The Queen's Erased Salon – Ghosts of Forgotten Mercy
- David Lapadat
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
From The Crown Saga – Codex
In the shadowed annals of the Eleven Kingdoms, power is rarely seized—it is whispered, denied, and then, in the quiet of forgotten chambers, it returns as ghost. The Queen's Eight Shadows were Elowen's closest confidantes in her youth, women whose mercy was refused by the crown and who, in turn, refused oblivion.
They are not characters in the saga's unfolding intrigue but footnotes in burned tapestries, statues with eyes that follow you from the grave.
Drawn from Jungian depths and blended folklore from the world's edges, these myths are the Codex's first unveiling: seductive specters whose stories tease the psyche's hidden hungers.
Let their whispers begin.
Lady Sereth Veyra – “The Mercy That Was Refused in 712
She walked barefoot across cold marble, white rose bleeding in her fist. The king mocked mercy. Sereth smiled the smile of the Terrible Mother who births and devours, drove the thorn through her own heart, and died upright.
Black blood wrote one word on the floor: REMEMBER. Three nights later every mirror clouded. Sereth stood behind every reflection, pale hand on every shoulder, whispering the denied word.
They shattered the mirrors; shards still show her. They sank the shards in the lake; fishermen pull up glass that bleeds. On certain moons the entire lake turns to ink and the single word floats like oil. Speak it twice and you become the reflection. The court learned too late—refusal feeds the ghost it creates. Her denial birthed a psychological rift: the ego's rejection of compassion manifests as an eternal, haunting reminder, a devouring shadow that consumes the self through endless repetition. In the quiet hours, courtiers still feel the thorn's prick behind their eyes, a reminder that mercy refused returns as the mirror's merciless gaze. The word on the lake is not just "REMEMBER"—it is the name of the sin that named her.
Lady Ashka of the Hollow Temple
Ashka caught a dying man's last breath in a silver bowl and drank it. Silence claimed her tongue forever. Forty years she wandered battlefields, harvesting final exhalations like black poppies. She became the kingdom's collective death-rattle. On coronation eve she bent to Elowen and spoke one sentence that turned the queen's eyes to winter steel. Dawn found Ashka's tongue on the altar, still shaping the forbidden word. They burned it. The ashes rose, formed a woman of smoke, and walked through solid stone. Now, when someone in the realm is about to die, they feel cold fingers seal their lips and hear an unfinished sentence spoken by a woman who has no mouth. The weight of unspoken endings lingers in every breath. This is the mana of the collective unconscious made manifest: the wise old woman as vessel for the unspoken, her silence a psychological reservoir of all that society buries. The unfinished sentence is the archetype's curse—knowledge too vast for one mind, leaking into the living as a haunting incompleteness. Priests still wake with ash on their tongues, tasting the words they dare not finish.
Lady Myrren – “The Widow Whose Mourning Silk Drank Candlelight”
Myrren's husband rode into the Deadlands and never returned. She swore she would wear mourning until he did. The silk began pale grey. Every candle within twenty paces guttered, died, and was swallowed. Year by year the silk grew darker, heavier, until it dragged behind her like a living eclipse. Courtiers fled rooms when she entered; torches died at twenty paces. On the thirtieth anniversary the last flame in the palace failed. They found Myrren seated, perfectly preserved, dress now a crawling void that filled the hall and drank starlight through the windows. At dawn both woman and darkness were gone. The palace has burned no fire since. The darkness she left is a hunger that never fills. This is the devouring anima in its purest form: the negative mother who, rejected by the world, consumes all light and warmth, turning personal loss into cosmic absence. The silk's hunger mirrors the psyche's void when reunion is denied—a psychological black hole where light cannot escape. Servants still light no candles, fearing the dress will return to finish its meal.
Lady Ilyra of the Sixth Wing
The sixth wing tore free with a sound like cathedral bells drowning. Ilyra fell burning from the Golden City, gold feathers scattering across the sky. One wing kept flying alone, a lone comet above the Deadlands that sailors still navigate by. Where she struck earth, glass flowers grew overnight. Touch one and you dream of falling forever while something golden screams your name. The sky remembers the weight of what was lost. This fall is the self's betrayal by its own light: the archetype of the winged soul paying individuation's price with exile, the severed part calling back in eternal longing. Sailors who follow the comet wake with golden scars, the psyche's reminder that transcendence demands sacrifice. The comet is the severed soul's lonely flight.
Lady Vaelith – “The Pale Bride Who Married the Wind”
The blizzard howled her wedding march. Vaelith stepped naked onto the ice, spoke vows to the north wind, and was lifted into its arms like smoke. Red-Clan mothers still warn children: when the wind laughs like a woman, cover your ears; she is looking for bridesmaids to freeze forever. The storm carries her voice still, a whisper that chills the soul. This is anima possession at its final stage: union with the unconscious elemental, annihilating the ego in ecstatic dissolution. The laugh is the psyche's call to surrender, a psychological siren that freezes the will to live. The wind's whisper is the lost bride's eternal vow.
Lady Noctis – “The Eighth Shadow Whose Face Was Burned from Every Tapestry”
Scissors flashed. Flames roared. Every loom in the kingdom devoured its own thread the night the queen ordered Noctis erased. Yet at certain hours the tapestries still show a woman-shaped absence darker than void, darker than regret. Stand before one and you feel fingers you cannot see trace the inside of your skull, rearranging memories you never consented to lose. The absence remembers what the light forgot. This is the devouring shadow in its archetypal form: the erased self that becomes the entire darkness, a psychological void where repressed memory reorganizes the conscious mind. The fingers in the skull are the shadow's touch, rewriting history from the unconscious depths. The void is the archetype's ultimate erasure.
Lady Caelinn – “The Dryad Who Bloomed Black Roses”
Roots burst through her feet the day the queen rode south. Caelinn planted herself at the palace gate and waited three centuries. Bark became midnight, blood became sap, tears became thorns. Every black rose in the Eleven Kingdoms traces its lineage to her. Pluck one and you forget the name of the person you love most. The thorns guard a love that was never claimed. This petrified anima is eternal waiting turned vegetal and venomous: the psyche's fossilised longing, where unrequited desire becomes nature's poison, erasing the bonds that define the self. The roses are the archetype's curse—love's name lost forever. The thorns are the waiting's sharp memory.
Lady Selene – “The Moon-Faced Girl Who Vanished the Night Elowen Was Crowned”
The crown touched Elowen's brow and the moon went dark for seven heartbeats. When light returned, Selene was gone and the moon has worn a bruise ever since. On nights when that bruise darkens, young girls wake with silver circles burned around their eyes and speak in a voice not their own. The eclipse remembers the girl it took. This devoured maiden is the sacrifice for the queen's lunar shadow integration: the kore archetype lost to the collective, her bruise a psychological mark of the feminine eclipsed by power. The silver circles are the call of the unconscious, speaking through the living. The voice is the moon's stolen song.
From the Next Chapter: The Thorn-Knight Valkyries bloom from iron blood next month—armored death-brides who chose swords over submission.
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