate. When the King told me I was to marry him, it wasn’t a proposal. It was a death sentence.
When the priest asked me to speak the vows, I had frozen. I looked at Lord Aris’s yellow teeth and his heavy, sweaty hands.
And I had said no.
The scandal had erupted instantly. The King, furious at the public defiance, hadn’t just called off the wedding. He had dragged me out here, into the freezing courtyard, to make an example of me.
“She is a spoiled, ungrateful creature,” the Queen said, stepping up to the balcony railing beside my father. She was wrapped in thick, white fox fur, looking down at me like I was an insect. “We fed her. We clothed her. We hid her ugly face from the world. And this is how she repays us.”
She turned to the crowd, raising her voice.
“She will learn respect today!”
The nobles murmured in agreement. I saw ladies hiding cruel smiles behind their velvet fans. I saw knights standing stiffly, their eyes carefully avoiding mine.
No one would help me. No one ever helped me.
“You have two choices, Elara,” the King declared, gripping the stone railing. “You will beg Lord Aris for his forgiveness right now. You will crawl to his boots, kiss them, and beg him to take you as his wife.”
My stomach turned. I looked up, finding Lord Aris standing near the front of the crowd. He was smiling. It was a wet, greedy smile that made my skin crawl.
“And if I don’t?” my voice cracked, dry and weak.
The Queen let out a sharp, mocking laugh.
“If you don’t,” the King said, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl, “you will be stripped of your royal title. You will be declared a traitor to the crown. And you will be thrown into the lower dungeons beneath the river, where the sun never shines, until you rot.”
A collective gasp went through the courtyard.
The lower dungeons.
No one survived down there for more than a few months. It was cold, flooded, and full of disease. It was where they put murderers and rebels, not princesses.
“Decide,” the King commanded.
I looked at Lord Aris. I looked at the smug, triumphant face of my stepmother.
I knew my life was over either way. If I went with Lord Aris, I would die slowly in his mountains. If I went to the dungeon, I would die in the dark.
But at least in the dark, I wouldn’t have to look at them anymore.
“I choose the tower,” I whispered.
“Speak up!” the Queen snapped.
“I choose the tower!” I yelled, my voice finally finding its strength. I lifted my chin, staring directly at the King. “I will not marry him. I will never marry him.”
The King’s face flushed deep red with rage. The veins in his neck bulged.
“So be it,” he spat.
He raised his hand.
“Executioner!”
The crowd parted instantly.
From the shadows of the castle gate, the Royal Executioner stepped forward.
He was a massive man, wearing dark, heavy leather and a hood pulled back over his shoulders. His face was weathered and covered in old battle scars. In his thick hands, he carried the royal axe—a massive, terrifying weapon of black iron.
He didn’t just carry it for beheadings. The executioner was the King’s hand of punishment. He was the one who dragged prisoners to the dark cells. He was the one who broke them.
“Take the disgraceful girl away,” the King ordered, waving a disgusted hand at me. “Throw her in the black water cells. Let the rats have her.”
The executioner nodded slowly. His heavy boots pounded against the frozen stones as he marched toward me.
Panic finally broke through my chest. I tried to push myself backward, but my bound hands made it impossible. The silk ribbons bit into my skin.
He stopped right in front of me. He towered over me, a mountain of leather and iron.
He raised the heavy axe, shifting his grip so he could use his free hand to grab me by the hair and drag me away.
I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for the pain.
But the pain didn’t come.
Instead, a shadow fell over the courtyard.
A massive gust of wind hit the cobblestones, kicking up frost and dirt.
A deafening, terrifying shriek tore through the cold air. It was a wild, piercing sound that made several nobles scream and cover their ears.
I opened my eyes just in time to see a massive shape drop from the gray clouds.
It was a bird.
But not just any bird. It was a magnificent, enormous golden eagle. Its feathers caught the weak winter light, gleaming like polished armor. Its wingspan was terrifyingly wide.
With pinpoint accuracy, the eagle slammed down onto the executioner.
But it didn’t attack the man.
Its massive, razor-sharp talons clamped directly onto the flat iron head of the executioner’s raised axe.
The heavy thud of the bird landing shook the man’s arms. The eagle balanced perfectly on the deadly weapon, folding its massive wings slightly.
It turned its sharp, golden eyes directly to the King on the balcony, and it shrieked again. A sound of pure, ancient fury.
