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Day One
“Your reign of terror ends today, Queen Maeve!”, the peasant called out, the sword in her hand nearly slipping from her grip. Ash, mud and the smell of sulphur clung to her skin, marking her as the one that had vanquished her minions.
The Queen, sat on her throne of bones and cold stone, merely tilted her head.
This… weakling… was nothing more than a starved farmer, clutching to a piece of metal that was half-rusted. Even her clothing, a simple tunic, was unravelling at the hem. Perhaps she came from the outskirts of her grand Empire? Near one of the borders? There had been fighting along the western front, bringing death to farmsteads, and a famine had wreaked havoc in the northern valley.
“My reign is endless”, the Queen proclaimed, her voice booming through the empty hall. She stood, looking down at the weakling before her. The Queen, even as a young girl, had always towered over men and women alike, looming larger than life. Blessed by the giants. Even the few steps from her throne to the marble floor did not change this by much. Her heels clicked loudly on the cold stone underneath them. Her armour, black as night, glittered like the scales of a dragon under the sunlight streaming through the large windows. Stained glass, depicting the great feats she had done to find her way to her throne. She stopped in front of the peasant girl.
“You will be crushed”, she promised her, unseeing eyes meeting the girl’s glowing ones. Moon-blessed, perhaps.Before she could even swing her sword, the Queen’s mace crushed her. Nothing but a stain of blood and the smell of burning flesh remained.
Day Three
The peasant girl stood once again at the entrance to the throne room, her chest heaving. She looked the same as she had before, only now her half-rusted sword was one the Queen knew to be her soldier’s. Stolen from some chest, no doubt. Her eyes, still glowing, were cast down, onto the smudged but still very much visible stain of blood she had left.
“Y-Your reign of terror ends… today!”, she called out, her grip on the sword tightening.
Queen Maeve stood, looking down on her.
“My reign is endless, foolish girl. Have you not learned?”
The peasant’s knuckles turned as white as her eyes. It was answer enough.
The blade found purchase on the Queen’s thigh guard, screeching over the metal as she stumbled after the momentum of her swing. The mace came down on her, staining the floor with yet another pool of blood.
Day Five
Tears were streaming down the girls face as she stepped foot in the throne room once again. The Queen could not say whether from fear or fury.
“Your… reign of terror… ends today!”
“My reign is endless. How many times must you hear it for you to believe it?”, the Queen asked, her heel clicking on the nearly spotless floor. The only stains were two puddles of dried blood, bleached from the sunshine.
“I can do it!”, the girl yelled, the scream sounding hoarse.
“As you wish”, the Queen said, her macing cracking into the floor underneath the peasant’s feet. The enchanted marble did not splinter.
Day Seven
The girl still carried the sword from the Queen’s own men in her hand, but now she wore a servant’s tunic as well. Yet this one looked odd. The stitchings of suns had been removed, sloppily so, and replaced with crescent moons. Moon-blessed indeed.
“Why do you return?”, the Queen asked. “Did you not suffer enough already?”
“I can do better! I know it!”
“Die better at my hands? Again and again?”, she sighed, her mace already poised to crush the girl underneath it.
This time, she dodged, slipping on the marble floor. Her glowing eyes were wide with fear as she met the Queen’s, the mace having cracked into the space she had been only a moment before. The next strike of the weapon caught her square in the back, cracking her spine in half as she tried to get up again.
The Queen stood, watching the pool of blood expand as the body, as it always did, dissolve into particles of cool light. The Moon had finally chosen a champion. A pathetic one, the Queen thought, sitting back down onto her throne.
Day Thirteen
She could hear the girl’s steps as she climbed the stairs from the entrance hall to the throne room. She had come back twice more, making today the seventh time. It was unlikely the girl had come from one of the farmsteads to the west, her skin as pale as snow and her accent a heavy one. Northern, then.
“Why do you keep coming?”, the Queen asked, her mace balanced on her lap as she sat the throne. “Your quest brings you nothing but pain, little girl.”
“Your reign of terror—“
“Is it?”, the Queen asked, standing and staring down at the peasant. “Have I waged war against your people? Have I burned your fields? Have I caused your suffering?”
Her glowing eyes dimmed only for a moment before they narrowed in resolve, the tip of the sword directed at the Queen’s heart.
