A sweet summer breeze blew through the drapes of Ada’s throneroom. It was only just last night that it had carried with it the scents of the Elderflowers blooming throughout her capital. Now the smell of death and fire stained the air.

“My Queen?”

Ada sat on her throne listening to the sounds of battle raging throughout the city. Chaos filled it’s streets as revolutionaries from all across the kingdom looted and burned their way through her beautiful capital. Her delicate fingers clutched at each other on her lap, trying to calm their tremors. Shaking in fear, shaking in rage. She wanted revenge, anger boiling over her steadfast walls of self control and manifesting in just the faintest flash of sparks from her quivering finger tips. Ada wanted it so badly, but there was nothing she could do. The thing that hurt and embarrassed her the most was just how powerless she was to stop all that she had worked to preserve and build from collapsing.

“My Queen, what should we do? They’ve breached the walls, should we run?” Her loyal attendant, a maid, stood looking up at her on her throne, last person left by her side. The girl shook like a leaf as the roar of peasants and the armies of rebel dukes clashed with what remained of her forces inside the keep.

It still felt strange being called Queen. It wasn’t so long ago that her father, the great sorcerer Udom, had reigned over their empire. During her reign the people had started calling him Udom the Terrible, which had made her chuckle at the time. Only two years ago he had ruled their vaste realm with an iron fist, before dying and leaving the nineteen year old Ada in charge of an empire stretching from the border with their rival empire in the western woodlands, across the southern steppes to the endless northern wasteland. She found herself ruling over millions of subjects with almost fifty different ethnicities separated by hundreds of unique languages with stone age levels of infrastructure and massive debt from a war with their western neighbor that had lasted for several decades now. Tax inefficiency, rival claimants, famines, powerful enemies and no allies, all it took was for her enemies to realize that she was the only one standing in their way for them to topple her empire.

“Run?” Ada sat on her throne, glaring around the dimly lit room, illuminated only by the blood red of the setting sun, covered by the smoke that enveloped the city. Her dark brown hair was braided in a royal style, gently cushioning the great sorcerer’s crown of her family line, a mark of her innate power, it was a black metal helmet studded with rubies that resonated with magic. “No Ina, now is not the time to run. They took everything from me, my family, my empire, my pride. I will burn this city to the ground before I let them have it.”

Inabat looked up at her with pleading eyes. “My Queen, please run, there’s nothing left here for you!” Ada avoided her gaze.

“No, you’re right, all that’s left is my vengeance.” She teared up and clutched her staff, gritting her teeth. Royalty doesn’t cry. “I’ll make them run. I’ll show them what fear truly looks like! I’ll show them why the Nikolaev bloodline was once the most feared power in the world!”

Flames danced from the gem on her staff, but then her face softened and Ada looked down at Inabat.

“Ina, you’ve always been loyal to me. I don’t want you to die for me when so many others already have. It would be useless.” Ada stood up, her black satin royal dress swaying about her, and began to walk down the stairs leading up to the throne.

As the Queen approached a flicker of fear and adoration flashed on Inabat’s face. “My Queen, I would die a thousand times for you, I am yours now and forever.”

Ada stood in front of the servant girl, one step higher than her, and looked down on Ina who was shivering in terror. “You say you are mine, but do you truly mean it? Your mind…” she reached out and touched the servant girl on the cheek, “and your body?”

Ina breathed a little gasp at the touch, then leaned into it slightly. “Everything that I am is yours.” She whispered, breathing lightly on Ada’s wrist.

The sincerity of the little maid girl’s response caused Ada to cough awkwardly. She wasn’t quite expecting that.

“Oh, good!” Ada said, a little too loudly. Then she turned Ina into a rock. “You’ll be safe like this for now, if I die the spell should wear off in a week, and once that happens you can escape. If I don’t die I’ll make sure to find you a safe place far from the fighting where you can start over. Someplace far away from me and all my troubles.” She whispered to the rock. Ada looked down at it one more time, then placed it in her pocket.”