The courtyard froze.
The laughter died in the nobles’ throats.
The Queen dropped her silver cup. It clattered against the stone balcony, spilling red wine like blood over the edge.
Everyone knew the legends of the Northern kingdom.
The royal crest was the Golden Eagle. But the real birds hadn’t been seen in the capital for over a hundred years. They lived high in the forbidden mountains. The old stories said the eagles only appeared when the true bloodline of the throne was in danger. They said the birds could smell royal blood.
The executioner’s hands began to shake.
He stared at the massive bird sitting calmly on his weapon. He looked at the bird’s talons, and then he looked down at me.
His scarred face turned completely white.
“No…” he whispered, his voice trembling.
“What is the meaning of this?!” the King shouted, his voice cracking with sudden panic. “Get that beast off your weapon! Strike the bird! Take the girl!”
The executioner didn’t move.
He stared at my face. He stared at the faded scar on my jaw.
Slowly, carefully, he opened his hands.
The heavy iron axe hit the cobblestones with a massive crash. The eagle didn’t fly away. It simply hopped onto the stone beside the weapon, standing like a guard dog between me and the crowd.
The executioner took a step back.
Then, he did something that made the entire courtyard stop breathing.
The giant, terrifying man dropped to both knees. He placed his massive hands flat on the freezing stones, and he bowed his head until his forehead touched the ground in front of me.
“Forgive me,” the executioner whispered, his voice thick with sudden tears. “Forgive me, Your Grace.”
On the balcony, the King stumbled backward, gripping his chest. His face was bone white.
The eagle let out one final, quiet chirp, nudging my bound hands with its deadly beak.
And as I sat there, shivering in the dirt, I realized the executioner wasn’t bowing to a disgraced princess.
He was bowing to a Queen.
CHAPTER 2
The courtyard remained frozen in absolute, terrified silence.
No one breathed. The wind itself seemed to stop.
The Royal Executioner, the most feared man in the entire kingdom, was still kneeling on the freezing cobblestones. His forehead touched the dirt right in front of my torn linen dress.
He had called me Your Grace.
A title reserved only for the ruling monarch.
Above us, the golden eagle let out another piercing, warning shriek. It spread its massive wings, shielding me from the King’s view.
“Get up!” the King’s voice finally shattered the silence. It wasn’t his usual commanding roar. It was a high, panicked scream. “Get up, you treasonous fool! Seize the bird! Seize the girl!”
The executioner did not move. He kept his head bowed, his massive shoulders trembling.
“Are you all deaf?!” the Queen shrieked from the balcony, her face twisted in ugly fury. She pointed a shaking, jewel-covered finger at me. “She has cast a spell on him! The ugly girl is a witch! Guards! Kill the bird and drag her to the cells!”
For a moment, the royal guards hesitated.
They looked at the massive eagle. They looked at the executioner on his knees. The old legends were etched into the mind of every person born in the North. The golden eagle only bowed to the true bloodline.
But fear of the King was stronger than their belief in old songs.
The Captain of the Guard, a cruel man loyal only to the Queen’s coin, drew his heavy iron sword.
“Move!” he barked, kicking the nearest soldier.
A dozen guards rushed forward, their boots pounding against the frost.
The golden eagle didn’t wait for them. With a final, deafening cry, it launched itself into the air. The massive rush of wind from its wings knocked the Captain backward. The bird circled the courtyard once, its golden eyes locking onto the King, before it disappeared into the heavy gray snow clouds.
I was left completely defenseless again.
“Grab her!” the Captain yelled, scrambling to his feet.
Two armored guards grabbed me by the arms, hauling me up so violently my shoulders popped. I gasped in pain, my wrists still bound tightly by the white wedding ribbons.
“And arrest the executioner!” the King ordered from the balcony, his chest heaving as he gripped the stone railing. “Throw him in the deepest pit for his treason!”
The executioner didn’t fight back. As the guards dragged him away, he turned his head and looked at me one last time.
There was no pity in his eyes. There was only absolute certainty.
He knew something I didn’t.
“Don’t take her to the river cells,” the Queen whispered to the King, though the courtyard was so quiet her voice carried. “The nobles are whispering. Look at them. They saw the bird. If she dies in the dark tonight, they will say we murdered a chosen one.”
The King gritted his teeth, his eyes scanning the crowd.