The Queen sighed, walking down the steps. The girl dodged three strikes before the mace caught her shoulder, crushing the bone underneath. But the hit did not kill her. The girl’s breathing was wet, every cough bloody.
“I give you mercy”, the Queen said, the tip of her plated finger touching the girl’s forehead. She went up in bright white flames, burning even her blood to ash.
Day Fifteen
That day, the girl did not come.
“How quiet”, the Queen said into the silence. She sat her throne as she had done for many years, so long she had given up counting. Her eyes were drawn to the third window on the left side of her hall. The stained glass showed her, in her younger years, as she stood triumphant over the corpse of a black dragon. It had terrorised the northern lands, so much so that their King had come to asks for her help. She had gone and slayed the dragon, in return the King had knelt and given her his crown. The northern Kingdom was no more, the people now her people.
The sound of a throat being cleared turned her eyes to the centre of the hall.
“My Liege”, the man said, bowing deep, “I have done as you asked and come with answers.” He was one of the few true humans that remained at the castle, most replaced with the made Nephilim.
Her hand twitched, a mere gesture for him to continue.
“What was reported to us as bandits extorting the local populace is a group of royalists that wish for the King’s family to be reinstated and for the northern regions to become independent. They have burned the fields of those who denied support for the cause. I suggest we send a force of men—“
A wave of her hand made the man go silent. Another and he bowed again before leaving her alone in the throne room.
Day Seventeen
“I had thought you had given up”, she said, taking the last step from her throne.
“Never”, the girl replied defiantly, head held high. Her tunic had been replaced with simple leather armour, a hood now covering her pale hair and casting a shadow over her face. The glowing eyes were staring back at the Queen, a silent challenge.
The Queen huffed a laugh.
“Entire armies have done less to disturb my silence and the peace of the realm than you.”
“Missed me, have you?”, the girl replied cheekily.
A frown marred the Queen’s face, hidden behind the veil attached to her crown.
“I have not.”
“I’d missed this”, the girl said, almost quiet enough that in any other room, where voices did not echo, it would have remained unheard.
“Do not presume I will go easy on you, girl”, the Queen warned, raising her mace.
The girl curtsied before her.
“What a lowly end to our fight that would be, Queen Maeve. I will give it my all and hope you in turn will as well.”
Instead of a reply, the Queen pulled at the magic thrumming deep within her. A circle of runes glowed underneath her, blinding like the rays of the sun. A heartbeat later, a mirrored circle appeared underneath the girl, flames erupting and burning cloth and flesh the same. Only silence remained.
Day Twenty-One
The girl no longer carried one of the Queen’s swords. This one glowed the same as her eyes, a gentle blue-ish white.
“A divine sword?”, the Queen asked, stopping almost in reach of the weapon.
“I found it. My— It should serve me well. I will end your reign today.”
The cold metal burned through the Queen’s armour, leaving her flesh numb as if submerged in icy waters. She had not felt pain like this for quite some while, having nearly forgotten what it felt like to be touched by the moon’s light. She swung her mace, forcing the girl to step back and out of reach of both their weapons. Her magic roared, the blinding light shining through the throne room. The girl cursed, stumbled, but managed to evade the flames erupting where she had stood before. The Queen gave her no moment to gather herself, sending another spell her way. The light masked her lunge, the mace breaking the girl’s ribs and back. Her body landed with a thud at the steps of the throne.
Her body had started to remain longer, each time. The Queen did not dare speculate why, looking down at the meek girl. She had seen no more than twenty winters, she was sure of it. The freckles on her face spoke of a childhood spent in the sun, as rare as it was in the northern lands.
The Queen kneeled, placing her hand on the girl’s shoulder. The flames took her away, to wherever she would awake again.
Day Twenty-Five
“Why did you not come?”, she asked, head bowed. The white knuckles on the sword’s hilt betrayed her fury.
“Why should I have come?”, the Queen asked in return.
The girl said no more, lunging with her blessed sword for the Queen’s heart. The tip of the blade scraped over the armour with a deafening screech, follow by the crack of the mace hitting the floor.
“You have grown”, the Queen said, summoning the sun’s flames. The girl slipped, evading the spell but nearly falling over the throne’s stairs.
“You haven’t changed”, the girl threw back, anger in her voice. “Your reign of terror—“
The mace crashed into the side of the throne, not even splintering the bones.
