"It's a Bard bird," she rasped, lifting a crooked finger. "From the Greystone Valley Divide."
Mellirion turned slowly, her expression a mask of composed royalty, unreadable and still. Her emerald eyes settled on the small creature now perched atop the windowsill—its feathers a stunning gradient of sky blues fading into deep violets. It shimmered faintly in the morning light, a creature too intelligent to be just a bird. The Bard bird ruffled its wings, then let out a single, melodic cry—clear, haunting, and heavy with meaning.
Granny P. stood beside her, brittle as parchment, her voice dragging like wind through gravel.
"It's your sister."
Mellirion's gaze did not shift. Her lips pressed into a fine line, unreadable yet tense, as the Bard bird tilted its head in her direction—watching her. Waiting.
My sister…
The thought echoed within her like a forgotten verse. It stirred something cold and long-silenced in her chest.
The Bard bird sang again—this time softer. Mournful. The sound wound through the throne room like a ribbon of old memory, curling up her spine, chilling the back of her neck.
She took a step forward, her gaze unbreaking. Her voice was almost a breath.
"…Veliranya."
Not a question. A name drawn from the marrow of the past.
The Bard bird dipped its beaked head in a slow, solemn bow—as if to confirm.
Outside, across the gleaming spires and moonstone bridges of Olive Dale, a Griffin Chariot descended with all the ceremony of stormlight made flesh. Its wings beat against the sky in slow, imperial rhythm before settling at the aerial landing station with a hiss of wind and magic.
From within, she stepped out.
Veliranya.
Her presence was like perfume too sweet for the air, clinging and sharp. She wore red silk cut daringly against her dusky elven skin, the fabric slashed and draped like war paint and seduction stitched into one. A single white strand curled through her golden brown hair, deliberate and unhidden. Her magenta eyes mirrored Mellirion's—but where Mellirion's gaze was tempered and regal, Veliranya's burned with a theatrical sharpness, half amusement, half challenge.
Her presence struck like incense too rich for mortal air, a scent that lingered in the throat and whispered down the spine. Her clothing—or what she deigned to wear of it—was less a gown and more a declaration. Blood-red silk clung to her like a lover, slit high up one thigh to the hipbone and so deeply across the chest it revealed the inner curve of both breasts, the underside of one exposed like a dare, barely veiled beneath gauze-thin crimson mesh. No corset, no modesty lace, no jewels to distract. Just skin, confidence, and danger arranged like art.
Her dusky elven skin caught the sunlight like polished bronze dipped in oil. Smooth. Unblemished. Battle-sculpted. She walked with the ease of a woman who knew precisely how the light curved over her hips—hips that swayed with the weight of a thousand rumors and more than one buried dagger.
The fabric draped low at her back, nearly to the base of her spine, offering glimpses of the twin dimples above her rear—teasing without ever tumbling into vulgarity. Her ass was firm and high, the kind of shape built from saddle hours and bed games both. The silk shifted around it like a tide refusing to let go.
Her bare legs were long and sculpted, adorned with leather garters holding twin throwing knives etched with spells in a forbidden tongue. She wore no shoes—her steps silent, feline, as though the world itself cushioned her passage.
A single white streak ran through her wild, golden-brown hair—a deliberate mark of age, or power, or both. It fell in waves down her back, tangled slightly, the way only someone too proud to let servants touch her could carry.
And her eyes—those sharp, magenta eyes—locked with Mellirion's like twin mirrors finally recognizing themselves. But where Mellirion's held history, Veliranya's held appetite. Her gaze dragged across the hall, and every man it passed forgot how to breathe. One choked on his wine. Another dropped his quill. A young page turned away, blushing violently.
She didn't bow. She didn't curtsy.
She stood—hips cocked, shoulder slightly turned, as if to show more of one breast by sheer defiance of court protocol—and she smiled.
That slow, predatory smile that whispered:
"You thought I wouldn't come." Behind her, the griffin shifted—its claws scraping the marble, wings twitching, and feathers shimmering with a faint shimmer of spell-light. It let out a growl like a grinding stone—not hostile, but deeply possessive.
Veliranya began to walk. And the court watched her like a storm front made flesh.
Mellirion did not move. She did not speak.
But her jaw, just slightly, tensed.
And from the shadows above the royal gallery, even the gods seemed to hold their breath.
Veliranya stepped lightly onto the polished stone floor, her heels whispering against marble as she walked beneath the stained glass arches of the throne hall. Her red silk swayed behind her like a dancing flame, drawing the eyes of courtiers and ministers alike—some in awe, some in disgust, all unable to look away.