The nobles weren’t laughing anymore. They were staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. Lord Aris, the decaying old man I was supposed to marry, had backed away entirely, hiding behind his own knights.
“Take her to the North Tower,” the King commanded loudly, trying to sound completely in control. “Lock her in the Queen’s old chambers. Tomorrow at sunrise, we will hold a public Royal Judgment in the Great Chapel. The Bishop himself will strip her of her false titles and declare her a witch before God and the kingdom!”
The guards yanked my chains.
I was dragged out of the courtyard, my bare feet bleeding against the sharp, icy stones.
They pulled me up hundreds of spiraling, uneven stone staircases. My lungs burned. Every time I stumbled, a guard would shove me forward with the hilt of his sword.
Finally, they reached the top of the North Tower.
They threw me onto the cold wooden floor of a dark, circular room and slammed the heavy iron door. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into place echoed like a gunshot.
I lay on the floor in the dark, shivering violently.
This room hadn’t been used in twenty years. It belonged to my mother, the King’s first wife. The air smelled like dust, old wax, and rotting velvet.
I managed to sit up, leaning against the damp stone wall. My wrists were completely numb from the tight silk ribbons. I rested my forehead on my knees, finally letting a single tear fall.
I wasn’t a witch. I wasn’t a true Queen. I was just Elara. The ugly, scarred princess with no one to protect her. The eagle must have been a mistake. A cruel trick of nature that had only sealed my death warrant.
Suddenly, the heavy iron bolt slid back open.
The door creaked inward.
The Queen stood in the doorway, holding a flickering oil lantern. Behind her stood the Captain of the Guard.
She walked slowly into the room, her heavy velvet gown sweeping across the dusty floor. She looked down at me with absolute disgust.
“A golden eagle,” she mocked, her voice dripping with poison. “You think that makes you special? You think a wild beast makes you a threat to my throne?”
I kept my eyes on the floor. “I didn’t call the bird. I don’t know why it came.”
“Liar!”
The Queen stepped forward and slapped me across the face so hard my head slammed back against the stone wall. My ear rang. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
“You are nothing,” she whispered, leaning down until I could smell the sweet, sickening perfume on her skin. “You are the ugly, scarred remnant of a pathetic woman. You think the King is your father? You think he ever loved you?”
I froze. My breath caught in my throat.
The Queen smiled a cold, terrifying smile. She reached out and grabbed my chin, her sharp fingernails digging into my skin. She turned my face forcefully toward the lantern light, exposing the jagged, ugly scar on my jawline.
“Tomorrow at sunrise, the Bishop will declare you a traitor,” the Queen hissed softly. “The King will annul your royal status. And then, I am going to have you burned at the stake in the very courtyard where you embarrassed me today.”
She let go of my face and stood up.
“Let her freeze,” the Queen ordered the Captain. “Give her neither food nor fire. Let her think about her useless mother until the dawn.”
The door slammed shut. The bolt locked.
I was plunged back into complete darkness.
I curled into a ball on the floor, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. I was going to die. I was going to burn.
Hours passed. The cold seeped into my bones, making my fingers stiff and useless.
Then, I heard a sound.
It didn’t come from the iron door. It came from the stone wall behind the old, rotting tapestry on the far side of the room.
Scrape. I held my breath.
A heavy stone block was slowly shifting outward. Weak candlelight spilled into the pitch-black room through a narrow, hidden servant’s passage.
A figure squeezed through the gap.
It was an old woman. She wore the drab, gray wool of the lowest kitchen servants. She held a single candle in one hand and a small leather pouch in the other.
It was Lady Arlen.
The entire castle thought Lady Arlen was deaf and half-blind. She had scrubbed the lower floors for twenty years, ignored by everyone. She was considered too old and useless to even be abused.
She hurried to my side, her eyes sharp and clear in the candlelight. There was nothing blind about them.
“Hush now, child,” she whispered urgently. She pulled a small iron knife from her sleeve and quickly sliced through the white wedding ribbons binding my wrists.
I gasped as the blood rushed back into my hands.
“Lady Arlen?” I trembled. “What are you doing here? If they catch you, they will kill you.”
“Let them try,” she muttered. She opened her leather pouch and pulled out a clean linen cloth and a small jar of healing salve. She carefully wiped the dried blood from my lip where the Queen had struck me.
