Queen of Silence and Ruin
13 parts Ongoing MatureHigh in a castle, where the walls never remember warmth, there is a room not spoken of.
It sits behind velvet drapes and locked doors, tucked between the west tower and the chapel that hasn't known prayer in decades. No one goes there now. Not the maids. Not the priests. Not even the king.
But once, there was a secret kept there.
She was born with quiet in her bones, a child spun from porcelain and bloodline. Promised before her first breath, bartered before she could speak. They raised her in silence, trained her in fear. She learned early that disobedience was louder than screams. That beauty meant stillness. That girls who wanted anything burned.
She was a perfect pupil.
The governess fed her manners with a silver spoon.
The priest taught her to fold her hands, never her spine.
The tutor, he taught her to fear her own voice.
They called her Little Dove. Not because she was sweet, but because she was caged. Wings clipped before she ever flew.
She was taught to listen, never ask.
To smile, never speak.
To suffer, and never let it show.
But secrets rot in silence. And even a dove, locked long enough in the dark, learns to bite.
They never noticed when she stopped blinking.
Never felt the moment the stillness turned inward sharp, feral, waiting.
By the time they betrothed her to a man three times her age, it was already too late.
She had begun to remember her name.
And one day soon, the castle would remember her too, not as the girl they silenced,
but as the woman who made the walls bleed for ever daring to forget her.