Pov: Emily Von Silva

Light streamed in through the window with its warm embrace awakening from blissful slumber. I looked out beyond the glass as the fog fell from my mind and realised it was a wonderful day. The sky was blue, the birds were chirping and breakfast was displayed prominently on my bedside table. I reached out to grab a plate of marmalade covered toast while getting out of bed and my wonderful day went to shit. The massive pile of forms, letters and legislation that was piled beside the foodstuffs fell to the floor informing all the servants that I was awake. Moving as elegantly as the wind, a selection of handmaids entered my room in an attempt to have me bathed and presentable as soon as possible. While trying to eat my food I couldn’t help but berate the 'helpers'. “Seriously Maria, do you have to be so goddammed efficient at everything? Why can't I have just one relaxing morning?”

with a chuckle, the head maid who had known me since I was a child retorted “Because you are a queen, and queens have responsibilities.”

Sighing I looked out the window, “This was so much easier before my brother's takeover. Why was such an asshole? He killed almost everyone that actually kept this kingdom running.”

Maria snapped back, “Language!... A queen should not swear. You have to be a role model for everyone to follow in these trying times.”

“Maria. I'm in my own private room. If I can't act like a normal elf here I will go crazy. Jack was a pain in my ass, but at least he let me my own thing.”

“Speaking about you knight in shining armour, and rumoured prince consort. Where has he run off to?”

“God knows! He ditched me the second someone mentioned paperwork. Seeing the current situation, I guess that makes him the smart one and me the idiot. Oh, and there is no way in hell he is going to be my husband. So please find and silence whoever is spreading that rumour.”

“Didn't he at least tell you where he was going. I mean you did spend more than a year travelling with him.”

I couldn't help but laugh while looking a the slightly confused head maid, “Maria, Jack is the most uncommunicative person I have ever met. His most commonly spoken language is grunts and the next closest vocabulary consists of swear words.”

With an equally mocking smile, Maria injected, “At least I know who to blame your new habit on now.”

“I mean seriously! The man spent days travelling through the forest without saying anything more than 'let's go', 'let's camp' or 'is that potion ready'. If it wasn't for his incessant humming of music I would have mistaken him for a mute!” Sighing for the third time this morning, I reached for the tea on the table. “And even when we weren’t travelling. Unless it was telling me a plan or explaining something he thought I should know he was always talking to himself while treating me like a cat. I think we had about a hundred actual conversations over the year and I had to start every single one of them!” Sculling the drink, I slammed the cup back down on the table. “Anyway enough about Jack. What do I have scheduled for today?”

Looking over a pile of notes on a finely crafted bluewood clipboard, Maria replied, “You have six prearranged meetings. Lunch with a member of the Van Emral family, dinner with the Val Sepheir family and while not tabled, your distant cousin Mark Silva wanted to arrange a meeting. You also have several reform bills that need to be finalised and the election of the new royal guards needs to be completed. There are also issues regarding your re-coronation and how to deal with the traitor families.”

I couldn’t help but think, "this was all to much work." Walking out the door to my room, I did my best to stand straight and act like a 'proper' queen. “Let's push the meetings back and deal with the traitor families first, I take it their current leaders have finally arrived.”

Unlike the previous banter, Maria gave me a straight reply, “Yes my queen.”

I had always wondered what the point of all this pretending was. Why we had to live behind masks, only ever revealing our true selves to a handful of people. At least around Jack, I could just be Emily. I reached the throne room and walked down the red carpet with the crier vocalising some rehearsed introductory lines for elves who were smart enough to know who I was. The whole thing appeared pointless to me, serving only to stroke the royal ego. Looked around the throne room while walking, I realised I had always viewed it as a place of grandeur and supremacy. With immaculately crafted marble statues inlaid with gold, silver and jewels positioned along the walls, supporting a roof of magically reinforced stained glass. The whole thing was designed to inspire awe, however, after seeing the true power and grandeur of the tower dungeon's castle, it all seemed like a pale imitation.

I called out to the still kneeling audience while positioning myself on the large, centre most throne. “You may rise!” Shuffling, whispers and standing ensued so I waited for silence before continuing, “Bring those who represent the traitor families before me to be judged.” With that command, a procession of fancily dressed elves was escorted into the room with their heads down.

“Your highness...” One of them began blathering before being punched in the stomach by one of my guards. If memory serves me correctly the soldier's name was Fred and his twin brother George died during the insurrection. With the man silenced, I decided to add to the suppression by draining mana from a small crystal and adding an element of mind magic my voice. “Silence! You are here to accept my judgement, not plead your case. So unless you wish you houses to be found guilty and purged, I suggest you hold your tongue.”