“I have told you before. It was not I or my men that burned your fields.”
“But you could have done something!”, she screamed, lunging again. Metal kissed metal and the numbness spread along the Queen’s arm.
The mace came down, crushing her leg. A scream of pain echoed through the room.
“Perhaps. But I cannot stop what has already happened, little girl.”
Sobs were her only answer.
The Queen knelt, her hand pushing the hood off the girl’s head to reveal her face to the sunlight at the Queen’s back. Glowing eyes, filled with tears, were defiantly staring back at her.
“Your people are the ones that can stop your people. Only when they cannot, shall I leave my castle to bring the sun’s punishment upon them.”
She placed her hand, large enough to cover the girl’s entire face, gentle over her eyes, denying the moon to be witness. White flames licked over the girl’s skin, leaving nothing but ash behind. A breeze would carry it into the wind and sky, far away.
Day Thirty-One
The girl had not come again since that day, though soon reports had reached the palace, speaking of a moon-maiden that had come north to rid the land of the murderers and thieves that had burned the harvest and the farms. More and more common people flocked to her, standing and fighting at her side whenever the rebels came down from the mountains.
And if the sun had broken through the clouds in the midst of a blizzard that had spelled doom for the maiden and her people, no one had mentioned that it had saved them all.
Day Thirty-Seven
“And yet you return to challenge me”, the Queen sighed, already standing to face the moon-maiden that had returned to her.
“The people don’t need monarchs to rule them.”
“Perhaps. But here I am, the Endless Queen. My reign is eternal.”
The flames licked along the girl’s side, burning and melting the leather and cloth. Yet she still stood, unharmed. She struck, her blade scratching over the blackened cuirass and cutting a strand off the Queen’s hair. In response, the Queen lunged, barrelling the girl over and throwing her hard onto the unforgiving ground. The mace cracked down, missing by a few inches, only for the light and flames to erupt again.
A small pile of ash remained.
Day Forty-Five
“Enough!”, the Queen thundered, throwing her mace to the ground. “You wish to see my true face? Enlightened, radiant? You shall have it!”
Light as bright as the sun itself erupted from deep within her, burning away her bones, veins, muscles, skin and cloth. It pulsed, with every beat of her undying heart, flames licking over her new form. They never felt hot, as they should be, but more akin to gentle kisses of a lover long forgotten.
“Die!”, she screeched, her voice nothing more but a deafening ring in the girl’s ears, A pulse of light came from the Queen, touching the girl and moving past like a shock-wave. It left behind nothing. The moon-maiden had burned within a moment, evaporating without so much time as to scream.
Day Fifty-One
“Why do you return again and again, only to die by my hand?”, the Queen asked quietly, gently lifting the girl’s body. She was so small in her arms. Her head rested against the dark plate cuirass, her feet touching her hip. The shoes that she had gotten, well-crafted boots, were now nothing more than scraps. Smouldered at the edges, one buckle completely melted, the flat heel on the left one cracked. She pressed her against her chest, concentrating on the thumping of her heart deep within. A moment later, bright white flames ate away the dead body. A thin layer of ash clung to the Queen’s armour.
Day Fifty-Three
The glow in her eyes had paled, so much so that the Queen, now standing right before her, could tell that her moon-maiden’s original eyes were the colour of honey. Gold, like her own were, once the sun escaped her heart.
“It would have been better for you to stay away”, Maeve said softly, her hand hovering next to the woman’s face. She could hold it all in one hand, if she so wished. “The moon’s blessing is fading, it seems.” Perhaps because she had glimpsed her true form.
The moon-maiden lowered her eyes. Perhaps in shame.
“You have a gentle heart”, Maeve said, one of her fingers tilting the woman’s chin just enough that their eyes met again. “A brave heart. You do not shy from challenging me, no matter how much pain I caused you. But if you continue as you have, you will die and not return.”
“I— I don’t care.”
“You do”, she chuckled, though there was no humour in her voice. “If you cared not for whether you died or lived, you would not have gone back north. Has my true form changed your mind, perhaps? You have witnessed me, in all my glory and all my ugliness. The radiant Dawn, they called me. I have burned many a men and woman with only a gaze. Yet here you are.” Looking at her.
“Your— Your reign of tyranny…”
“Is it one?”, Maeve asked, letting her hand fall back onto the mace’s handle. “I have caused harm to none but you.”
