My mother is the Dragon Queen. But for twelve years, she was just a village teacher.
She thought leaving me with the Whites would keep me away from the throne. Every time she visited, I wore clean dresses and sat at a table full of food. The moment she left, I was back in an apron—washing, scrubbing, sleeping in the stables, eating scraps.
The Whites threatened my life. I couldn’t speak.
They beat me while asking her for gold. The more she gave, the more they sent to the rebels.
Then I was drugged and dragged to the Lord’s Summit—a gift to buy an army. My mother walked in. They laughed at the country teacher. Then she sat on the Black Iron Throne.
A knife cut into my belly. That was when I learned who she was.
The poison inside me needed one antidote—held by the Blackstone Lord. My mother used herself as bait. Let herself be stabbed. Pretended to drink the mind-control poison. She dragged me out of death one step at a time.
When I woke, the guilty were sentenced. She offered me the crown.
I smashed the stable lock and turned it into a school.
But before the Blackstone Lord died, he laughed. “Your Majesty, did you think the traitors were only in the North?”
