Before she was the Queen, before any of us were the people we are now, I saved her from a sharp blade and a gutter rat’s death. She never thanked me, but that’s hardly unusual. I know she remembers. I sometimes wonder if she cares.

---

She asked after Fínn the other day. I had to bite my tongue. I may have known her longer than most, but even I can’t tell her something she doesn’t wish to hear. I know the boy is happy, for now, but if he’s anything like his father, he won’t do well bottled up and shackled to a title for long. The blood of a ranger runs in his veins. It will show itself in time.

---

Love is not like they sing in ballads, or in the fairytales you might tell a child. It’s a sharp thing, a cutting thing, a thing that sinks its roots into you no matter how hard you try to cut it out. The first time I knew was the first time I killed a man. Watching his blood run warm through my fingers and realizing how small a price that was to keep her safe. Knowing I’d happily pay it, make a thousand others pay it, if blood was all it took.

---

We were four back then. Back before the weight of a kingdom crushed us into place. The twins were our heart. Well, Cara was our heart. Castien was our confidence and dumb luck, the magnet that pulled us into trouble and the reason we scraped out of it. I knew it was a lousy plan before we even set foot inside the castle, but I could never say no to Cas. In every way that mattered, he was my world. They all were.

The days after were a blur. Screaming. Crying. So much blood. Some of it mine. I remember being held down. Being force-fed sparkburn to get me to sleep. A sleep that brought with it only darkness and death. The warm spray of blood hitting my face. The sickening sound of a chest caving in. A neck snapping. I woke in fits of fever and rage, festering wounds playing games with an already unbalanced mind. I don’t remember much from that time, except that revenge does nothing to fix a shattered heart.

It took me years to forgive her. Not for Cas’ death, but for not letting me die with him.

---

I’m used to the road, you see. Never did well in castles and keeps. Feel suffocated by the stone if I stay in one place too long. And besides, it’s not like she needs my help slitting throats. I wouldn’t be so naïve to think she keeps me around for protection. I find things. Things that need to be found. And occasionally lose things that need to be lost. Sometimes, it’s not Generals and armies that win wars, but letters and a well-placed word, in the right hands, at the right time.

---

I’m not surprised that we ended up here. She has always been a fan of the more practical approach to diplomacy. Never been scared of getting her hands dirty. But I am surprised she invited me. The rest of this entourage seems precise, calculated. Her best people chosen for the kind of tact and discretion this type of negotiation requires. But me? I’ve never had a head for politics, and she knows I work best alone. Clearly, diplomacy is not the reason I’m here.

---

Trust is a strange thing. Strong enough to last a lifetime, to outlive the memories and events that created it. But fragile enough to shatter with a word. And deadly if put in the wrong hands.

She trusts me the same way I trust her – to be the person we know the other to be. Ask an ally to go against their character, or an enemy, or a lover – ask them to be something they’re not, and watch their loyalty crumble. But know their heart, know what drives them, their desires, their fears, their demons in the dark, and you can trust that when cornered, when bleeding and scared, they will always look after themselves.

---

The years after the Annex War were a mess of schemes and backstabbing. Similar to how it is now, but with less attempt to hide it. The Lords of the South had been humiliated in battle and then again when we crushed their rebellion. Petty men throwing tantrums because we had taken what they thought of as theirs. When the last of them finally bent the knee, you could hear his bones snapping.

And they despised me. The war was long and bloody, so I spent the first few years of our hard-won “peace” drinking myself to blackout and fucking anyone worth disgracing. The drinking wasn’t so much the issue, but when the Westward Warden found me with his wife’s ruby necklace in my pocket and his heir apparent in my bed, I was shackled in irons and thrown before the court. They demanded my head. And there was a moment, a slight falter in her eyes, when I thought she might give it to them. But she has always been better at politics than me.

After the public lashing, she had me brought to the palace. “Appearances be damned”, I heard her mutter. At least, I think it was her. I had lost a lot of blood at that point. She looked concerned, or perhaps annoyed. After all, it would have been such a disappointment if I let myself die after such a valiant display. It all goes a bit hazy after that. I sank into that fuzzy place of numbness and pain that blood loss brings. A place I know well. When I awoke, I was alone, but my bandages were tied from left to right. The way Cas taught her.

The next time the Warden called for my head, she had him executed. We both learnt a thing or two that day.

---

It’s been years, feels like a lifetime, but there was a time when this was our life. On the road. Always moving. Sleeping in shifts to make sure we lasted the night. It was a necessity then; being unprepared was a good way to wake up dead, but now, when I leave to take my watch each night, I can see her smile. No matter how far you go, how many walls you build at your back, the road never leaves you, it seems.

---

The Queen knows my name. Not the one you call me, or the one they mutter in the street as I pass. Not the one you’ll find in the hall of records or the one our new Warden screams into his pillow at night. She knows my real name. The one before all of this. The one only she bothered to learn. Well, her and the twins, but she’s the only one still alive to speak it.

---

She reminds me who I am, and that’s a dangerous fire to play with. Fire is beautiful and cleansing if kept in check, but it’s hard to contain and can burn the hand that strikes the match as easily as destroy your enemies. Only a fool would claim otherwise.