The Queen strode back over to her throne and sat down. Outside she could hear the fighting growing more intense as it neared her throne room. Briefly Ada closed her eyes, running her fingertips over the stone chair she sat in, to steel her nerves. Her fingers ran along graceful carvings of terrors long vanquished, etched into the metal arms of her throne. So many times she’d contemplated these monsters of both beast and man which her forebears had faced. Laying in bed at night she could feel the silver inlay that outlined the faces of these villains still running across her hand.

Opening her eyes revealed a group of men standing across from from her in the open door of the throne room.

There were three of them in front of a much larger force, a bearded and well-groomed older mage who wore a short, white cape draped over some light chain and leather armour. To his left were two handsomely clad middle aged men in full armoured regalia, gilded in gold and stained with blood. The one in the middle carried a sword and had a finely groomed red goatee and a bald head, while the one on the right held a spear and shield, weighed down with thick plate armor. Their colors suggested they were from the Cara Empire.

So this was not just a revolution, it was an invasion.

“If it isn’t the former Queen Ada Nikolaev of the fallen Kalanni Empire. Here you are, broken, devoid of any allies. It goes to show that those who rule with fear are the first to be deserted.” The bald man spoke, advancing towards her, albeit slowly.

Ada breathed out slowly, calming her shaking hands. With grace and magnitude, she rose from the throne, stopping the bald man in his tracks.

“My father attempted to scare the world into submission. It was his life’s work, he built his empire on the pillars of his terrible atrocities. He ruled in fear. I lived in it. The thing about fear is that it rarely favors the privileged. Those who have the most to lose, have the most to fear, I learned that the hard way.”

“You’ve lost, Nikolaev! Your armies are shattered, your generals dead or deserting, your people defy your tyranny, soon the terror that onced ruled these lands will be nothing but a memory!” The spear wielding champion pointed his weapon at her and raised his shield. “Give up. You have nothing to gain by fighting us, you’ll die no matter what!”

“Nothing to gain? No. I have nothing to lose!” A wild grin split her face and she blasted the company in front of her with red raging fire. The explosion crashed through the room so hard and so fast the walls cracked from heat and soldiers burned to a crisp in seconds.

Ada whirled her staff around charging red energy into a disk in her hands as the flame dissipated, revealing white protection magic surrounding the caped wizard and the other two warriors. They staggered back, astonished at the destruction that surrounded them, save the three of them there was no one left in the company.

“You bitch!-” The spear champione shouted, charging at her.

“No! Stop!” The caped wizard cried after him, but it was too late, the red disk of energy shot out of her hands, ricocheted off the floor and sliced through the man.

Ada laughed. “These men are like cheese, I assume this battle will be between me and you, old man!”

The wizard gritted his teeth and white energy surged from his body. It shot into the ceiling, forming cracks that spread out over the room. From them sprung white swords that rocketed down towards Ada.

She stumbled backwards, barely dodging the first volley, the white hot blade of one sword slicing her shoulder, but the old man wasn’t finished. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the sword champion’s blade glow with golden light and he sprang with unnatural speed towards her.

Ada whirled around, barely escaping another volley of heaven born swords and raised her hand in an arch as the bald man swung at her. A brush of purple energy crackled into existence, blocking the golden blade just before it lobbed her head off. Ada smashed her staff into the floor and purple spikes grew from her back, cresting her head as the sword champion dashed behind her.

With a flourish of his hands the old wizard conjured a thick cloud of fog that flooded the room. Ada rushed to create a shield that would protect her from the white swords raining down on her, but just as she did ghostly forms cascaded out of the fog, an force of undead skeletons swung at her from all directions, grabbing her arms.

With a blast of fiery energy, Ada lit up the area immediately around her, and the purple spikes that had sprung from her back crackled with electric energy and shot off, smashing through the undead wraiths surrounding her and leaving holes in the back of her royal dress. She then whirled around to face the sword warrior, smashing her staff into the ground, leaving it standing erect in front of her. Ada spread her hands wide and between them sprang a hole in reality from which great chains sprung, wrapping themselves around the bald swordsman, pulling him towards the void.

