Chapter 101 I AM THE QUEEN!
After much walk in her weak state and without the use of witchcraftcy, Athalia reached the Palace.
The palace gates rose exactly as Athalia remembered them.
That, more than anything else, made her stop.
They were taller than she remembered—not because they had grown, but because she had shrunk. Hunger, grief, and years spent surviving instead of living had carved her down to something leaner, sharper, almost unrecognizable.
Still, the ironwork was the same: twin gates wrought with the sigil of the crowned hawk, its wings spread wide as if to bar the sky itself.
Home.
The word felt strange on her tongue, like a language she had forgotten how to speak.
Athalia drew her hood back and stepped forward.
“I am Queen Athalia of Arrandelle,” she said, her voice steady despite the pounding of her heart. “Open the gate. I demand to see the king.”
The guards barely glanced at her.
One of them—a young man with a face too smooth for the armor he wore—snorted softly. “Another one,” he muttered to his companion.
“Every winter,” the older guard replied. “It’s always winter.”
Athalia’s fingers curled into her palms.
“I am not a pretender,” she said, louder now. “I am the queen you believe dead.”
That made them look at her properly.
The older guard’s eyes traveled over her worn cloak, her mud-stained boots, the thinness of her wrists. His expression shifted—not to recognition, but to pity.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Move along before you embarrass yourself further.”
Embarrass.
The word struck harder than she expected.
“I ruled this kingdom,” Athalia said. “I slept in the western tower. I planted the white rose garden by the southern wall. I...”
“You planted nothing,” the younger guard cut in. “The queen died years ago.”
Athalia swallowed.
“She did not die,” she said. “I am standing here.”
The older guard sighed, as if dealing with a particularly stubborn child.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “The queen perished in the tower fire. Everyone knows that. Her body was never recovered, yes...but neither were many others. That happens in fires. Now go.”
Athalia shook her head.
“There was no fire,” she said.
The guards exchanged a look.
“That’s not what the records say,” the younger one replied.
“Records can be rewritten,” Athalia snapped. “Open the gate.”
The older guard’s expression hardened.
“You will leave,” he said. “Or we will remove you.”
Athalia’s gaze slipped past them, through the narrow gap in the gate, toward the courtyard beyond. She could see the edge of the fountain—the place where she used to sit in the mornings with Lira, while the court slept and the birds were still brave enough to sing.
Lira.
Her chest tightened.
“Bring Lira,” she said suddenly. “The queen’s maid. She will recognize me.”
The guards stilled.
“Lira?” the younger one repeated.
“Yes,” Athalia said quickly. “She served me for eight years. She knows my voice, how I look when I was taken to the tower. She knows my scars. She will tell you who I am.”
The older guard’s face closed.
“Lira is gone,” he said.
Athalia frowned. “Gone?”
“She disappeared,” he replied. “Around the same time as the queen’s death.”
The words rang hollow.
“Disappeared how?” Athalia asked.
"My lady, please can you leave. I'm trying to be polite." He said.
"No, please tell me what happened. Please."
“No one knows,” he said shortly. “Some say she died in the fire too.”
Something cold slid through Athalia’s veins.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
The younger guard shifted uncomfortably. “Look, lady...”
“She would never have left me,” Athalia said, more to herself than to them. “Never.”
The older guard shook his head. “It seems you’re clinging to ghosts.”
Athalia laughed then—softly, bitterly.
“You have no idea what you say” she said.
She stepped closer to the gate and gripped the iron bars. The metal was cold. Solid. Real.
“Let me see the king,” she said again, her voice breaking despite her effort. “Just one moment. He will know me.”
The younger guard hesitated. For the briefest instant, doubt flickered across his face.
The older guard noticed.
“No,” he said firmly. “We are done here.”
He gestured sharply.
“Escort her away.”
Two more guards approached from the wall.
Athalia backed up instinctively, hands raised.
“I am not a threat,” she said. “I am his wife. I swear.”
That earned her a sharper laugh.
“The king has been a widower for years,” one of the new guards said. “And he has no patience left for madness.”
Madness.
The word echoed.
They did not touch her—only herded her back, step by step, until the gate loomed behind her once more, closed and impassive.
“Go,” the older guard said. “Before this becomes unpleasant.”
Athalia stood there for a long moment, staring at the crest carved into the iron.
Then she turned and walked away.
She did not stop until the palace walls were far behind her and the road bent toward the city outskirts. Only then did her legs finally give way.
She sank onto a low stone wall, breath coming in shallow pulls.
Dead.
They thought she was dead.
"No wonder he never looked for me."
And Lira, who had braided her hair each morning, who knew the precise pitch of Athalia’s anger and the exact weight of her silences—was gone.
"She can't be dead," Athalia thought fiercely.
She pressed a hand to her chest, grounding herself.
"No."
Lira was many things, but careless was not one of them. If she had vanished, it was because she had been made to—or because she was hiding. Or because she had been taken.
"Could it be the same person...?" She said.
Athalia looked back toward the palace, its towers cutting into the pale sky.
Someone had rewritten the past.
Someone had erased her and the realization settled heavily.
She had come back expecting resistance—but not this. Not indifference. Not dismissal.
If the palace no longer recognized her, then she had no allies within those walls.
Except, perhaps, one.
The king.
She stood slowly and pulled her hood up again.
If the gates would not open to her as queen, then she would enter as something else.
"But as what?"