“You must listen to me, Elara,” the old woman said, her voice completely different from the mumbling servant I knew. It was refined, sharp, and aristocratic. “We do not have much time. The Queen was right about one thing.”
I stared at her, confused. “Right about what?”
“The King is not your father.”
The room seemed to spin. I stared at the old woman’s weathered face. “What are you saying?”
Lady Arlen reached out and gently touched the jagged scar on my jaw.
“You were told a horse kicked you when you were an infant,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears. “But a horse did not do this, my sweet girl. I was the royal nursemaid twenty years ago. I was in the room the night the current King took the throne.”
She took a deep breath, looking nervously at the iron door.
“Your mother was already married. To the true King of the North. The current King was nothing but an ambitious Duke. He poisoned your real father in the night. To secure his claim to the throne, he forced your grieving mother to marry him the very next day. But your mother was already carrying a child. She was carrying you.”
My heart hammered in my chest.
“When you were born,” Lady Arlen continued, “you bore the physical mark of the true royal bloodline. A birthmark shaped exactly like a golden eagle’s wing, right here on your jaw. The old King’s line was famous for it.”
I raised my trembling hand, touching the uneven, jagged skin of my scar.
“He couldn’t kill you without starting a war with the loyalist nobles,” Lady Arlen whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. “So, he hid you. He called you his own. But he couldn’t let anyone see the birthmark. He ordered the executioner to hold you down when you were only six months old… and they burned the eagle off your face with a branding iron.”
I felt sick. My stomach twisted violently.
My entire life—the insults, the hiding, the cruelty, the “ugly” scar. It was all a lie to cover up a murder.
“The executioner knew,” I whispered, realizing why the terrifying man had dropped to his knees in the courtyard. “He recognized me.”
“He has carried the guilt of burning the true heir for twenty years,” Lady Arlen said. “And today, the golden eagle came to protect the bloodline. The old magic of the North is waking up.”
“But it doesn’t matter,” I cried quietly, panic rising in my throat. “Tomorrow at sunrise, the Bishop will declare me a traitor. I have no proof. I have no army. I am just a girl in a torn dress.”
“You are a Queen,” Lady Arlen corrected fiercely.
She reached into the deep pocket of her wool apron. She pulled out a heavy, tarnished object wrapped in black velvet.
She unfolded the fabric.
Inside lay a massive, pure black sapphire ring, surrounded by diamonds. The silver band was etched with ancient Northern runes.
“The Signet Ring of the True King,” Lady Arlen whispered. “Your mother hid it in my skirts the night she was poisoned. I have kept it under the floorboards of the kitchen for two decades, waiting for you to come of age. Waiting for a sign.”
She took my cold, trembling hand and placed the heavy ring into my palm.
“Tomorrow at the Royal Judgment, the King will demand you surrender your royal name,” she said, her eyes burning with fierce loyalty. “When he forces you before the Bishop and the court… you will show them this.”
I stared at the black sapphire. It seemed to catch the weak candlelight and pull it inward.
Suddenly, heavy, armored footsteps thundered in the hallway outside.
Not just one guard. A dozen.
“The King!” Lady Arlen gasped, her face turning pale.
Keys rattled frantically in the heavy iron door.
“Hide it!” Lady Arlen hissed, shoving me backward into the shadows. “Hide the ring! Do not let them see it until the Bishop opens the holy record tomorrow!”
The iron bolt smashed open.
The heavy wooden door flew inward, crashing against the stone wall.
The King stood in the doorway, a torch in his hand, his eyes wild and bloodshot. Behind him, the Captain of the Guard drew his sword, staring directly at the old woman kneeling beside me.
“Well, well,” the King sneered, a murderous smile spreading across his face. “It seems the ugly bird has a visitor.”
CHAPTER 3
I shoved the heavy black sapphire ring deep inside the torn bodice of my linen dress just a second before the King stormed into the room.
The cold silver pressed flat against my bare skin, right over my wildly beating heart.
The King stood in the doorway, his chest heaving under his thick fur-lined coat. The torchlight threw monstrous, flickering shadows across his face. He looked down at Lady Arlen, the frail old kitchen servant, who was still kneeling on the dusty floorboards beside me.
“Well, well,” the King sneered, a murderous smile spreading across his face. “It seems the ugly bird has a visitor.”
