Her eyes shone purple akin to an amethyst. Her gaze, just like the stone the colour was named after, was cold and uninterested like a rock. Her clothes made out of the most extravagant material available to the Kingdom reserve looked as if the Queen had wrapped the dress’ straps on her arms. The dress covered covered her torso and her legs entirely, although it did not touch the ground, allowing her feet easy movement. A line that started from atol her chest down to her hips constituted the dress’ design. The golden coloured line similar to the crown of the Empress over the dress was issued as a symbol of the Empress’ nobility and wealth. The other two lines, which are shaped like the bigger and smaller signs symmetrical to each other at the opposite sides of the main, straight line, each represent their own values. The bigger sign, represented her absolute rule and her superiority, meanwhile the other her strength and dexterity as a warrior since it was considered the mirrored equivalent of the other sign. She wore accessories in par with her opulence. One of such, which was most apparent when one looked at the Queen, was the peculiar bracelet. This bracelet was connected to nail rings in each finger with elegant chains. Designed with the size of the Queen's fingers in mind, each nail ring fit perfectly without discrepancy. However, there is enough space for the Queen to freely move her fingers through a design that will not fall off of the finger, but is not loose enough for the naked eye to spot. The nail rings cover the nails, and slightly expand forward like nails who were intentionally left to grow to function as claws. The nail rings weren't exactly sharp to be of use to this purpose; it was there to make outlookers to believe it does. The nail rings extend forward at the height of a quarter of a finger and they glow the same glorious tone of gold as the crown.
During that time, the Throne Room was barren. The only ones present were the Queen herself and a servant who requested an audience as the Headeconomist of the Finance Regulation Commission. This Headeconomist reads the papyrus paper on his hand to the Queen. Then, without discretion, he adds:
“Your Majesty, with all respect, I do not see the point of this. Please do not allow our nation to proceed with this.”
“When have I asked for your input?” She coldly replied.
“Please forgive my actions, Your Majesty! My purpose was never to defy your will. I merely expressed my concern of how our Kingdom's budget will be used if this were to be approved. We could just invest this amount into our country instead of trying to change, and, not only we'll get faster results…”
“In other words,” the Queen cut him off, “you think I will fail.”
“I-I merely focusing on a more secure plan is most beneficial for our country at this point in time!” The man pleaded. “As the Headeconomist, it is my job to manage the Kingdom's resources…”
“And that Kingdom belongs to me, does it not?” the Queen asked the man with a deadpan mien. “Surely you do recognise me as the sole sovereign?”
“O-of course…”
“Then who else can better use the Kingdom's resources better than me?”
“Your Majesty!” The man begged. “This was never seen in history! History is but an archive, after all; it has been written and recorded. Who would believe it if we had told them there had been an ancient war that changed our world to the way we know it?”
“If anyone attempted something like this before, they would bury any evidence that could expose their farce if they are not a good for nothing mooncalf like you.”
The man sensed the Queen's fury from the manner of speech. The Queen, who would never insult someone directly as to protect her own charade, had not hid her frustration. The man senses the Queen's Essence resonating about in the room. The Throne Room had started reacting to the Queen's fury. The chandeliers all heat up in symphony. Their fires boil to the point they lose the characteristic orange and are lit sanguine red. This sanguinity of light affects the atmosphere of the entire room. It had made the red carpet that ranges from before the throne all the way to the giant doors of the throne room seem stained despite being cleaned regularly. It made the sumptuous throne decorated to seem as regal as possible seem like it was stained with blood centuries ago and never cleaned again.
The massive paintings hung on the walls, in order from smallest in size to the grandest, a portrait of the Little Prince, a portrait of the High Prince, the Princess, the Emperor and the Queen's right hand man, the Vizier. Then, above the throne, there was a great portrait of the Empress herself. Not only was the Queen's portrait the biggest in canvas size, but it had also been painted in a manner to make the Queen seem more fearsome than she already was. This was different from the rest of the portraits which were drawn to be as accurate as possible.
These paintings seemed like pictures of cold-blooded murderers or straight up psychopaths under the sanguine light. The Headeconomist was baffled. He swore those paintings had not seemed that murderous before.
Then, the spears in the narrow gap behind the throne and the walls of the Throne Room had reacted to the Empress’ emotion. The skulls impaled by the spears emerging from the ground from the unknown source phase through the spears and fell. Once they all fell, they started rising up. As they ascended, bodies created solely by Essence emerged underneath the skulls. In no time, these bodies took the shape of iron armor.