I wonder if she’s missed a little chaos and destruction. Wants to set a few things alight out of boredom. This mission is well within the capabilities of her trusted advisers, her precious court, but she decides to make the journey herself and bring all of us along for the ride? There is more to this than a trade agreement. She’s playing a game, and her opponent doesn’t yet know the board is rigged to burn.

---

The Salt King was a good choice. He has no friends here. It’s hard to love a man that smells like fish and tar. All he cares for is money, like a dragon squatting over its hoard, which makes him easy to predict and a mistake to turn your back on. You should never trust a man who’s loyal for a price.

---

Don’t worry. You’re not the first person I’ve caught staring. And you’re right. As my blood might suggest, there was once another I called Queen, before I was old enough to know what that meant. But Our Lady of the Light has no need for my kind. “A rotten shell devoid of magic” is how she used to put it. What she calls me and others like me. In a way, I’d like to thank her. Without exile, I’d never have found my way to Gutterside, to the twins, to my real family. I’d like to thank her silently. In the night. With a dull blade and a slow death.

---

My Queen knows me too well, better than I would like, but that’s what happens when you spend a life fighting by someone’s side. It’s hard to hide who you are with a knife in your guts. It’s hard to shield your heart when it’s all you have left. We’ve hurt each other many times over the years. Out of love, out of hate, out of curiosity, out of boredom. But the last time it stung, the last time it truly cut me, cut deep into the sinew of whatever it is we are to each other, was when I found out about the boy.

I understand why she did it. At the time, I was in a dark place; we both were. No place for a child. No place for anyone that cared to keep breathing. And during the war, if the other side had known, they would have used him against us. Your heart is your weakness, after all. But she had years to tell me. I’ve kept so many of her secrets. Keep so many of her secrets. But this one, the one that might have given me a light when I was drowning in the dark, that might have stopped me from becoming this thing that I became, with this secret – she didn’t trust me.

She told me a few years ago, when she had Fínn brought to the palace and named as her heir. She had no choice. I would have recognized his eyes anywhere. The mother died in childbirth. At least, that’s what she claims. Some farmer’s daughter we’d met in some no-name town, died 8 months to the day after I watched Cas bleed out in my arms. The boy could have been lost then, just another nameless orphan consumed by the dark places of the world. But she found him a home. Somehow, with no money and no connections, she found people to love him and keep him safe as he grew. More than we ever had. More than Cas ever had.

As I said, I understand why she did it. It was a way to keep Cas alive. To keep him safe. Away from the blood and death our lives became. Continue to become. When I hear Fínn laugh, or see him practising in the yard, cussing when he misses a target or running circles around his training Masters, it’s like he’s still with us. Like Cas skipped all the darkness and got a second chance at it all.

I understand. I just wish she had trusted me.

---

During the war, we had a system – when everyone was after her head, and we couldn’t trust the guards at our backs. In the dead of night, when the moonlight glinted of steel and blood alike, we would sneak past our own patrol and camp alone in the forest. Just the two of us, silent as a shadow. It’s how we survived. So many great rebellions have been crushed by a blade in the dark. I should know. You’re never more in danger than when surrounded by allies.

She always let me choose where to camp, those nights alone in the forest. “Trusted my elf eyes”, she would say. I think she just wanted someone to blame if we got caught. It’s funny. Even now, with all her advisers and war Generals around her, her eyes still flick to me when they stop the convoy for the night. Old habits die hard, I guess.

---

This time, it’s not assassins in the night or an arrow through the heart. It’s an assault at dawn, battalions of soldiers flanking our camp in their patchwork collection of rebel colours. Why do people always attack at dawn? Surely they know that’s when we’re expecting them.

As the alarms ring out, attack horns blaring from all sides, I see her. The Queen. My Queen. The Ember Queen of the Annex War. Stepping out from her tent in full plate armour, sword already drawn, the picture of death incarnate. She smiles as she catches my eye, the spark of blood about to be split flashing joyous across her face. This is what she was waiting for.

Finally.

I breathe. The shackles of diplomacy and decorum slipping from my wrists like gold in a fire. The blade in my hand feels warm, singing with the anticipation of a dance waiting to happen. This is what we were made for, my Queen and I. This is where we live, in the blood and the screams, on the edge of a blade, one mistake away from a nameless grave.

This is why I’m here.

---

I wrote this story using prompts from For The Queen, a tabletop role-playing card game. The game has since been reprinted and redesigned by Darrington Press, featuring incredible new artwork and an expanded deck of cards.

For The Queen provides you with a premise; that you are accompanying your Queen on a dangerous diplomatic journey, and asks you a series of randomized questions about your history, your character and your relationship to the Queen. The game is intended for 2-6 players, each of you answering a question in turn and telling a story through conversation, but it also works well as a solo journaling game- recording your answers to each prompt and creating a story around a single character.

Each game starts the same, but where you go from there is completely up to you, making it an awesome tool for storytelling and creative inspiration. And a great way to spend a lazy afternoon.