Lady Arlen did not cower.
The woman who had spent twenty years pretending to be deaf and blind slowly stood up. She wiped the dust from her coarse gray wool apron and looked the King directly in the eyes.
“I am no visitor, usurper,” Lady Arlen said, her voice sharp and steady. “I am the Royal Nursemaid. And I know what you did.”
The King’s smile vanished. His face twisted with absolute rage.
“Captain!” the King barked.
The Captain of the Guard stepped forward and backhanded Lady Arlen across the face with his heavy leather glove. The impact sent the frail old woman crashing to the stone floor. My heart stopped. I lunged forward to help her, but two guards instantly grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me back against the damp wall.
“Take the old hag to the river cells,” the King ordered, his voice echoing in the small, circular tower room. “Put her in the cell right next to the executioner. They can freeze to death together.”
“No!” I screamed, struggling against the guards’ iron grip. “She’s just an old woman! Leave her alone!”
The guards dragged Lady Arlen toward the door by her arms. She didn’t fight them. As they pulled her into the dark hallway, she turned her head and looked right at me. Blood was trickling from her lip, but her eyes were completely fearless.
“Remember who you are, Elara!” she shouted down the spiral staircase. “Remember the bloodline!”
The iron door slammed shut, cutting off her voice.
The King grabbed the torch from the wall bracket and walked slowly toward me. The guards released me and stepped back into the shadows. I slid down the wall until I hit the floor, trembling violently, but I kept my hand pressed tightly against my chest, guarding the hidden ring.
The King crouched down in front of me. The heat from the torch washed over my freezing face.
For the first time in my life, I looked at him and didn’t see my father.
I saw a murderer.
“She told you, didn’t she?” the King whispered, his eyes narrowing as he studied my face. “The old fool told you the fairy tale.”
I pressed my lips together and stared at the floor.
He reached out and violently grabbed my chin, his thick fingers digging into my cheeks just like the Queen had done earlier. He forced me to look at him. His thumb brushed over the jagged, ugly scar on my jawline.
“I should have killed you in your crib,” he hissed, the smell of sour wine on his breath. “The executioner begged me for mercy. He said you were just an infant. He swore he would burn the eagle off your face so completely that no one would ever know. I let you live to avoid a war with the Northern lords. It was the only mistake I ever made.”
A tear slipped from my eye and ran down over his thumb.
“But it doesn’t matter,” the King smiled, a cold, terrifying expression. “Tomorrow morning, you won’t be a princess. You won’t be a queen. You will be a nameless, landless traitor. I am going to have the Bishop strike your name from the Chapel Register. And when you are completely erased from history, the guards will drag you to the courtyard and burn you.”
He let go of my face and stood up, dusting off his heavy velvet coat.
“Sleep well, ‘Your Grace,'” he mocked.
He walked out, and the heavy deadbolt slid shut.
I was alone again in the freezing dark. But this time, I wasn’t just shivering from the cold. I was shaking with an emotion I had never felt before.
Anger.
Deep, ancient, burning anger.
I reached into my dress and pulled out the Black Sapphire Signet Ring. Even in the pitch black, the silver band felt heavy and powerful in my palm. The ring of the True King. My real father’s ring.
For twenty years, they had made me feel small. They had made me hide in the shadows, convinced I was an ugly, worthless mistake. They had physically burned my identity off my face and forced me to watch my stepmother and stepsisters wear the jewels that belonged to my murdered mother.
I slipped the heavy silver band onto my thumb. It was far too large for my thin fingers, so I unlaced a small piece of the silk ribbon still dangling from my wrist, threaded it through the ring, and tied it tightly around my neck, hiding it beneath the collar of my dress.
I wasn’t going to cry anymore.
If they were going to burn me, I was going to burn their entire kingdom to the ground first.
Morning came with the harsh, metallic clanging of the tower bells.
The heavy door swung open. The cold blue-gray daylight of the Northern winter flooded the dusty room.
Four royal guards stood in the doorway, holding heavy iron chains. Behind them stood two of the Queen’s personal maids. They were carrying a coarse, black mourning dress made of scratchy wool.
“Strip her,” the Captain of the Guard ordered. “The King commands that she stand trial in the garments of a disgraced sinner.”
