Act I: An Angel is Born
It was on a winter's month when Maveria was born.
The night had biting winds and streets laden with frost, but it could not compare to the warmth her family surrounded her in. Though King Tiberias VI had hoped for a second prince to secure the Calore line, the squalling princess quickly thawed his disappointment. "A warrior's lungs on a songbird's frame," he declared, pressing his lips to the infant's snow-pale forehead. "The country's national treasure and my family's greatest gem."
Her brother Cal, barely out of swaddling clothes himself, became her fiercest protector from that first meeting. He would hover over her cot, entranced by this adorable tiny human for hours on end. Nursemaids whispered about the wild-tempered prince who'd quiet at the sight of his sister's cradle.
"Your tantrums are gone at the mere sight of her," Tiberias would later tease his red-faced heir. "Like sugar in tea. Who would have thought?"
Cal never said anything. He only stared into her eyes.
Act II: Ivy Stems
She was like ivy between the gaps of castle stone— persistent, unwanted, yet thriving where others only saw ruin.
Queen Elara's chambers lay three corridors down, close enough for her perfume (made of jasmine and crushed ambition) to seep under the door. Unlike Tiberias, she remained impassive towards her daughter. "Daughters are borrowed treasures," the queen had told her mirror once, unaware that Maveria had crouched behind the tapestry. "Polished for another's vault. I have no use for fleeting pawns."
Queen Anabel's room only smelt of gunpowder, tea, and strength. Where Elara saw fragility, the battle-hardened dowager found fire. She would bring the young princess to her chambers, teaching her how to stitch silk and weave treaties with equal precision.
"Why must I learn?" whined the ten-year-old princess. She picked at the fraying blood-red hem of her embroidery. "Day after day, wiling away by books at day …"
Anabel didn't look up from her ledger. "Men see needlework and think docile. Let them. One day you'll show them your sharpened steel and gut them with their own assumptions."
At fourteen, the princess could recite lineage laws verbatim while landing a throwing knife onto the training yard's smallest target.
"But I am nothing special, Grandma. Just a princess."
"You have the ability to turn even the roughest souls kind," Anabel replied. "Take your brother for example. Your brother raged for weeks on end as a babe. Then you gripped his finger, and…"
"Grandmaaaa," Cal whined. "You don't have to embarrass me like that…"
Midnight found them racing through the portrait hall, Maveria's slippers muffled against stone.
"Pick a nickname: Maeve or Mavis?" Cal would whisper, pulling her along the secret paths of the palace. "Intoxicating … or song?"
Maveria frowned. "Why should I pick when I can be both?"
Her brother smiled, gazing into her eyes. Court poets called them "winter's thaw" but he knew the truth: those eyes that could soften even the hardest hearts. "That's more like House Calore's princess."
At seventeen, she was a storm in lace.
"That's no fair," Cal would accuse as she toppled his king with a painted fingernail. "You're distracting me with your beauty."
Maveria stared back, feigning hurt. "And I'm to blame for that? Maybe if you stopped staring at me and focused on the game, you could have won, brother."
Their first solo tour happened when she turned nineteen.
It didn't matter where she went, it was all the same. Men forgot their wine when she entered halls; travelling bards sang of her beauty, calling her the Frost Lily; soldiers swore she'd been carved from Southern starlight. Commoners knelt for her as if she were a holy saint sent to bless the land.
Beside her, Cal's grip tightened. "They'll swallow you whole with their staring," he muttered.
Act III: The Web of Obsession
Across from Norta, King Kano Cygnet of the Lakelands had rebuilt his shattered kingdom with bloody stitches. His father had fallen too soon, the weight of the crown crushing the boyhood from his shoulders until only the Spider King remained.
The court feared his silences most. Where his father had blustered, Kano spun webs: trade pacts woven in ink, surveillance networks humming like nest-bound hornets. Now, docks once choked with starving Reds were bursting with grain ships.
Water, he thought, tracing condensation on his council chamber window. Not to drown, but to revive. Let Norta keep their flames; he'd flood the world first.
He called his spies, "little birds", and had them perched in every Nortan alley, their feathers plucked from Nortan traitors and Lakelander idealists alike. Most brought worthless gossip—until today.
"Princess Maveria tours the southern provinces next week," said Blue, lounging on the royal blue couch. He poured two cups of tea, placing one on his king's desk. "Third visit this year alongside her bleeding price of a brother, though her first alone."
Kano didn't lift his gaze from irrigation reports. "I recall. You've mentioned her thrice."
"Twice forgotten, thrice repeated." Blue tossed a file onto the desk. "The Songbird's newest plumage."
"That's what they're calling her now?"
"Songbird of the South, the Gilded Rose, or whatever ridiculous title they can come up with."
"Really now."
Blue quirked a brow. "Don't look at me. Read it for yourself."
Kano's thumb split the wax seal. The portrait inside bled color: a girl of no older than nineteen in black silk, lips parted mid-laugh. But her eyes—winter lake ice lit, bright, lively, and sharp.
"Yes, her," Blue answered. "They say she's quotes lineage laws while dancing the valse. Intelligent and graceful."
The king scoffed, tossing the picture onto his desk again. "Tiberias is a coward if he sends his children where he should be. Sending his son makes sense but … I say he has little regard for his daughter at all."
"She is Norta's pride," offered Blue. "The country's jewelled dagger. Beautiful, but only decorative."
Kano's thumb smudged the report's edge.
A mistake.
He stilled.
"Well?" Blue leaned forward, rattling his teacup. "What do you think, Your Majesty?"