Her moon-maiden said no more.
Deep below the palace, a man looked up at the colourful windows of his Queen’s throne room, only to be blinded by a light so bright it rivalled the sun. It was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving him blinking away the spots in his eyes. Perhaps he had only imagined it.
Day Fifty-Seven
The cold blade embedded in her stomach was the most severe wound yet and she could already feel the sun burning within her veins. But she halted, raising her armoured hand to hold her moon-maidens face.
“Do you still believe in your quest, my little one?”
The silence that answered her was a pained one, with tears swimming in the woman’s faintly glowing golden eyes.
“I have not shed my shell in a long time. I have fought beasts and monster just as much as I have fought armies and men, centuries ago. It is, perhaps, unbecoming, that I cannot control it now. Forgive me.”
Her lips, warm as a summer’s day, brusher her moon-maidens forehead for just a moment before her heart erupted into rays of pure light and flames. She burned, and so did her tears.
Day Seventy-Nine
Her maiden had not returned after that day, but neither had she gone north. The Queen’s men had searched high and low, east and west, every inch of the capital and every field stretching to the borders of the Empire. But none brought back news of a sighting of her moon-maiden.
In der darkest moments the Queen feared that the moon’s blessing had been too weak already, simply not enough to awaken her once more.
In her blackest moment, she could feel her heart turn cold.
Day Eighty-Three
The Queen stood on one of the small balconies, looking down onto the sprawling city that had formed around her palace centuries ago. Memories of a time long gone resurfaced. She could remember every soldier that had stood, fought and died by her side as they faced the Eternal army of Dusk and Twilight.
The face she could not remember was that of her sister. Of course, diaries, journals and manuscripts had survived the toll of time, speaking of her pale hair—as pale as spun from the glow of the moon— and her eyes—the colour of ice—, but none of the soldiers turned poets and scholars had known her sister. How could they? They had been the last of the giants, blessed by their kins blood to avenge them. But somewhere, somewhen, something had gone wrong.
She remembered that day. The sun had not yet risen, fog was covering their camping ground and in the southern sky, one could see the faint image of a crescent moon. Maeve had searched for her alone, at first, but soon their entire army started to spread through the ancient forest. It took little time to find the ancient temple, overgrown and long forgotten.
The Moon’s Basin, nothing more than a shell of a once grand building. Yet the pool had been full of water, clean as it should not have been. And in Maeve’s reflection, she saw her sister, the moon in hand.
And then Dusk and Twilight came.
Perhaps a dozen or less had survived the ambush. Maeve herself had broken her ankle, her sword-hand and her nose, though the last one from being throw onto the stone floor of the temple. She had prayed, then. Quiet, hopeful. Her sister had ascended, had taken the moon and the night. But help did not come in the form of gentle light, a cooling touch and the darkness of the eve.
It had come in the burst of light and flames so hot Maeve had felt her flesh melt off her bone.
She shook her head, throwing a last glance at the busy streets below. Merchants and travellers from all over the Empire had come, to celebrate. The Festival of the Sunrise—the four-hundred-and-tenth anniversary of her defeat of Dusk and Twilight— would being on the morrow, after all.
Day Ninety-One
A roar went through the assembled crowd as the Queen stepped onto the pyre. With all eyes on her, the Queen’s own were surveying the crowd. Searching for a mop of pale hair, cut short, and honey-coloured eyes. She did not find her.
With just a touch of her, the logs burned. Smoke rose into the air, darkening the sky. The people cheered as the ancient symbols of Dusk and Twilight burned, wilting under the heat.
The Queen turned, in the last moment thinking she had seen a familiar face amidst the crowd. But it was not her. The woman had golden hair, bleached from the sun, and eyes the colour of copper. Disappointment bloomed deep within her chest.
Her sister was a cruel goddess. Cruel and distant and selfish. With a curse on her tongue, Maeve returned to her home, the Sunlight Palace.
Day Ninety-Nine
“Have you missed me?”, a voice asked quietly, almost cheekily.
Three steps, no more, and Maeve stood before her maiden. She wore no armour, held no weapon. Only a smile was on her face, soft and shy and full of hope.
“I have missed you, Tara”, the Queen said, kneeling. She rested her forehead against the woman’s. “I have missed you like nothing before.”