One of the lessons I learned from watching Jack was 'be vicious towards anyone you deem an enemy'. Another was how to abuse mana crystals as more than a crappy battery for magical devices. Explain things was one of the few times he would actually open up and he had a penchant for lecturing people, often explaining things to you as if you were from some lower world. Luckily, the man was an encyclopaedia on potions, poisons and magic. He taught me so many practical things like fact that our processing method destroyed 98% of the energy in a mana crystal, only keeping that which exactly matched the crafter's personal frequency. It was no wonder we needed large crystals to power anything and found the small ones useless. Anyway explanations aside, I was going to use these lessons to form a better country.

Getting off my overly elaborate chair, I signalled a retainer to bring over a box containing a hundred large crystals. Unfortunately, I could not make these fools slaves without destroying the country and marking myself the very tyrant that the enemy had labelled me as during their coup. But thanks to the class Jack bestowed upon me, I had a different method. I began chanting as my basic water magic seized control of the prepared magic ink, allowing me to craft a massive and complicated formation in a matter of seconds as opposed to hours. As I finished the last word, the newly created formation activated and turned the black ink into liquid luminescent gold. Projected from the formation was a sphere of light containing strange, everchanging runes. With a wave of my hand, the crystals were poured into the centre of the ritual.

Drawing from the many crystals the spell surged and I directed the rune orb to encircle the traitors. Once in place, the spell began sending almost invisible tendrils throughout the entire kingdom. These tendrils became less apparent the further they travelled from the ritual and marked everyone with a blood tie to those in the circle. Withdrawing a ceremonial dagger from my clothing I proceeded to cut my hand and splatter my own blood onto the ritual. The faces of the judged paled as they understood anything with a blood sacrifice would not end well. Knowing something horrible was coming, one of them attempted to flee only to run face-first into a force field. Wearing a smug, Jack-like smile, I clicked my fingers and the prepared trinity of curses activated.

This was no grand slave formation that augmented the mind nor was it a geneacide that killed off their entire family. What it did was force these people and anyone related to them to wear their sins like a badge. This stigma would be an ever watching judge that branded a pattern onto their face every time they committed a crime. Commit murder and a blood drip tattoo will appear under your left eye for all to see. Commit fraud and your tongue would turn black or cheat on your spouse and earn a permanent kiss mark on your right cheek. This affliction applied to every major crime and would be judged using their own memory as evidence with the verdict being decided based on my morality. Yet for all the harm this would bring them, it was the first curse.

The second curse was that as long as one had a mark of stigma their child would inherit the affliction. To break the chain a family would need to have an entire generation without sin or be absolved of sin. This brings me to the last part of the trinity. Sinners would be judged by the people. After being branded, a random selection of a hundred people from across the land will be called to hold a trial. The branded one will have one chance to explain their case and the jury will decide whether to activate, solidify or abolish the stigma. However, these trials themselves hold a curse that prevents anyone involved from lying during the proceedings with anyone who attempts to break the system inheriting the stigma curse.

As for the consequences, activating the stigma instantly kills the person, solidifying the stigma permanently marks the perpetrator and lets society deal with them and abolishing the stigma removes that instance of stigma from a person. As for public ramifications, I don't care. These fuckers killed my family and if I didn't need them to run the country, I would have just killed them all.

This magic was the culmination of everything I had learned about blood, curse and soul magic. Employing magical theories and scripts never before dreamed about on this planet. My class was obviously something that should have never been unleashed on the 'lower layers', as Jack had called us, but I was going to abuse it anyway.

As the curse activated, the prim and proper noblemen assembled before me began to look like yakuza. Tattoos bloomed and covered their faces with a myriad of markings. I was honestly not surprised these people were such filth. In fact, most of the elven nobility lived lives of debauchery and even murder was par for the coarse. The only difference was that we hid it better than the lizards. Since I had already started today day with a massive move, much to Maria's dismay, I thought I might as well continue. Clearing my throat I announced, “This is the stigma of sin. From this day forth the nobility related to the war will be forced to wear the sin like a cloth with each mark representing an atrocity commuted. Looking at the mark will immediately tell you what it represents."

I stood back and watched as those in attendance looked upon the marked and recoiled in horror. Each and every mark feeding information about the crime directly into the viewer's mind complete with the name of the victim. Satisfied that my plan was working, I continued. “This stigma will be the new punishment for any crime against the crown. And while I'm ruining your day, I am also abolishing slavery!”

Hearing a thump and turned to see that Maria had collapsed with a stunned look still plastered on her face. This was no attack, she had simply passed out from shock. Sighing once more, I began dreading the tongue lashing she was going to give me when she recovered. Yet in some ways it freed me. Since I was going to get scolded no matter what I did, I might as well make the most of it and start reforming this kingdom into something I actually want to be the queen of.