Cleon slowly woke, his head awkwardly resting on a pile of papers scattered across the library table. A dull ache in his neck reminded him just how poor of a nap spot he'd chosen. Squinting at the late-morning light streaming through the windows, he sat up and tried to get his bearings.

  "How long did I sleep?" he asked groggily, rubbing his eyes.

  "Three hours, my lord," came the soft reply.

  The one speaking was Ane, his personal servant, standing close by with the steady grace that came from years of loyal service to the family. She wasn’t considered old by the household’s standards, yet the faint lines on her face and the streaks of gray in her hair hinted at time’s quiet toll. Cleon could barely recall a time when she wasn’t there.

  "Why didn't you wake me up?" he asked, more out of habit than annoyance.

  "I judged you deserved that rest, my lord. You quite literally passed out from exhaustion; you need sleep," Ane replied, her tone firm but filled with care.

  Cleon opened his mouth to brush off her concerns, to dismiss them as he always did, but something in her eyes made him pause. She meant well, and for a moment, he found himself unable to argue.

  Noticing his silence, she offered a suggestion. "Lunch should be ready by now. How about you join your family for once?"

  "I think I—"

  "I will not take a 'no' for an answer, my lord," Ane interjected, perhaps overstepping her status, but she quickly softened her tone. "Lunch isn't just about eating; it's about bonding with your family." Her voice lowered even further, barely above a whisper, "I once entertained someone’s disinterest in those crucial bonding moments. I will not make the same mistake again, so please, my lord."

  Cleon remained silent, processing her words. Finally, with a resigned sigh, he pushed himself up from the desk. Standing tall, he made a half-hearted attempt to tidy the scattered papers, but quickly abandoned the effort. "I’ll be back anyway," he muttered to himself, letting the disarray be.

  As he exited the library, he made his way down the corridor toward the Great Hall, where the family typically gathered for lunch. As he approached a junction of hallways, he stumbled upon a pair of children, a boy and a girl aged ten and seven respectively, playing as they were escorted by two women. One was young, the other older.

  The little girl was the first to notice him. With a delighted squeal, she called out, "Father!" and dashed toward him, slipping past the older woman’s attempt to catch her.

  "Don't run in the hallway, you'll hurt yourself!" the older woman warned, but the girl was already out of reach.

  "If it isn't my princess," Cleon said warmly as he scooped the girl up into his arms. A moment later, the boy followed, calling him "Uncle!"

  "And if this isn't my little prince," Cleon added with a chuckle, lifting the boy up as well and embracing them both.

  "Are you going to have lunch with us, Father?" the girl asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

  "Yes, I am," Cleon replied, setting them down gently.

  The younger of the two women, his wife, approached with a smile that spoke of both relief and concern. He greeted her with a kiss, then turned to the older servant, the one who had been with the family for as long as he could remember, and nodded his acknowledgement. He remembered her often warning him, when he was a child, about running through these very halls.

  "You look like a mess," his wife remarked, her voice low enough for only him to hear, as he rearranged his tousled black hair.

  Cleon glanced back at Ane, who was following them at a respectful distance. "I just woke up," he confessed, his tone sheepish.

  "In the library again?" she asked, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

  "Yes," he admitted.

  "You should rest today—sleep early," she suggested, her voice soft but insistent.

  Cleon was about to protest, to argue that he had too much work to do, but the look on his wife's face stopped him. It was a look of genuine concern, and perhaps a bit of exasperation at his stubbornness. "Perhaps I should," he finally conceded.

  "You definitely should," she affirmed with a nod.

  In that moment his nephew chimed in with a wide grin, "Sleeping will make you as tall, Uncle!"

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes, that’s what mom said."

  Cleon chuckled as they continued toward the Great Hall.

  Lunch was set in the Great Hall, a grand space dominated by a long table where four others were already seated. At the head of the table sat a man in his late fifties, a portly figure with a bald head and ironically ample beard. To his right, a teenager, Cleon’s eldest nephew, sat quietly. On the man’s left was a woman, Cleon’s sister, who still retained much of her beauty despite the toll of many pregnancies. Their mother, aged but regal, sat beside her.

  "If it isn't my favorite brother in law," the portly man greeted as Cleon entered, his voice dripping with false warmth.

  Cleon forced a smile, replying, "I guess I finally do, brother." He moved to kiss his mother's forehead, then did the same for his sister. But when it came to his Brother in law, there was no such gesture.

  After greeting his elder sister’s son, Cleon took his seat at the opposite end of the table, far from where he once might have sat as the rightful head of the family. The seat now occupied by his Brother in law was the one that should have been his, but circumstances of this family had shifted, and so had his place in it. For years, he had made peace with this reality, but in recent times, he found himself reflecting more and more on how things had changed.