Mellirion's gaze narrowed, her voice like a blade hidden in velvet.
"Oh, the concubine of crows herself," she said coolly, lips curled just slightly. "Tell me, Veliranya, what brings you here? Trying to find another husband in Olive Dale?"
Veliranya's smile didn't falter. It deepened.
"Tempting thought," she mused, her voice like warm wine, smooth but with bite. "Men, dwarves, orcs—they die so easily. Only elves endure... until they choose not to."
She took a step closer, the red silk falling perfectly into place over her bare shoulders.
"And those 'crows' you mock," she said, her tone suddenly dipping low, iron beneath honey, "are the Crimson Senate."
A hush fell over the chamber. Even the birds outside quieted.
Mellirion raised a brow, unshaken.
Veliranya's smirk didn't falter. If anything, it deepened—her teeth catching on her lower lip like she was holding back laughter or something far more dangerous.
She stepped further into the throne room, hips swaying like a metronome set to war drums, letting the scandal of her silk-cut curves speak before her mouth did.
"Oh, sweet Mellirion," she purred, her voice low and warm as poisoned honey, "still biting with your mouth when you should be worrying about who's biting at your daughter's ankles."
The room went still—like a blade half-pulled from a sheath. The nobles flinched but didn't look away.
Mellirion raised a brow, her jaw sharp, her green eyes colder than ever.
"You always were a dramatic whore," she said, voice dry as dust, "but don't think throwing your cunt at the Senate makes you dangerous. It makes you used."
Veliranya's smile vanished in a blink. The fire in her eyes flared magenta-bright.
She stepped closer, heels clicking like countdowns across the marble.
"Where is my favorite niece?" She asked the queen
"Favorite niece??...You only have one niece if our father didn't have a secret child before he died & that secret child had a daughter." Mellirion is sarcastic as always.
"Come on, where is little Paliv?" Veliranya "She is already in her time of flowering, right?"
Veliranya's smile vanished in the space between heartbeats. Her magenta eyes flared—bright and sharp like a blade fresh from the forge.
Each step she took echoed like a countdown across the marble, heels clicking with precision as she approached the dais.
"Where is my favorite niece?" She asked, her voice cool but laced with something... hungry.
Mellirion didn't move from her throne. Her eyes narrowed, lips curling into the barest smirk.
"Favorite niece?" she repeated with mock sweetness. "You only have one niece, unless Father sired some secret bastard before dying, and that child somehow had a daughter."
Veliranya tilted her head, unbothered by the sarcasm. Her expression didn't waver.
"Come now," she said smoothly, eyes glinting. "Where is little Paliv?"
She leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice just enough to send a chill into the air.
"She's already in her time of flowering… isn't she?"
The words hung in the silence like perfume over poison.
Mellirion's fingers curled faintly over the armrest, knuckles pale against polished wood.
Above them, the sun slipped behind a veil of slow-moving clouds, muting the golden light that once bathed the hall. Stained glass dimmed to shadowed hues, casting long, fractured colors across the throne room floor. The air grew still—like the hush before a storm.
Neither sister blinked.
Veliranya's voice cut through the silence like silk drawn across steel.
"Oh, I can see it," she said, a slow smile returning to her lips, though it never quite reached her eyes. "Things have changed. Twice now."
Her eyes wandered lazily across the chamber, landing on the tapestries—some faded, some torn, remnants of a more dignified age.
"After your sweet, pious husband died," she murmured, brushing invisible dust from her red silk sleeve, "this place became a pit. A rotting garden of murder, crime, and rape. And you? The grieving widow holding the scepter as if it could clean the blood from the floor."
She let her words settle like ash.
"But things have changed again," she continued, her gaze snapping back to Mellirion. "The scent is different. The shadows move more quietly. The criminals bite their tongues now instead of each other's throats."
Her smile grew a shade colder.
"May I ask why?"
"There… was once a hero," Mellirion said at last, her voice low, her eyes distant.
Veliranya tilted her head slightly, curiosity flickering in her magenta gaze.
"I met one," Mellirion continued. "I was a rotting mess of eternal flesh—drunk, pissed, and seated like a corpse on the throne I should have never taken. I had let myself rot from the inside out. The courtiers whispered, the ministers schemed. And when the dark elves of the Evening Glory Valley broke through our gates… I did nothing. I let them take me."
She exhaled softly, not in shame but in recollection—raw, jagged.
