Queen Marika: Voice of Order by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Queen-Marika-Voice-of-Order-1259440143

Queen Marika: Voice of Order ANIMATION

The Gilded Requiem of Queen Marika

For three nights, the moon above the silver-roofed citadel had refused to wane. It hung swollen—too large, too bright—an unblinking eye gazing upon Queen Marika’s dominion. And yet, within her court, shadows congregated as if the moonlight were nothing, as if they answered to some other, more ancient command.

Marika stood alone upon her balcony that evening, her golden hair braided with silken threads, her skin pale as carved alabaster. Below her, courtiers drifted through the palace gardens like restless ghosts. Music should have drifted up from lyres and soft-voiced choirs, yet silence lay upon the palace, heavy and unnatural—a silence that tasted almost metallic on the tongue.

A silence mutinous.

She sensed it before she fully understood it: a rebellion without banners.

A rebellion that spoke in whispers instead of swords.

Inside the Hall of Veiled Mirrors, nobles gathered around long tables, feigning indifference. Their smiles were brittle porcelain, ready to crack.

Lord Cecilien leaned toward his neighbor. “She’s changed,” he whispered, the words like moths fluttering against candlelight. “The Queen seems distracted… obsessed with matters she refuses to speak aloud. Our petitions sit unanswered. This cannot last.”

“Careful,” hissed Lady Variane, her emerald eyes flickering nervously. “Walls listen, my lord.”

Marika entered then, her gown of black and gold rustling like the hush of a tomb’s curtains. The courtiers bowed, their gestures synchronized yet mechanical. She felt the stiffness in their movements—respect performed rather than offered.

“My loyal friends,” she said. “You gather here under my protection. Let no heart hold fear within these walls.”

Not one dared meet her gaze.

As she walked the length of the table, her every step echoed in the stillness, almost accusatory.

“Why do they fear me?” she wondered silently. “Or what do they believe I fear?”

After the banquet dispersed into uneasy silence, Lord Cecilien approached the Queen in her private corridor. His eyes glittered with civil obedience, yet his smile held a rehearsed sweetness—something too perfect to believe.

“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing low. “Should you ever need counsel—”

“I require rest.” She dismissed him gently but firmly.

“Of course,” he murmured, though his eyes lingered on her longer than politeness allowed.

When he finally turned to leave, Marika felt the faintest tremor ripple through the golden torches lining the hall—as if every flame watched her with veiled suspicion.

In the solitude of her chamber, she addressed Lysa, her trusted mage-attendant, a silver-haired woman whose eyes shone with sympathetic worry.

“They think I have become weak,” Marika said quietly, unfastening the filigree clasps of her gown.

“No, Your Grace,” Lysa whispered. “They believe there is something you are hiding. And frightened minds invent monsters.”

“Then they shall fear truth instead of their own imaginings.” Marika’s gaze hardened. “Have them summoned to the Chapel of Echoes at dawn.”

Lysa hesitated. “All the court, my Queen?”

“All,” Marika repeated. “Every tongue that speaks in darkness must answer beneath sacred light.”

But sacred light felt very far away.

That night, she dreamed.

She wandered stone corridors lit only by trembling lanterns. From somewhere unseen came the soft murmur of voices—her courtiers speaking, though she could not see their faces.

“The Queen listens to her mirror more than her council,” one voice whispered.

“She communes with shadows,” muttered another.

“Perhaps the throne should choose again,” a third voice rasped, cold and serpentine.

Marika reached a chamber at the corridor’s end, and inside she found a great mirror framed in twisted iron. Her reflection shimmered—but her eyes were no longer her own. They belonged to a stranger ancient and sorrowful, as though something primordial gazed through her.

She spoke to her reflection, her voice trembling. “Who are you?”

The reflection’s lips curved faintly. “Who were you?”

The glass fractured—not shattered, but cracked inward, as though something pressed from the other side.

Marika awoke drenched in sweat—yet her chamber was freezing.

And from her mirror came just the faintest sound: somethin
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