The man struggled violently to keep from being dragged into the dark abyss and as he did so Ada turned to face the white haired wizard once more.

“You can’t win this, Nikolaev!” The old man shouted over the roaring flames that covered the walls and the sound of the crackling abyss behind Ada.

The Queen laughed. “I know that, old man. It was my father’s great cause to build this vast empire. I now realize that it is mine to topple yours!”

With a steady hand, the queen reached up and lifted the crown from off her head. The aged wizard looked confused as she cracked the metal crown in her hands with a flash of red magic, removing the single center jewel from its place and letting the rest fall to the ground, a smouldering mass of shattered iron.

The jewel in her hand glowed dark purple and gray. Ada stared at it for a moment, transfixed with wide eyes, the bald swordsman still struggling desperately against the abyss behind her. In her mind she traced the etchings on her throne again, the tips of her fingers twitching.

With a grimace she crushed the gem in her fingers, and the light inside the gem exploded into the room, the force of which caused many of the fires raging around her to flair up, purple shadows dancing fiercely all about her. The swordsman slipped, and for a moment a skeletal hands reached out of what remained of the white mist and caught him, before that too gave way, and he was sucked into the void, sealing the gate behind him.

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A whirl of purple and gray whirled around her now. A single word resonated from the darkened spaces.

“Nikolaev.”

The wizard shuddered, cowering behind his staff.

“I am.” Responded Ada. “You know me?”

“You are… smaller. Softer. Younger.” A form began to emerge from within the shadows, its yellow eyes staring unblinkingly at her as the air itself reverberated with its voice, sending a shiver through the girl. “What have you become?”

“A woman is what I am, I haven’t become anything. I am not the same Nikolaev you once knew, you are thinking of my great grandfather, Uralets Nikolaev.”

The leviathan laughed raucously. “URALETS! I will tear his bones from his body!”

“He’s dead. He has been dead for many many years.”

Cold sweat dripped down the side of her face, but in that moment Ada felt almost lethargic speaking with the creature.

Air shivered around it as the vast thing in the shadows wriggled violently, swimming in and out of space the way a serpent swims through water, body segments poking in and out of reality as it circled around her. With a deep grumble of frustration it gnashed its oddly human teeth, its frog-like maw snapping in frustration. “Dead, dead. Gone? That’s what he said dead means. Then it will be your empire that I devoure. It will be on you that I seek my vengeance!” The great leviathan chortled, a frill of scarlet skin flapping around his immense cranium.

Ada whirled about and stared into the beasts eyes.

The two froze, eyes locked as the writhing body of the leviathan twisted in a dizzying unrestrained dance, violet light reflected from his fleshy skin, filling the room.

His eyes narrow, staring into hers. “There’s nothing left to take. That’s why I’m free, isn’t it? Ada, last of the house of Nikolaev.”

“It is. There is no Kalanni Empire to eat. You’re too late.”

A tremour begins to run through the great leviathan, which soon grows into a violent squirm as the beast lets our a cacophonous cry of anguish, its body wriggling like an eel in seething anger.

“NO! NO URALETS!”

“He’s gone, and so is everything else!”

“NO EMPIRE! NO FOOD! NO VENGEANCE!” The stone floors and walls cracked as his body slams into them.

Ada took a ring from her pocket. “Maybe not.”

Its monstrous face again hovered in front of hers. “Another Nikolaev trick? Do you hope to imprison me again, old man?”

“No tricks.” Ada smiled up at the bohemouth’s hideous maw. “A gift. To make up for past grievances.” The young empress held the ring up for him to see.

Its eyes widened. Its mouth opened in joy and devoured the ring, nearly taking the girl’s hand with it.

A low rumbling chuckle resonated from the beast. “Apology… accepted. Goodbye, Nikolaev.” Reality rippled a moment, and the monster slithered out of existence.

