Status: the empty queen

In the unremarkable hotel room numbered seventy-two, a young man sits up in bed, using the warm light of the bedside lamp to read a book. It was resting on the pillow next to him, when he woke up. The cover is plain white with no text, and the thick pages are slightly yellowed by time. There are creases in the soft spine and dog-eared pages where someone - perhaps the man, in a different dream - marked certain passages. Frantic scribbles in a nonexistent language fill the margins of some pages. The young man ignores them, but there's a strange pitch in his stomach whenever he comes across them, like something about them is very important.

The prologue of the book reads as follows.

Nobody noticed the ghost as she emerged from the waves. No eyes watched as she found footholds in the cracks between rocks and, with animal grace, climbed to the top of the cliffs that overlooked the water. She almost glowed against the night sky, with her milk-white skin and the long platinum hair that flowed in a nonexistent wind. Her plain grey dress was not wet from the ocean.

She gave a lingering glance back into the bay, where ships of metal and wood drifted to and from the docks, which hummed with activity no matter the hour. With a sigh as delicate as moth's wings, she turned toward the city that burst to life and color before her. Adsophel.

This close to the mouth of the bay, no one really slept. Lonely sailors stumbled in and out of brothels and smoking dens. Visitors from distant shores trashed glitzy hotel rooms. Patrons from all over the city drowned themselves at the pubs, or danced to bone-rattling music in clubs. Men and women covered in temporary tattoos flaunted through the night, selling lies as magic to anyone foolish enough to waste the money. It was a sea of neon smoke and grimy cobblestone, and she longed for the ability to get lost in it.

She had only returned for a specific purpose, though, and by the position of the moon in the sky, she was running short on time.

Her bare feet still knew the route, despite all the years that had passed. It was hard to forget anything when your mind was immortal. She weaved along the streets unobserved; if she felt a gaze begin to pull itself to her, she reached into the stranger's mind and erased herself. Nobody else had to know.

The building where she finally found herself was little more than a shell. Steel bones remained long after wood and brick did. A staircase still stood in the corner, leading to nowhere. The ground was littered with weeds and broken glass, and it reeked of rust and forgotten promises.

Her doll face was peaceful as she stood, eyes closed, and waited for nothing.

It might have been minutes or hours before boots crunched over the ground, and she turned pale green eyes on the shadowy figure of a boy – still little more than a child, she thought – holding a longbow, face hidden beneath a white hood.

"What is your bow made of?" she asked, voice as soft as fog, as cool as melted snow. She already knew the answer, but it was still polite to inquire.

The boy glanced at it and gripped it a little tighter. "It was carved out of the antlers of a wraith stag. The string is sinew from the same animal. Why?"

Her lips perked up in a smile she didn't feel. "I enjoy objects with a story to tell. That stag must have gone on many adventures, seen many things. He was likely honored to be preserved in such a way. It shoots very true, yes?" The boy nodded. "That is the reason."

Although she could not see his eyes, she felt him staring at her spidery fingers as she curled them against her chest, right over her heart. It no longer beat, hadn't for most of her life. She didn't miss her pulse much. It had always tried to run away from her. "Thank you for coming," she murmured. "Many people would not listen to their dreams, but I knew you would, which is why I picked you.

"I have a job to ask of you," she continued after a slow breath. "Not one that can be compensated by money or wishes, but it is imperative that this be done, else the world is about to rip apart at its seams. I will die, and the city will die with me." She blinked slow, and her lashes wet her cheeks with tears she hadn't been crying.

The boy stroked his palms along his bow. He was not towering, nor bursting with muscle. His hands were not calloused or cruel. His eyes, she knew, were soft and warm. He did not look much like a fabled hero, and that was because he was not one. He was, in a grand scheme, no one. An outlier in a world that had always been the same. This was why she needed him.

"What do you need me to do, ma'am?" he asked. His words clouded the air, but she did not feel the cold. She did not feel much of anything, anymore. And that was just the problem, wasn't it?

She thought of roses caged by thorns, warm blood sloshing in goblets, steam billowing into the sky. The heave of the ocean as it threw itself endlessly against the earth. Desert tunnels and a house of soldiers and a religion that worshipped little more than smoke, all built of glass in their own ways. Metal tracks at midnight, flecks of snow melting as they kissed the ground. Eyes filled with stars or plumes of fire or the colors of sunrise.

She created this world. Blood was spilt onto stone, death exchanged hands, and monsters were born beneath children's skin. She plucked threads from dreams and spun them into webs that stretched for infinity. She waited in darkness for a train, tears soaking into ripped skin. She tore out the throat of reality and wept as it died.

Her smile this time was genuine, and heartbroken. "I need you to wake a dragon."

This is her fault.

But it is not her story.

It is not anyone's story, anymore.

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This is the second entry not penned by Naomi.

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