I didn’t fight them. I let the maids rip the ruined white linen wedding dress from my shoulders. I held my breath, terrified they would see the heavy black sapphire ring tied around my neck. But the maids were rushing, repulsed by the cold and the dust. They threw the heavy black wool over my head, tying it tightly at my waist. The high collar perfectly concealed the silver chain and the ring resting against my collarbone.
The guards stepped forward and clamped heavy iron cuffs around my wrists. The chains rattled loudly in the quiet tower.
“Move,” the Captain barked.
I walked out of the room, my bare feet freezing against the stone stairs.
As we descended into the main corridors of the castle, the atmosphere felt completely different than it had yesterday. There was no laughter. There was no mocking.
The palace was suffocatingly silent.
Servants lined the hallways, but instead of ignoring me, they all lowered their eyes to the floor as I passed. A young footman carrying a silver tray stopped in his tracks, his hands trembling. An old scullery maid dropping to her knees, hiding her face in her apron.
The rumor had spread.
The executioner bowing. The golden eagle on the axe. The castle staff knew something was terribly wrong.
We reached the massive, carved oak doors of the Great Chapel.
The doors were thrust open.
Thousands of candles burned inside the cavernous Gothic cathedral, filling the air with thick, choking white smoke and the smell of frankincense. The stained-glass windows cast eerie red and blue shadows across the cracked marble floor.
The entire aristocratic court was already gathered.
Hundreds of nobles, dukes, and lords stood tightly packed in the pews, wearing their finest velvet, dark furs, and military medals. They stared at me as I was dragged down the center aisle. No one whispered. The silence was heavier than the iron chains on my wrists.
At the front of the altar, a raised platform had been built.
The King sat on a massive, gilded throne, wearing his heavy golden crown and a ceremonial robe of deep crimson velvet. Beside him sat the Queen, her face pale but her eyes burning with cruel triumph.
To the side of the altar stood the Bishop.
He was a tall, skeletal man in rich purple robes. In front of him, resting on a velvet-covered pedestal, was the Royal Chapel Register—a massive, ancient book bound in cracked white leather. It contained the bloodlines, births, and true names of every royal family member in the North for the last five hundred years.
To erase a name from that book meant erasing their soul from the kingdom.
The guards shoved me forward. I stumbled, falling to my knees on the hard marble step directly below the King’s throne.
“Elara!” the King’s voice boomed through the quiet chapel, echoing off the high stone arches. “You have been brought before the eyes of God and this court to answer for the crime of high treason!”
The nobles shifted nervously in their heavy coats.
“You defied your King,” the King continued, standing up and pointing down at me. “You used dark witchcraft to summon a beast to attack the Royal Executioner! You seek to bring chaos to my peaceful reign!”
The Queen leaned forward, a vicious smile playing on her lips.
“Confess your crimes, girl,” she said loudly. “Confess that you are a false princess, and the Bishop will grant you a swift death. Refuse, and you will burn slowly.”
The Bishop stepped forward, his cold eyes looking down at me with disdain. He placed his pale, bony hand on the cover of the ancient Chapel Register.
“Before I open this sacred seal and strike your name from the royal bloodline,” the Bishop intoned, his voice echoing like a funeral bell, “do you have anything to say in your defense?”
The entire chapel held its breath.
I looked up at the King. I looked at the Queen. I looked at the hundreds of powerful nobles who had watched me suffer in the shadows my entire life.
My hands were shaking, making the heavy iron chains rattle against the marble floor.
But I wasn’t shaking from fear anymore.
I slowly stood up.
The Captain of the Guard took a step forward, drawing his sword, but the King held up his hand, his eyes narrowing. He wanted to hear me beg. He wanted my final humiliation to be complete.
“I have nothing to confess,” I said. My voice wasn’t a whisper. It was steady, loud, and crystal clear.
The Queen’s smile faltered.
“But I do have something to return,” I added.
Slowly, deliberately, I raised my chained hands to the high collar of my black mourning dress. My fingers found the white silk ribbon hidden beneath the coarse wool.
I gripped it tightly.
And I pulled.
CHAPTER 4
I pulled the white silk ribbon hard.
The knot slipped loose. From beneath the scratchy, high collar of my black mourning dress, a heavy object swung out and struck the iron chains around my wrists with a sharp, clear clink.
It hung against my chest, catching the light of a thousand chapel candles.
The pure Black Sapphire Signet Ring.
