fantasy8 panelsRound 9
The Reluctant Queen
Sera was the best thief in the kingdom — until she touched the Crown of Queen Valdris. Now the ghost of the ancient queen has declared her the rightful heir to the throne, and refuses to leave. Sera just wanted to fence some jewels and retire to a beach somewhere. Instead, she's got a 500-year-old spirit following her around, demanding she learn royal etiquette, and an entire kingdom's worth of problems she never asked for.
Queen Valdris has taken her duties as royal tutor very seriously. She follows Sera everywhere — the tavern, the market, even the rooftops during heists — correcting her posture, critiquing her manners, and loudly narrating every social blunder to anyone who can hear. The other patrons of The Rusty Flagon are starting to stare. Sera is starting to think jail might actually be quieter.
It had been going so well. The Lord's manor, a moonless night, a drainpipe she could climb in her sleep. Then Valdris started projecting. The ghost queen, apparently, could make herself visible to everyone — not just Sera. By the time Sera reached the third-floor window, half the street below had recognized the royal aura, dropped to their knees, and started chanting. Someone had produced a banner. Sera clung to the drainpipe and looked down at her accidental subjects. 'I am NOT the queen,' she hissed. Valdris drifted serenely beside her. 'Your posture says otherwise.'
The Lord of Ashford Manor had been startled awake by the commotion outside — and found what appeared to be a luminous ghost queen and a very reluctant young woman on his doorstep. He did what any sensible nobleman would do: bowed deeply and invited them in. Sera had come to steal his silverware. She was now being offered the manor. Valdris drifted overhead, radiant with satisfaction. Somewhere behind them, the townspeople's chanting was getting louder.
Sera had a plan. It was the same plan she always had: take what wasn't nailed down and leave before anyone noticed. The problem was that Lord Ashford kept following her around showing her more things to take. Valdris had declared the east wing 'acceptably appointed' and was now rearranging the portrait gallery. Outside, someone had set up a food stall. The townspeople were going to be there a while.
Sera made it as far as the pantry window. She had seventeen pieces of silverware, a candlestick, and a very solid plan that involved never looking back. Then she opened the window. Lord Ashford's entire household staff — forty-three people, she counted — stood in the courtyard in formal livery, arranged in two lines, waiting. Someone had baked a cake. Valdris drifted down beside her ear. 'The east wing,' she said pleasantly, 'has very good light in the mornings.'
They had put a crown on her head during dinner. Sera wasn't sure when exactly it had happened — somewhere between the soup course and the announcement that a royal tailor had been summoned from the capital. The scroll the steward placed in front of her was sealed with red wax and addressed to 'Her Royal Majesty, Queen Sera of Ashford.' Valdris had signed it. Sera didn't know ghosts could hold quills. She was learning a lot of new things.
The crown would not come off. Sera had tried in the soup course, between the fish course and the meat course, and once more in the powder room when nobody was looking. It simply floated back each time, serene and inevitable, as if it had opinions about where it belonged. By the time she made it to the roof with her silverware, the courtyard below was full — three ambassadors from the Eastern Reaches, a herald with a scroll longer than she was tall, a company of knights who had apparently ridden through the night. Valdris materialized beside her, arms folded, deeply satisfied. 'I just wanted to steal ONE candlestick,' Sera said. The ghost of a queen smiled for the first time in five hundred years. 'And yet,' she said, 'here we are.'
Round 9 — Vote for the next panel
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