"They captured me for ransom, and I waited for the Home Affairs ministers to sell me off like old silver. I didn't care. I wanted them to."
Veliranya said nothing.
"But then," Mellirion murmured, "the door burst open."
Her eyes sharpened, glinting like blades drawn from frost.
"And alongside Paliv's tiny silhouette… there he was. That boy. Red-eyed, silver-haired. Skin kissed by the sun. He wore a tight black shirt—no sleeves—his muscles defined, unforgiving. A red cloak tied around his waist like some crude waist cape, and dark grey straps running across his black pants. He looked like a vagrant. A weapon. A dream I didn't ask for."
She swallowed.
"I was drunk when he came. Still drunk when he defeated my captors. And I thought… another sellsword. A mercenary who'd want treasure for saving a half-dead queen."
She paused.
"But no," she whispered. "He didn't ask for gold. He didn't ask for titles."
Her fingers flexed slightly at her sides.
"He beat me," she said, voice flat. "In front of everyone. Punched me. Kicked me. A knee to the ribs, to the mouth, to the pride I had left. Until something inside me cracked. Not bones—those were already broken. No… something else. I came back. I remembered what Luthor died for."
The silence that followed was deep and full, like the breath before a storm.
Even Veliranya didn't speak right away. Her eyes, usually sharp with jest or veiled malice, held something quieter now. Something listening.
Mellirion exhaled softly, as if letting go of the last ashes of that memory.
"Now he is my adopted son," she said at last, her voice quieter, but firm—like a bell rung in a far-off cathedral. "The child who changes life. The hero of saving. The messiah."
She looked toward the arched windows, where pale sunlight spilled like diluted gold onto the throne room floor.
"The kind child himself."
Veliranya blinked slowly, lashes sweeping low like silk fans.
"He's been with Paliv for a while now," Mellirion went on. "These last few months… down in the valley. Trying to forge diplomacy with our enemies—our oldest enemies."
She let the words settle like dust, then finally said his name, each syllable carrying strange reverence.
"Mugyiwara Shotaro."
The name hovered in the air between them—neither weightless nor heavy, but unmistakably real.
And in the silence that followed, the throne room didn't feel quite as cold anymore. The stained glass cast soft, shifting colors onto the floor, like distant ripples of memory and myth.
Veliranya tilted her head slightly, lips curling upward with that insufferable smile of hers. "The dick riding is crazy, not gonna lie."
But Mellirion didn't blink.
She simply sat back on her throne, one leg crossing over the other with that same queenly precision she'd always wielded like a sword. She let the silence bloom—long, tense, suffocating. Long enough for Veliranya's grin to flicker, just once, at the edges.
Then Mellirion spoke.
"You talk about dick riding like you ever dismounted."
Veliranya's brows lifted, amused, but Mellirion wasn't done.
"You've been cock-drunk since we were barely old enough to bleed. First it was that stable boy, what was his name—Jorik? The one you let bend you over the grain sacks while the horses watched? You came home with straw in your cunt and lied to mother about falling in the hay."
A ripple of horrified fascination passed through the room. But Mellirion didn't stop. Her voice sharpened with every word, like a whetted dagger.
"Then the acolyte at the temple. Then the painter. The twins from the Summer Reaches. The orc with the rune-pierced cock who nearly broke your spine. You ride harder than half the cavalry and still act like it's a fucking revelation."
Veliranya's smile had gone tight now—still present, but thinner, more dangerous.
Mellirion leaned forward, elbows on her knees, voice lowering until it dripped like warm oil.
"But sure, sister. Tell me more about dick riding. Maybe next time they'll crown you with a cock instead of a coronet—might fit better."
The court was silent. Frozen. Eyes wide. Some horrified. Some… hungry.
Veliranya took a slow breath, tongue tracing the inside of her cheek. Her grin returned, but it was changed now—bared teeth, wolfish and unbothered.
"Jealousy ages you," she said, voice as smooth as sin. "And if I ride, it's because men were made for it. Built to be used, wrung out, and tossed back into the dirt they came from. You rule with a crown. I rule with a cunt. And only one of us is still being invited to dinner afterward."
She turned—slowly, hips swaying, leaving the echo of her scent like perfume and powder and wickedness.
"And by the way," she called over her shoulder, "Jorik still writes me letters. Apparently, he remembers the hayride fondly."
Mellirion exhaled slowly. Not anger. Not embarrassment.
Just calculation.
Because blood was one thing. But her sister were something.
That was personal.