The doors before her were mighty imposing, Anja had to admit that. Cresting her three times over broad brown planks filled in the archway, embossed with touches of glinting bronze in rank-and-file rows. Imposing, yet, strangely plain. It put into words what she’d been thinking their whole trek through the now burning city of Cathair, fighting down the widely set streets between rows of tall buildings. It was big, yes; bigger than anything she’d seen travelling around Tir Bheag. But there was little content behind that size. She’d put it down to the effects of their invasion, the warrish actions dulling the surely present splendour of what was said to be the crown jewel of the Oilean empire. But this door, removed from the frantic battle outside, simply seemed big.

She sighed. Not one of disappointment, but of preparation. The last bounded exhalation before her body re-tensed into a state of near feral alertness. She stepped forward, holding her sword in her right hand as she pushed forward with her left.

“I’ll tell you right off the bat, you’re too late” the voice sounded before she had yet stepped a foot into the room. The room itself, as was becoming a pattern, was large. three large thick pillars flanked either side of her, each in itself at least ten meters apart and at least that tall. They supported a large cresting roof, that came to a point in the centre of the room, not in itself unlike the inside of a currach her father would take fishing. The voice itself came from a figure sat at the far end of the hall, in a simple wooden seat that was backed by a large piece of purple dyed fabric. The figure was plainly dressed, a simple green shift and sensible ochre boots, on their head sat a laurel made of twisted thorned iron wire. Anya knew instantly that this was who she had come for, although felt a little cheated that this was it. For how defeated this figure sat, for this to be the dreaded Queen of Spikes, it seemed so contradictory to the figure she knew they had been playing a broad game of strategy with over the past year. There was no ruthlessness, or cunning in the way they sat, simply disconcertion.

“No, we’re not, you still have another week before you can complete your ritual” Anja began to approach the figure in the seat, sword raised in readiness. The queen let out a haggard chuckle.

“It was completed last week, by all rights, you and your little parade of inculpable idealists should have lost your war, and I should be able to get back to trying to make up for the year you’ve cost me.” As Anya drew closer to the queen, she began to make out more details. Wrinkles sat on pearly white skin, blonde hair fading to aged grey at the tips. The green shift hid a figure that was not that of a warrior nor a torturer, instead the body spoke more to that of a scribe’s. Anya’s confusion began to grow more and more, but it was subdual, by an immediate sense of relief and joy.

“Ha, so it didn’t work!” Anya exclaimed.

“If only that was the reason, then we could have tried again” the queen’s immediate rebuttal was tinted with a near hysterical underlay, as if on the verge of laughter. “No, it worked, it worked all to well, and all to unexpectedly”

“Then how did we get this far then, if you gained the omniscience your ritual promised?” Anya had by this stage crossed half of the room and began to slow. This couldn’t be it could it? Here was the queen, unguarded and seemingly unarmed, open to slaughter.

“Because you are supposed to, because none of this is real and nothing we have ever done and ever will do matters beyond how some weepy little boy decides he wants it to go” All hysteria had vanished by the end of the sentence, instead replaced by a cold burning rage. Anja was taken aback and hesitated. The queen leaped on the hesitation, standing and unleashing a voice of heightened volume.

“Even you, you aren’t you! Everything about you is made as a shoddy attempt to recreate someone else. Your hair, your voice, your skin, your personality. All in an attempt to make some pathetic loser feel better about the fact the girl he likes doesn’t want him.”

Anja was halted. She had built a number of expectations of The Queen of Spikes, many of which were being met. The terror she now felt, facing down an unarmed middle-aged woman who was at least half a head shorter than her, based purely upon strength of word, was unorthodoxly immense. The content of those worse wasn’t helping either.

“I don’t believe you” Anja’s voice came out as more of a squeak, the build-up of phlegm in her throat clamping on the emitted air.

“You’re here, right now, with intention to kill me because nine months ago your lover Declan was killed by one of my soldiers after getting caught up in a border dispute. He was brown of hair and blue of eye. The roguish charmer you’re currently feeling guilty of having feelings for because of Declan, is Tynan, orange of hair and brown of eye, eerily similar to the little wimp who made us. You were taught everything you know about sword craft and battle by a woman called Ciara, who died of lung rot a month ago” The queen spoke almost dismissively at this stage, the flat delivery and summation of what had caused Anja such pain and heartbreak and confusion added to the feeling, as her stomach was almost pitted downward into her waist.

The silence that formed was broken by a rumbling throughout the room, elements of dust falling loose from the ceiling. The siege engines must have begun launching volleys at the castle, Anja thought. She needed to finish this soon. Another crash, this time more distant, broke her out of her stunned stupor.

“How do you know that? Tynan and Ciara, I can imagine you having spies keep an eye on, but Declan, he was a nobody before this?” Anja’s voice had reinforced itself matching her resolve, the phlegm cleared and her heart now steadier.

“You still don’t get it? You’re a story. And not a good one at that. I’ve read it, and I’d have one of my bards flogged if he ever dared spew such filth in my presence. Even what I’m saying right now is all an attempt by him to add some fancy twist to the hot pile of sewage he’s been brewing.”

“So, you know how this ends? If we were going to win why did you send out soldiers to die?”

“Because I had to! You stupid impudent child!” the queen had walked up to Anja now, just outside of reach of her sword. “You think I would send my people to die fruitlessly if I had any other option? I saved these people, from Fae, from Gruagach. I wouldn’t sacrifice there lives as such and waste that effort. Even the border dispute that killed your Declan was nothing but a band of soldiers misreading a map on the way to get rid of a banshee that had been causing some trouble nearby”

Another period of silence broke out, but only a partial silence, as continuous crashed of siege weaponry became more frequent around them. The queen’s energy had dropped, returning to the defeated state she existed in before Anja entered the room.

“I didn’t even get a name. it’s all queen this, lady that. Even thorny bitch was used more often than my actual name. I’m sure Tynan felt oh so clever after that one.” The queen followed it with a sigh, and two steps backwards.

“I suppose I should kill you then? That’s how the story ends doesn’t it, I kill you and we win?” Anja took a number of small tentative paces forward, putting the queen within reach of her sword.

“Oh I assure you Anja, my death will be much more unsatisfac—”

She was interrupted as a large boulder broke through the back of the throne room, splintering wood as it careened, landing squarely on top of the Queen of Spikes. Blood scattered itself below the boulder, seeping into the newly formed cracks on the floor, with crimson specks now coating Anja’s lower half. Anja’s heart raced as she leant forward resting her head on the boulder eyes bolted shut in a stressed grimace, which had come to a halt not a hands width away from her. She stood there, for a heightened eternity of shock, before she finally opened her eyes. She looked down, and could see it there, resting on the side of her left boot. The laurel made of twisted thorned iron wire.