"What the hell is going on?" I shouted, my voice cracking as I stumbled back from their circle. My chest heaved. My skin burned where the mark twisted across me. I clutched at it as though I could tear it free, my nails scraping raw against flesh that refused to bleed.
They only stared.
Dozens of them, maybe more. Faces lined, faces young, faces empty, faces full — yet every expression was directed only at me. Some were smiling faintly, some were weeping openly, but none looked away. None answered.
"I don't—" My throat tightened. "I don't even know who you are. I don't know this place. Why are you—"
"Queen," a man whispered. His voice was rough, trembling, as though the word itself had weight.
Another whispered it. Then another. Until the entire crowd murmured in unison:
"Queen. Queen. Queen."
The sound swelled until it pressed into my skull, like a thousand insects crawling inside my head. I clamped my hands over my ears. "Stop it! Stop saying that!"
The chanting cut off instantly. Every mouth closed at once. The silence that followed was worse than the noise — heavy, smothering, absolute.
I gasped for air, my pulse hammering in my ears. My eyes darted from face to face. There was a man with dirt-stained hands, probably a farmer. A woman clutching a child to her hip, rocking her gently. A hunter with a bow slung across his back, his jaw tight with tension. People. They were people. Yet none of them acted like it.
"You—" I pointed at the farmer. His eyes widened as though the gesture itself was holy. He stepped forward eagerly, bowing his head.
"What would you do," I asked, my voice shaking, "if I hurt one of them?" I nodded at the group he'd stepped away from. His friends, maybe his family.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. He looked back at them. They gave no protest. No fear. They only waited.
"I would… feel sadness, my Queen," he whispered. His voice broke, tears welling in his eyes. "But I would accept it. Because it is you."
Something inside me twisted. "And if I told you to do it yourself?"
The villagers did not move. The circle was silent.
The farmer's breath hitched. He turned, slowly, toward the people behind him. One of them — a man with broad shoulders and kind eyes — reached out and gripped his arm. Not in resistance, but in support, nodding, urging him on.
Before I could speak again, the farmer grabbed the knife from his belt. His hands shook, his face wet with tears, but there was no hesitation in his movement. In a blur, he drove the blade into the chest of the man beside him.
A strangled cry escaped the victim's lips — not of anger, not of betrayal, but of worship. "For the Queen…" he gurgled, before collapsing to the dirt.
I staggered back, bile rising in my throat. "Stop! Oh my god, stop!"
The knife slipped from the farmer's hand, clattering to the ground. He turned back to me, tears streaking his cheeks, and fell to his knees. "Did I please you, my Queen?"
The crowd behind him did not scream. They did not mourn. They only stared at me, waiting, as though I were the only one allowed to decide whether grief existed at all.
I couldn't breathe. My chest tightened until it felt like my ribs would shatter. "This isn't real," I whispered. "This can't be real."
But the mark across my body pulsed again, hot and alive, answering their devotion like a second heartbeat.
And in that moment, as the dead man's blood seeped into the dirt and the villagers gazed at me with unshaken reverence, I realized the truth:
It didn't matter if I wanted this or not.
"Walk away," I spat, my voice trembling with disgust. "All of you. Just—leave me alone."
The words came sharp and uneven, but they obeyed instantly. The circle broke apart without protest, each villager drifting back into the narrow lanes of the settlement, peeling away like waves receding from the shore.
I stood frozen in the center, chest heaving, knife still glimmering in the dirt where it had fallen. The man's body was already being carried away, not with panic or outrage, but with a solemn, ritual calm. They moved as though death meant nothing, as though it was simply another act of devotion.
And then they were gone.
The square emptied, leaving me alone with the sound of my own breathing and the thud of my heart.
I turned in place, searching the rooftops, the doorways, the shadowed windows. Faces lingered there, half-hidden, watching. None came close. They went about their tasks — drawing water, mending nets, carrying wood — yet every movement was bent toward me. The way their heads turned when I shifted. The way silence followed wherever I stepped.
I began to walk, slow and deliberate, careful to keep distance from anyone I passed. Every time a villager drew near, they froze in place, heads bowed, waiting. My pulse quickened, my throat dry, my body screaming to run but my mind whispering: don't provoke them.
The houses were crooked things, patched with stone and timber, smoke curling from their chimneys. Children played in the dust of the road, but even their laughter faltered when their eyes caught mine. A girl no older than ten smiled up at me with wide, adoring eyes, whispering "Queen" as though it were the only word she knew. Her mother quickly pulled her aside, bowing low as I passed.
I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering despite the warmth of the sun. My steps carried me past fields of wheat swaying in the breeze, past hunters sharpening blades, past women hanging clothes that swayed like pale skin in the wind. Every one of them turned, bowed, whispered, and resumed — always with eyes lingering too long.
I had never felt so watched, so caged in a place without walls.
Finally, I stopped in the shadow of a well at the far edge of the village. My legs trembled, my breaths came shallow. My heart wouldn't slow.
What was I supposed to do? Where could I go, when every path circled back into their eyes, their whispers, their silence?
I leaned against the stone rim of the well and pressed my face into my hands. The mark on my skin throbbed again, alive and hungry, reminding me with every pulse that this wasn't a nightmare I could simply wake from.
And then, for the first time since I had arrived, a voice broke the silence.
It was soft, melodic, and eerily calm.
"My Queen," it said, "you should not wander alone."
I lifted my head. From the shadows of a crooked house, a figure emerged — tall and slender, with long hair white as bone. A blindfold covered her eyes, yet beneath it faint light glowed.
She bowed low, her lips curved in something between a smile and sorrow.
"I am Lyra," she said.