Aeryn's madness came slowly.
First, as a whisper in her dreams.
Then as muttered curses in merchant alleys.
Then louder still, in the high courts, murmured behind silk fans and beneath powdered beards:
"She is a witch... but alas, she is a queen."
And finally, even in the sacred prayer houses, where the scent of incense grew hesitant, and the lips of holy men trembled when they dared speak her name.
She was eighteen now, and she stood taller than most women in her court. Her red hair no longer streaked, but fully crimson, as though flame had chosen her scalp for a throne. Her skin bore faint marks like smoke trails, residue of blood magic etched just beneath the surface. And her light brown eyes, once soft with innocence, no longer shimmered. They glowed; sunken, haunted, ringed with dark crescents that looked like sleep had long abandoned her.
Every child in Sahirra knew the stories now.
Red hair was cursed.
Amber eyes were the mark of a withered soul.
And their queen... their witch-queen... was a bloodbender.
And bloodbending was a curse.
.....
It started with dreams.
But then it began to slip through the veil into her waking hours.
At first, it was a sound; a soft, distant drip... drip... drip; like water leaking from a cracked cistern. But it wasn't water. She knew that instinctively.
Then came the visions.
She would find herself standing at the edge of a barren, gray valley; her hands clean, her feet bare. The sky overhead wept not with rain, but with blood. Thin and pale at first... then thicker, darker, until rivers of it formed and flowed. The ground beneath her feet cracked with the crunch of bone; thousands of them.
She turned, and saw them.
The people of Sahirra...her people; lying where they had fallen. Drained and shrivelled. Eyes wide with questions she had no answers to.
Once, these visions had belonged to her sleep. Now, they clawed their way into her days.
A court minister would stand before her, droning about grain taxes, and she'd blink; only to see blood trails across his mouth, his eyes, silent and dead blood dripping from his sleeves, pooling at his feet, his eyes hollow and accusing: "Why?"
She would grip the arms of her throne until her knuckles turned white, shutting her eyes tightly.
But it never helped. the smell would follow an unfathomable stench of rotting bodies and drying blood. She could taste it.
And the ministers would roll their eyes, whispering behind their palms: "The little queen is distracted again."
They had no idea what she was enduring.
Not even Sakina knew yet.
In the days that followed, Aeryn withdrew from the world.
She canceled feasts. Refused visitors. Ignored foreign envoys who had crossed mountains to see her.
Instead, she wandered the palace, its long, forgotten corridors and silent crypts. She would stand before her mother's tomb for hours, whispering questions no one could answer.
Other times, she climbed to the Tower of Names and stared out across the city; watching smoke rise from the bakeries, the forge-pits, the slaughterhouses; wondering what part of her was still human.
They called her a witch because she commanded blood.
But she began to wonder:
Was she still the girl who had watched her parents die?
Or had she become something else entirely?
......
She still remembered that day.
She was six.
The palace hallway had been bright with morning light. Her mother had turned to smile at her. Her father was arguing with a priest. Aeryn had tugged at her mother's sleeve to ask a question; Why do crows only sing when people die?
Then came the black fire.
Then the silence.
And then the screaming.
.....
Her eyes stung now. She closed them and tears slipped down her cheeks silently.
A maid stepped into the room.
"Your Highness...?" the girl said softly.
Aeryn looked up; and something inside her snapped.
The maid's eyes began to bleed.
Aeryn gasped. "No... No ... NO !"
She rushed forward, trying to undo it. whatever it was; but the harder she tried, the worse it became. Blood streamed from the girl's nose, her ears, her mouth.
"No! Please, I didn't mean... " Aeryn sobbed, cradling the girl's trembling body in her arms. "Sakina! SAKINA!"
"SAKINA!" she screamed again, her sobs wracking her body.
Sakina came bursting in the room from nowhere, instantly kneeling beside the queen. one galnce told her everything. She gently took the bleeding girl from Aeryn's trembling hands.
She was bleeding; but not fatally.
Sakina looked up at Aeryn, then, quietly, put her hand on her shoulder and whispered.
"You did this?"
Aeryn could barely nod. Her hands were stained crimson.
"Are you sure?"
"I don't know..." Aeryn raised up her blood-stained hands.
"My queen... calm down."
"I don't know, Sakina!" she wept. "I don't know!" she cried again, her voice cracking with despair. "She called my name and I—I just—"
"My queen!"
I... Sakina ... i ...."Aeryn was looking at her hands and at bleeding girl hysterically.
"AERYN!" Sakina cried. "Get hold of yourself. Calm down!"
Aeryn went silent. She looked up, lifting her head slowly. "I..."
Sakina took a deep breath. "My queen. Take a deep breath."
Aeryn looked at her, eyes wild and empty.
Sakina snapped. "Get a hold of yourself."
Aeryn flinched, silent.
"Breathe," Sakina said firmly.
Aeryn just stared at her.
"Breathe. Now!"
Aeryn inhaled, raggedly. Then again.
"Close your eyes," Sakina instructed. "Think about what you were feeling in that moment. And reverse it."
With a sorry and miserable look, she closed her eyes. her lips still trembling.
A minute passed.
And then, she exhaled.
When she opened her eyes again, they were steady and clear.
Sakina looked at her and nodded. Aeryn stepped forward, placed a trembling hand on the maid's forehead. And slowly, within a few seconds, the bleeding stopped. The girl's body eased. She was unconscious now, shaken by the shock, but alive.
Aeryn stared at her for a moment... then turned, and ran away.
.....
In the days that followed in the quiet of her solitude, she began to research. Not about politics, nor about courtly duties. But about herself. About Blood magic. the magic she was honing without even knowing. The magic she thought she was pride of but that was becoming her bane, by becoming incontrollable.
She ordered the Vaults of Hollow Lore to be opened. She read ancient scrolls timed back to her great grandmother, inked in powdered bone. Dissected stories of magicians and people honing witchcraft and wizardy, men who went mad, women who turned to mist, children who razed their own villages to stop the screaming in their blood.
She did not stop. Not even when the ink bled into her fingertips. Even when the books whispered. Even when her nose bled in thin, precise lines across her face, like sigils forming from inside her. She needed to know, if this curse was growing? Was her dream a prophecy...or a warning?
i post chapters 1 week ahead on patreon, you can read ahead at patreon accuscripter and show your support with like comment and follow. so i can continue to write this story and many others like this