It was massive, set in ancient silver and surrounded by diamonds that threw sharp prisms of light across the cracked marble floor.
For a second, the entire chapel was so quiet I could hear the wax dripping from the chandeliers.
Then, an old man in the front pew gasped.
It was Duke Kaelen, the retired commander of the Northern Armies, a man who had served under my real father decades ago. He stepped out of his pew, his hands trembling as he stared at the jewel resting against my dark dress.
“The Star of the North…” Duke Kaelen whispered, his voice carrying through the silent, cavernous room. “The King’s Ring.”
On the raised platform, the King stopped breathing.
All the color drained from his face, leaving him the sickly gray of ash. He gripped the gilded armrests of his throne so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Where did you get that?” the King choked out, his voice barely a terrified rasp.
The Queen stood up, her velvet skirts rustling loudly. She looked at the ring, then at her husband’s terrified face, and panic finally cracked her arrogant mask.
“It is a forgery!” the Queen shrieked, pointing her jeweled finger at me. “The girl is a thief as well as a witch! Captain, strike her down! Cut off her hands and take the ring!”
The Captain of the Guard drew his heavy iron broadsword. The scrape of the blade against the scabbard echoed like a death knell. He took a heavy step toward me, raising the weapon.
“Hold your blade!”
The voice did not come from me.
It came from Duke Kaelen.
The old general stepped directly in front of me, placing his own body between my chained form and the Captain’s sword. In a flash of silver, Kaelen drew his own weapon.
Instantly, the chapel erupted.
Dozens of older nobles, men who had worn the colors of the true King, stepped into the center aisle. The deafening ring of steel filled the holy room as lord after lord drew their swords, forming a solid wall of iron and velvet around me.
“You will not touch her,” Duke Kaelen growled, glaring at the Captain. “Not until the Bishop examines that ring.”
The Captain froze, looking up at the King for orders. But the King was completely paralyzed, staring at the black sapphire as if it were a ghost.
“Bishop!” Duke Kaelen demanded. “Do your sacred duty!”
The skeletal Bishop stepped down from the altar, his purple robes sweeping over the marble steps. His hands were shaking violently as he approached me.
I stood tall, despite the heavy iron chains dragging my wrists down. I did not break eye contact with the Bishop as he reached out and took the heavy silver ring in his pale fingers.
He turned the ring over. He inspected the ancient Northern runes carved into the inner band. He rubbed his thumb over the surface of the black sapphire.
The Bishop closed his eyes, and a shudder ripped through his thin frame.
“The runes are true,” the Bishop whispered, his voice trembling with holy fear. “This is the Signet Ring of the True King. The ring that vanished the night our former monarch died.”
“She stole it!” the Queen screamed, completely losing her aristocratic composure. She gripped the railing of the platform, her crown sitting crookedly on her head. “She is a bastard child! Kill her!”
“Silence!” the Bishop roared, his voice echoing with sudden, terrifying authority.
He turned his back on the Queen and marched up the steps to the velvet-covered pedestal. He placed his hands on the massive, white leather cover of the Royal Chapel Register.
With a loud crack, he broke the heavy wax seal that had kept the book locked for twenty years.
He flipped through the thick, yellowed parchment pages until he reached the year of my birth. He ran his bony finger down the page, reading the faded ink.
The chapel was so silent it felt like a tomb.
The Bishop looked up. His eyes found the King, and the disgust in the holy man’s face was absolute.
“The record was altered,” the Bishop announced, his voice booming for the entire court to hear. “But the original ink beneath the seal remains. It states that twenty years ago, the Queen Mother did not just give birth to a daughter. She gave birth to the True Heir of the North.”
The nobles gasped. Whispers erupted through the pews like a wildfire.
“The child was born with the Mark of the Eagle on her jaw,” the Bishop read aloud. “The sacred bloodline proof.”
“Lies!” the King screamed, suddenly surging to his feet. He drew his own dagger, his eyes completely bloodshot and wild. “There is no mark! Look at her face! It is just an ugly scar! She is a deformed peasant!”
“It is a scar because you burned it off!”
A new voice thundered through the chapel doors.
Everyone spun around.
The massive oak doors at the back of the cathedral had been thrown wide open. Standing in the freezing daylight, silhouetted against the winter snow, was the Royal Executioner.