The kind your kin wore back in Medieval times, I believe.
These bodies armed themselves with the very spears that once impaled their skull by forcing the spears out from the ground.
…in technicality, those spears, too, were manifestations conjured by the Queen's Essence. Therefore, there was no physical strength required for the re-animated knights to pull out the spears as the Queen had permitted it.
Either way, the Headeconomist was scared out of his mind. He shivered and trembled as one of the knights that stood in a perfect row behind the Queen started walking towards him. He cried with mucus spilling out and yawped in desperation.
He desperately tried to plead, to seek forgiveness for his blasphemy of ever disagreeing with Her Majesty. He should have known she knows better, and that what she wants to do is for the best of all Demonkind. She would never do anything to harm her people. O, how he should have known! He kept blabbering about it in between his shouting a request for forgiveness.
He kept crawling away from the re-animated knight as he had begged for redemption, any chance Her Majesty might see fit that would help prove he had not been malevolent to Her Majesty or the Kingdom for that matter.
He had not realized that the Queen had already made her mind up by the time she conjured the knights. It annoyed her all the more that this man kept crying. She had acknowledged that the thought of death may be quite intoxicating for a mere subject, after all, he would not be able to serve the Queen anymore. She sympathised this must be quite tragic news for a servant. Then, she clenched her fist in anger, for no matter how much she tried to sympathise, this man was staining her most beautiful red carpet with his filthy bodily excrescence. She had tapped the throne with her fingers impatiently. The nail rings clanked against the throne.
The Queen's eyes drafted to the massive paintings. She looked at the Princess’ painting above the massive door. She admired her daughter and likely felt proud of having her as her inheritor. She then inspected the Princes’ paintings: the Little Prince’s painting to the right and the High Prince's painting to the left. These paintings were of equal size but the Princess’ painting was far more eye-catching because of the way it was placed.
To the right of the grand Empress painting above her throne, there was the painting of the Vizier to the right and the Emperor to the right. The Vizier had earned his place for being the right hand of the Queen, and also as the Vizier of the Will and Command Commission. The Emperor did not have such qualities for his title. He was nothing more than nobility. He was part of the Royal Family, hence the title of Emperor, but he did not have any jurisdiction on par with the Empress. Thus, hierarchically speaking, the Vizier was above the Emperor, by law. Their paintings were of equal size, however, as the Empress had the utmost respect for her husband despite their marriage originating from political intent.
When the Empress had gotten bored admiring the paintings, she turned her gaze back to the Headeconomist and the knight. By that point, the man was still crying. He had run as far as he could and bumped into a wall. He had tried scratching the walls. The scratches disappeared in a matter of seconds. He tried to use what little magic he was capable of to punch a hole through the wall which was likewise ineffective. He had managed to create a small dent in the wall but this had not meant anything. The wall fixed itself momentarily thereafter.
The knight raised his spear robotically. It was as if he was waiting for the man to stand still. When the man's desperacy did not halt, the knight had gave up its intent to go for the kill. The knight impaled the Headeconomist in the abdomen. It spun the spear in circles without hesitation despite the man's terror and his painful screeching. It rolled the man's intestines on the spear like bandages and pulled it out.
At that point, his body was too injured to heal itself, even with the superior magical capabilities of a Demon. The man died not long after and his body started disintegrating. The knight offered the man's intestines to the Queen as if it were some sort of trophy. The Queen shouted with anger and belittled the knight for thinking she'd have any use of such filth. The conjured knights all faded away in symphony. Skulls of unknown origin fell to the ground all at once, the conjoined sound created a loud thud. The spears were stabbed to the ground. With the man's blood all over the floor and the mess, the Throne Room looked as if it had hosted warfare inside.
By the time the Queen called the Guards outside the room's door to call the servants to clean it up, the Headeconomist's, or from then on, the previous Headeconomist's body had fully disintegrated, including his intestines. The only sign available that he ever existed was his blood stuck to the floor like glue, the smell of dust scattered in the room due to the decomposition of his body and the leftover Essence scattered around the room that once lingered in his body.
While waiting for the Throne Room to be thoroughly cleaned, the Queen visited the Will and Command Commission. She ordered the Vizier to assemble the Rosa Council for an emergency meeting the next day. This is top priority, she ordered.
Surprised, the Vizier bowed and took off.
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