The wizard breathed heavily. “What… what have you done?!”

“I made a deal with some old enemies of mine. How much do you know about the Bane of Empires? The Serpent of Anarchy?”

The wizard’s eyes widened.

Ada clenched her fists around her staff, ripping it out of the ground and smiled at him. “You see old man?! THIS is what fear is! I may have lost, but I’ll be damned if I don’t take you down with me!” Her laughter beat down on him like a shower of granite.

“You monster. You mean you would do all that just for revenge?!”

The bald man still struggled behind her, barely keeping himself from being sucked into the abyss.

Ada’s voice cracked as she held back tears and smiled at the old man. “You took everything from me! Watching your empire burn is all I have left!”

The wizard’s brow furrowed and he squeezed his eyes tight as sweat dripped from his face. “I’m afraid you won’t be around to watch.” With one hand he drew white magic from within himself and thrust it towards the ground, opening a portal right next to him.

As he did another one opened right underneath Ada, causing her to fall through. Her eyes grew wide and she barely managed to cast a small protection ward as she fell.

Through the hole was a world of greys, with snow falling in every direction. White chains of ice wrapped around her and as she looked up she saw the old wizard above her as a giant standing over the hole. In his hand he held what appeared to be a carving of a small house.

“You were right Nikolaev, I do understand now. I understand what it means to be afraid, and because of that I am now sentencing you to death.” He threw the wooden carving of the house down towards her and Ada floated in through the front door as she struggled to get free from her chains.

White chains wrapped themselves around the house and the wooden structure creaked as a heavy ward was sealed around it, entombing Ada within its walls forever.

The protective ward she had cast barely broke through the chains on her body, but as Ada ran to the window, she looked up and saw the face of the wizard peering down at her through the white portal with a sorrowful look on his face.

“That is my son’s favorite toy. It’s a carving of a little tavern, he used to march toy soldiers in and out of it all day, it’s infused with the power of childhood sentiment.” He threw his cape back over his shoulder. “Can you guess what the most inescapable prison on earth is? Did you guess fatherhood? Because that’s wrong, the correct answer is that toy you’re bottled up in right now. Goodbye, Queen Ada Nikolaev, congratulations on being the definitive last of your line.”

With that the portal closed and the white world turned dark. Ada screamed out the window at where the wizard use to be as she felt herself falling, tumbling through the blackness, the only thing left was the tavern around her.

The only light in the darkness was a dim yellow light emanating from a small hearth on the opposite wall, with a shining amber stone fit into the mantle, it most likely was the source of the tavern’s magical power, disarming it wouldn’t undo the magical prison wards keeping her there.

The tavern fell through space, tables and chairs flying all around Ada. She looked outside the window again, looking for some way out, and saw below them another portal with light spilling out of it. Eagerly Ada clung to the glass, seeing that the tavern was falling directly towards it, but as it drew nearer she realized just what the light was.

Ada emerged into a universe of starlight. She hurtled through space, the tavern spinning erratically and she saw ahead of her a giant ball of flame, the fire of stardust and destruction raging in the calamity that was the sun’s fury.

Ada drifted weightless as she plummeted a thousand miles per hour towards the star. The heat began to build around her and she closed her eyes. The end closing in. After looking over her shoulder for so long, after waking up every morning knowing that this day would come soon, sooner with every day, it had finally come. She couldn’t feel the fear anymore, the only thing she felt was relief. Finally she could die. Alone maybe, but at least-.

Oh fuck, she wasn’t alone.

With frantic fingers Ada felt in the folds of her dress, hoping Ina had fallen out at some point, but there the rock was, ever at her side, just like the human version had been.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, Ina! Shiiiiit!” She desperately looked around for some way to save the poor girl, a container of some sort, a way to chuck her out a window, something, anything!

Then her eyes lay on the small amber stone on the mantle.

Ada glanced back down at the rock in her hand.

Then she looked back over at the mantle.