  Just as the thought crossed his mind, a deafening boom shattered the relative calm of the room. The walls on one side of the hall exploded inward, sending debris flying in all directions. The force of the blast was disorienting, leaving Cleon momentarily stunned. His ears rang, and he barely registered the panicked screams of his wife, his mother, his sister, his nephews and even his brother in law. Half-dazed, Cleon scanned the room, searching for injuries among his loved ones, but they seemed unharmed, just as stunned as he was.

  Then he looked toward the source of the commotion and saw a gaping hole in the wall behind his Brother in law, through which the sky and distant horizon were now visible. The realization that they had been spared only because of their distance from the blast slowly dawned on him.

  "What was that? An attack?" he wondered aloud, his mind racing as he instinctively reached for his daughter and wife, pulling them close to shield them from whatever danger was looming.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  As he lifted his daughter into his arms, a deep, guttural growl echoed through the hall, followed by a monstruous screech that sent shivers down his spine. Cleon froze, his blood running cold as a massive, sinuous head, halfway that of a serpent and that of a lizard, emerged through the hole in the wall. The creature’s scales were a deep, ominous red, its horns curving wickedly from its skull. Its enormous eyes, with vertical slits of black cutting through pools of molten gold, took in the room.

  The beast tried to force its way through the hole in the wall, its massive wings scraping against the edges. It let out a screech, releasing a foul stench that filled the room. An overwhelming urge to flee, to hide somewhere deep within the dungeon or in some distant corner of the castle, gripped Cleon, but he couldn’t move. None of them could.

  They were frozen in place, paralyzed by the sight of the monster suddenly calming, like a horse brought to heel by its rider. It lowered its head in a subservient gesture, allowing a figure to climb from its back. Like someone casually walking across a bridge, she made her way along the length of the dragon’s neck, then leaped down with a dramatic flourish. "Safe!" she exclaimed as she landed gracefully, immediately brushing off the dust from her clothes.

  Cleon’s heart nearly stopped as she turned to face them. She bore a face he knew well, one carrying the unmistakable features of their own bloodline. It should have brought comfort, a sense of familiarity. Instead, it filled him with pure, unadulterated dread.

  "Sorry for this mess," she apologized in a voice that made it clear she was anything but truly sorry. "Veilleuse-19 and I are still getting the hang of things. Flying is easy. Landing, not so much."

  She turned to the wyvern, the creature behind the chaos, and spoke to it with the effortless authority one might use to command a pet. “Fly off. I’ll summon you back when I’m done here.”

  The wyvern let out a deep, guttural rumble that reverberated through the room, like boulders grinding together. With a flick of what he imagined to be the creature's tail that shook the floor beneath them and a heavy flap of its wings, it withdrew its long neck from the hole, kicking up dust and debris as it took to the sky. Yet even as the monstrous creature vanished, his anxiety only grew. There was something about her presence that made the wyvern feel almost trivial.

  Turning around, her gaze swept over them, one by one, as if appraising each person’s worth, or lack of it. He instinctively pushed his wife and daughter behind him, knowing full well he was utterly worthless as a shield against someone like her. A flicker of relief surged when her eyes didn’t linger on them for long. But when her gaze landed on Ane, it stayed for a moment too long.

  Just then, the door burst open with a commotion. Armed guards spilled into the room, summoned by the crash and roar of the wyvern. "What happened? Is everyone alright?" they demanded, their eyes scanning the room, only to freeze when they noticed her. They immediately assumed she was the cause of the chaos, correctly, of course. Yet as he watched them draw their weapons, all he could see was a prelude to their swift and merciless deaths.

  Before he could act, ordering them to stop, his brother in law, moving with surprising swiftness, stepped forward. "Fools, lower your weapons!" His voice trembled with urgency. "Do you have any idea who you're standing before?" He pointed to the woman. "This is Arianna, the Seventh King of the Empire! Queen from Ironhaven to Eastbourne, from Middlesbrough to Dalhurst!"

  The guards hesitated, then, under the weight of that title, slowly lowered their swords. They would have been truly foolish not to.

  Cleon noticed, though, that she didn’t spare the guards a glance. Her attention was still focused on him and his family, as though the soldiers were beneath her notice. Then she spoke. "You seem to know quite a bit."

  It was as though his brother in law hadn’t expected to be acknowledged. He bowed low. "Of course, Your Highness. How could I not?"

  She moved toward him, closing the distance in less than a dozen steps. She stopped two meters away, her eyes locking onto him with an intensity that seemed to pierce straight through him. Even though Cleon wasn’t the one being glared at, he felt a creeping unease crawl up his spine.

  Trying to diffuse the tension, his brother in law smiled nervously. "Oh, right. How rude of me, I haven’t introduced myself properly. I am—"

  "You don’t need to introduce yourself," she interrupted. "I know who you are."