Kano's eyes flashed. Then, a slow smile split the Spider King's face. He slid the files into his drawer. "Tell the ambassadors I'll marry."
Blue paused, shocked. "… Marry?"
The king smiled, eyes glinting. "I want her."
Act IV: The Choke
King Tiberias stared at the marriage contract with wary eyes. He traced its gilded edges, bile rising as he reread Kano's flawless terms: shared harvests, demilitarized borders, eternal peace—all promises culminating in a single demand. "Maveria". His daughter's name looped gracefully at the bottom though it might as well have been written in her blood.
The Lakelander king had a female cousin. Tiberias had offered a union between her and his son but Kano, in his false act of mercy, had rejected, citing his desire for a mere princess instead.
Your prince is too precious, Kano had said. She is just a girl. She'll suffice.
Tiberias' hands were tied. If he rejected, it would be an insult. If he accepted …
He was brought back to reality by his son's fist cracking against the council table and the flutter of scattering war reports. "You'd trade her for wheat? Our songbird, my sister? Father, she's not some broodmare to barter!"
"I'd prevent ten-thousand mothers from burying sons!" Tiberias roared back, though his hands shook. His daughter, his only daughter … how could he bear to part with her so soon?
The door hinges squeaked, revealing Maveria at the frame. "Is it true, then? The Spider King asks for my hand?"
Tiberias opened his mouth to speak, but Cal beat him to it. "Father is thinking of selling you," Cal fumed. "Selling you off to the Lakelands to end a war in wheat and land."
"Oh?" She quirked a brow. "So is what it is?"
"Yes—"
"Then I accept," she answered simply, leaving Cal dumbfounded. Tiberias' shoulders relaxed.
"No, Maeve, I refuse it," Cal hissed. "You have no idea of the kind of man he is. He's a monster, Maeve. He'll destroy you. He'll tie you down, turn you inside out—"
"Let him try," Maveria answered back confidently. "Let him spin his web. Then watch as I cut myself free."
A few weeks later, a carriage was drawn and a dowry prepared. Only her father, Cal, and Anabel were present to send her off.
Tiberias stared at the carriage as if memorizing its shape—the last thing he'd see his daughter touch. Cal thrust a golden pendant into her palm, his jaw clenched shut. Only Anabel had anything to say at all.
"Farewell, my dear child," she whispered, kissing her cheeks. "Everything I have done has led up to this moment. You have all the tools you need to survive and thrive. Now go. Do good for the people of the Lakelands so that they will sing: Norta has sent over their angel."
Act V: A Gift is Given
It was two weeks later when she arrived at his palace gates.
It would have been shorter if she did not linger by the Red villages who had wept of her departure. They kneeled and prayed, thrusting wilted winter roses in her hand like a parting gift as she walked on. But now she was here.
The angel has arrived.
Maveria arrived at the Spider King's palace draped in black silk, in honour of her house colours. Her shoes whispered against Detraon's stone steps as she stepped out of her transport, cold and unnoticed.
There Kano waited, atop white steps watching with grey eyes and a sharp smile.
She dipped into a low curtsy. "Your Majesty."
Kano smiled. "Welcome to Detraon," he said. "I hope your journey was pleasant."
Maveria nodded, returning his grin with a serene smile of her own. "Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. It was."
The curve of his lips widened.
Hours later, the wedding feast began. Lords leered through toasts to her womanly virtues; ladies giggled behind fans embroidered with mating scorpions. Maveria sipped honeyed water, her glass mirrored by Kano's untouched wine.
"My queen," Kano said, though it held no sincerity. He offered her his arm. "Shall we dance?"
Maveria set her metal fork down. "If you so wish it, Your Majesty."
He led her onto the ballroom floor, guiding her through a valse. Their dance, a duel in silk.
"You're not afraid of me," Kano murmured as he twirled her around. "Do I not frighten you?"
She frowned. "Should I be afraid?"
Kano leaned forward, dropping his voice to a low whisper. "You should be. Night approaches, Princess. Who knows what I'll do to you then?"
Maveria's lips curved. "There's always passion between couples. I have nothing to hide from my husband if he chooses to come in the cover of darkness."
Kano stared into her eyes, searching.
"They said you were spoiled," he mused. "A princess bathed in milk who knew nothing more than gems and silk. 'A gilded rose meant to decorate one's home', so to speak."
"Are you surprised, Your Majesty?" Maveria whispered.
His eyes flashed. "No. This is quite the development. I must say I'm quite pleased with my prize."
Maveria smiled. "Careful, Your Majesty," she warned innocently. "Some trinkets cost more than kingdoms."
Their bedchamber dripped with Lakelander opulence, all blue like it was drowning in seawater. Maveria chose a nightgown to match, its neckline low and the fabric sheer.
A bridal custom, she remembered.
Kano entered after, barefoot, his own shirt unlaced. His eyes flickered, drinking her in from head to toe.
He swallowed. "A bold choice of attire."
"I'm not one to be timid. It bores me," Maveria answered sweetly, as she marked her page with an ivy leaf. The gilded title gleamed in the dark: Virtues for a Woman and Wife. "Shall I recite verses on obedience?"
He slid into bed, dagger glinting under his pillow. "Cross me, and I'll carve you a new smile."
She traced the blade's tip, admiring its edge. "Metal doesn't scare me, Kano," she whispered, smiling at his stillness. "Sleep well."
They lay back-to-back, breathing syncing against their will.
When dawn rose, the sun found her hands fisted in the sheets, and Kano's lips grazing just by her shoulder.
Neither acknowledged the inch between them.