It was worth a shot. She awkwardly pushed off from the window sill she had been hanging onto and floated across the room, clambering through floating furniture to reach the fireplace. Frantically Ada pried the amber stone from its place, and as soon as she did the tavern seemed to grown dimmer, cracking open as air escaped into the vacuum outside, starting fires as the friction of the air leaving the room rubbed over the wooden surface of the tavern. Ada swung her arm with Ina’s stone in it and jammed it in the amber stone’s place.

Green light fractured the air around Ada and spiraled out into the tavern, flooding the room with breath as if the building itself were breathing in. Magic radiated from the stone, flying across the walls and sealing the windows, throwing Ada across the room as it exploded forth.

There seemed to be a slight hesitation, then everything dropped, slamming into the floor as gravity returned to the tavern. Ada coughed and slowly crawled back to her feet.

“W-where am I?” The stone spoke.

“Ina! You’re ok!”

“My Queen! What- what is going on?! Where are my legs? Oh my god what is going on, I can’t see!”

“Ina, listen to me, you’re a house right now!” Maybe that wasn’t the best way to start. “Never mind, do you see that big ball of fire in front of you?”

“I’m a- w-what? Yes, but I don’t know how, I can’t see anything, but I know it’s there, Ada- I mean my Queen, this is really weird!”

“Ok, good, focus on the ball of fire and death!”

“Oh my god, I don’t have any hair! I’m bald!”

“Ina, FOCUS!” Ada ran to the stone and gently touched it reassuringly.

“Ok, you’re right, big ball of death, I can see it.”

“Good, now focus on going in ANY other direction EXCEPT the direction the big ball of death is in.”

There was a pause. Then, “rrrrrrr… rrrrrRRRRR… EEEEERRRRRRR!!!!! I can’t!” The heat filling the room started to get more intense as the sun got closer.

“Ina, you have to try, you’re our only hope of getting out of here alive!” Ada started getting desperate, she didn’t know how much she could ask of the little servant girl, but she had no other option.

“I’m trying! Ah!” The girl cried out in pain as the side of the tavern caught fire. Ada tried to think of some way to get them out of there, there was no reason why Ina would be able to steer the tavern, it had no propulsion systems, no way to stop its descent. Sweat dripped down her face as the heat baked the tavern.

It was all hopeless, she was going to die, Ina was going to die and it was all because of her. A small part of Ada was strangely glad the servant girl would be there with her at the end. “Listen to me, Ina. Today, when you told me you were mine… I know I turned you into a rock, but if I’m being completely honest what I really wanted to do was bang the shit out of you.”

“My Queen, I don’t really see how this is helping!” Ina stammered, as a green glow started to emanate from the stone on the mantle. Ada paused and wondered at it, then got an idea.

“I just wanted to get that off my chest before we both died!”

“Oh, ok! Can we focus on thinking of ways to not die?!” The tavern cracked as wood splintered around Ada.

“No but seriously, I REALLY wanted to bone you, in a girl kinda way! I don’t even care that you’re kinda flat chested!” The green glow grew stronger, flooding the room with light.

“Your highness, I appreciate your feelings for me, and your honesty, but maybe we can do this another time?”

“Yes! Call me ‘your highness’ again, the whole submissive thing is a huge turn on!”

“Please stop, this is really embarrassing!” The tavern radiated with green and Ada stepped back from the fireplace amazed at the beauty of it. As the building burned and the two of them hurtled towards the sun, the whole place seemed to shake with power.

“You have no idea what kinds of things I want to do to you!-” Ada was interrupted as waves of magic erupted from the stone and the whole tavern seemed to blink from existence.

She tumbled through reality, falling and fumbling for something to grab a hold of. Ada felt like she was turning inside out, and for a moment she thought she might die, but a cascade of beautiful green magic flowed around her, slowing her descent and it was as if she were falling through water. Slowly her heavy body pulled her down until suddenly she slammed into the wooden floor of the tavern again.

The first thing she noticed was the sound of birds chirping.