  "You do?" His voice wavered, unsure if he should be honored or terrified.

  "Rose from nothing to a low-ranked noble in Oakheart," she recited without pause, as if reading from a ledger. "Married into the declining Wei? family fourteen years ago, through the family’s then-recently widowed eldest daughter. Rumor has it you married her to elevate your status, or that you were ordered to marry into the family by the ruler of Graysteel."

  The brother in law's face paled, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "That’s—"

  "Do you want to know which of the two rumor I believe?" she asked, her voice smooth, yet laden with accusation.

  He didn’t dare respond. She answered for him. "The latter. Because I know for a fact that you’re a loyalist."

  The moment she spoke that word, "his sister sprang into action. She skirted around the table, retrieving her two sons, dragging them away from their father. She knew, just as Cleon did, that what came next would be bad.

  Eleven years ago, Graysteel had been ruled with an iron grip by the King and the royal family that had replaced the Wei?s after they surrendered their crown. Though ruled with severity, the era was one of peace and prosperity, until someone, an adventurer came with a wild claim that was the rightful king. She came with an ultimatum: either surrender the title and leave the kingdom under a year, or be remembered as a dynasty of false regents.

  The royal family, confident in their power, ignored her demands. A year passed, and the adventurer returned to collect her crown. A battle ensued, ending in the death of one of the Seven Kings of the Empire, the first recorded death of a King since Wei?’s ancestor a century prior. The adventurer’s prophecy was fulfilled, and she took Graysteel as her own.

  Arianna leaned in slightly, her towering form casting a shadow over Cleon’s brother in law. "Do you know what I do to loyalists?"

  The man opened his mouth to respond, but the words died on his lips, choked out by fear. He nodded instead, his face a mask of dread.

  After wiping the dynasty from the surface of the world, she didn’t stop. She hunted down the so-called loyalists. Though the word might suggest supporters of the old dynasty, in truth, it meant anyone she judged unworthy of her new kingdom. Many noble families had already fallen to her purge. So when she called him a loyalist, it wasn’t just an accusation. It was a death sentence.

  "Are you going to kill me?" his brother in law squeaked, his voice as small as his courage. His eyes were wide with terror, waiting for her answer.

  She smiled, slowly, sadistically, and reached out, tapping his shoulder gently. "That depends. Are you one of those loyalists who refuse to yield to their new Queen?"

  "No!" the man nearly shouted, his earlier fear vanishing in the face of survival. "I am not!"

  Arianna looked unconvinced, but she let him continue. Desperate to prove himself, he dropped to his knees. "I exist only to serve. Command me, and I will obey."

  She stared at him, still unimpressed, though it seemed, at least for the moment, that she wouldn’t turn him into an ice statue as he had heard she had done to others. Without another word, she turned and walked past him, leaving him kneeling in terrified silence.

  Her eyes now focused on Cleon. She stopped a few feet from him, looking him up and down with an unreadable expression. "You’ve grown old," she said, almost casually.

  Despite the mere seven-year difference between them, her words rang true. Cleon, with his graying hair and lined face, looked his age. She, however, appeared no older than twenty-five, a testament to the power of the skill that is a required of kings, longevity.

  "I am no king, Your Highness," Cleon replied, his voice steady. "It is only natural that I look this old. It’s been thirty-eight years since you last saw me."

  "Mh," she acknowledged, her gaze sliding over to the girl hiding behind him, and then briefly to his mother, before returning to him. "Do you want to be king?" she asked, her tone eerily reminiscent of how she had questioned his brother in law. "As our father and grandfather wished me to be king."

  Her words reminded him of a past they shared, the little they had in common. She was his sister. Yes. But that question was not one an elder sister would ask a younger brother. He glanced back at his wife, then his daughter, who was about the same age he had been when they last spoke, and finally at his mother. His mother, who despite hating Arianna more than any loyalist ever could, stood silent, too terrified to speak, for she knew, as they all did, that one wrong word could turn her into yet another of her victims.

  Looking back into those cold eyes, Cleon answered, not out of fear, but with sincerity. "I do not. I’ve failed Father’s dream. All I want now is to live, to laugh with my mother and sister, to share moments with my wife that we’ve yet to have, and to see my daughter become who she is meant to be."

  For the first time, Arianna’s expression softened into a smile, a genuine one, though its edges still held a hint of something sinister. She raised her hand, but not to touch his shoulder as she had with his brother in law. Instead, she simply lifted it halfway through, waiting.

  Cleon understood. He knelt before her, taking her hand and kissing it. The hand of the one who had brought about his father’s—-no his entire legacy’s downfall. But if this was the price to keep his daughter from losing her father, then he would pay it.