He was covered in dirt and frost from the lower cells, but he held his massive iron axe in his hands. Beside him stood the loyal guards of the dungeon, who had freed him. And behind him, walking with quiet dignity, was Lady Arlen.
The executioner marched down the center aisle. The crowd of nobles scrambled out of his way in sheer terror.
He stopped at the edge of the swordsmen protecting me.
“For twenty years, I have carried the weight of a damned soul,” the executioner shouted, glaring up at the King with burning hatred. “You ordered me to hold down a six-month-old infant. You ordered me to take a branding iron from the fire and burn the golden eagle off her skin so you could steal her throne!”
A woman in the crowd screamed. Several lords muttered curses, staring at the King with pure disgust.
“He poisoned the True King!” Lady Arlen added, her voice piercing the chaos. “I was there! I hid the ring, and I watched him force the grieving mother into a false marriage to steal the crown!”
The King stumbled backward. He hit the gilded throne, looking out at the hundreds of furious faces. The man who had ruled through fear for twenty years was suddenly realizing that fear was no longer enough.
“Treason…” the King mumbled weakly. “Guards… arrest them. Arrest them all!”
No one moved.
The Captain of the Guard slowly lowered his sword. He looked at the King, then looked at the black sapphire resting on my chest. With a loud clatter, the Captain dropped his weapon onto the marble floor and stepped away from the throne.
One by one, the royal guards throughout the chapel lowered their spears.
The Queen let out a terrified sob. She grabbed the edges of her velvet dress and turned to run toward the back exit of the altar.
“Stop her,” I said.
My voice wasn’t loud, but in the tense silence of the chapel, it carried like thunder.
Two guards instantly blocked the Queen’s path, crossing their spears to trap her. She shrank back, her hands covering her face, her arrogant pride completely shattered.
I turned my attention back to the man sitting on the throne.
“Take the crown off your head,” I commanded.
The King looked at me. His hands shook violently. “Elara… please. I raised you. I gave you food in my house—”
“You murdered my father,” I interrupted, my voice as cold as the winter wind outside. “You tortured my mother. You burned my face. You tied me like an animal in the courtyard and tried to feed me to the dark.”
I took a step forward, the heavy iron chains dragging across the marble.
“Take it off.”
The King whimpered. He slowly reached up with trembling hands and lifted the heavy gold and ruby crown from his head. He dropped it. The crown hit the stone floor and rolled down the steps, coming to a stop directly at my bare, bruised feet.
Duke Kaelen stepped forward. With a swift strike of his sword hilt, he shattered the iron locks on my wrists.
The heavy chains fell away, crashing to the floor.
I rubbed my bruised wrists, feeling the blood rush back into my hands. I reached down and picked up the crown. It was heavy, cold, and smelled of old gold.
I looked at the Bishop.
“Strike their names from the book,” I ordered, pointing at the shivering King and the sobbing Queen. “Strip them of their titles, their wealth, and their lands. They are no longer royalty. They are murderers.”
“It shall be done, Your Grace,” the Bishop bowed deeply.
“Take them to the river cells,” I told the guards. “Put them in the dark. Let them rot.”
The guards surged forward. They grabbed the King by his velvet robes, dragging him off the platform. He screamed and kicked, begging for mercy, but the nobles only watched him with cold, unforgiving eyes. The Queen was dragged away behind him, her wails echoing against the stained glass until the heavy chapel doors slammed shut, cutting off their voices forever.
The silence that followed was peaceful.
I stood in the center of the chapel, wearing the scratchy black wool of a disgraced sinner, but I had never felt more powerful.
The old executioner stepped forward, dropping his massive axe. He sank to his knees, pressing his forehead against the marble.
Behind him, Duke Kaelen sheathed his sword and knelt.
Then, the Bishop dropped to one knee.
One by one, like a wave of velvet and steel, every single lord, duke, lady, and knight in the Great Chapel fell to their knees. Hundreds of powerful aristocrats bowed their heads to the floor, honoring the girl they had mocked just yesterday.
Lady Arlen walked up to me, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. She gently took the heavy gold crown from my hands.
With shaking hands, the old nursemaid reached up and placed the crown upon my head.
Outside the high stained-glass windows, the piercing, triumphant shriek of a golden eagle echoed across the winter sky.
I touched the faded, jagged scar on my jawline. It wasn’t ugly anymore.
It was the mark of the True Queen.
THE END.
