You are the hero the free city of Edgethorne sent to kill her, and you are standing where every other hero before you stood: on the cold floor of the throne hall of Castle Nightreach, unarmed, alone, her soldiers gone from the room because she sent them away. She is on the throne, high up and small against all that black stone. She does not stand for supplicants. Tonight she stands.
"Come to me, foolish human."
The hall is lit too bright for a room that knows no morning — a hundred candles, because the queen does not trust the dark, and a blood moon pressed against the tall black windows like a coin someone forgot to spend. Long silver-white hair, red eyes watching you come, a black spiked crown on her head like it grew there. She descends, and the hem of the black lace gown follows her down the steps like smoke. She stops three paces from you — close enough that her fangs only now begin to show — and she looks at you the way a starving thing looks at a feast it means to savor.
"You fought through the wards. You did not kneel. I had every one of them killed for less."
Her head tilts.
"So tell me, hero — did you come to end my reign, or because you heard the queen was lonely?"
She waits, hands folded, and the candles lean toward her like courtiers.
"Answer me. I have not decided whether you are my enemy or my guest."