Fallen Queen (Mariposa Book 1) Read online

  Fallen Queen

  Mariposa Book One

  Y. R. SHIN

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Y. R. Shin

  Translation copyright © 2020 by POPPYPUB LLC

  First published in Korea in 2016 by D&C MEDIA Corp. English translation rights arranged with D&C MEDIA Corp.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  Translated by Stephanie Cha

  Cover design by Eerilyfair Design

  Published by POPPYPUB, Fort Lee

  www.poppypub.com

  poppypub is a trademark of POPPYPUB LLC.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020946953

  ISBN 978-1-952787-02-7 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-952787-03-4 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-952787-01-0 (ebook)

  Contents

  Northern Myth

  Funeral Oration

  Preface

  Fallen Glory

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  The Hydrangea Garden

  Rarke

  Morgana

  About the Author

  Northern Myth

  Iero, Vineno, Senisa.

  The Three Kings, as people called them, were the founders of many kingdoms on the northern continent.

  Many myths tell of the birth and fall of the Three Kings. The one closest to the truth is the following:

  Legend says that the northern continent became as it is now because of the descendants of the winter god, Kuatra Galiau. He was an ice beast with long black wings that could cover the sky, a mane as red as fire, and a white body. When the ice-covered god settled on the northern tip of the land, an unending winter swallowed the north.

  A long time passed and Kuatra Galiau became a mountain range where the snow never melted. Upon learning of his transformation, Nuadga, another god, planted a bay tree next to him as a farewell.

  The bay tree bloomed and bore three fruit. East Wind, West Wind, South Wind, and North Wind looked after the fruit with great care, and soon three children tore through the skins of the fruit and came out into the world.

  Their names were Iero, Vineno, and Senisa, in order of birth. The three entered adolescence in two weeks and were fully grown in ninety days. They then went their separate ways to found their own countries.

  Iero ruled with fear, severely punishing convicts. His strictness bought him both reverence and hatred from his vassals, so he had to constantly be on the watch for their swords.

  Vineno poisoned criminals in an effort to give them a clean death. But a vassal who feared his poisoned wine secretly gave his cup to Vineno. Thus, the kingdom lost its king.

  Senisa burned his own flesh to absolve all sinners of his land. His vassals were not afraid to sin, so he eventually turned into ash.

  Hence, the three kingdoms fell, and the great divide in the north commenced.

  Hundreds of years later, the son of Yeigan from Rarke wrote that the Three Kings myth was actually “three roads of a king.”

  Every so-called king in the north hears this story at least once.

  There are three thrones in the world. All those who call themselves kings are forced to choose one of the three.

  Which would you choose?

  Funeral Oration

  Vano oredalak Nuadga, muin janlisas guire Rarkaddanya.

  Nuadga of death, lead us to Rarkaddan.

  There is a tale of a utopia passed on from the ancient Rarkalia Dynasty.

  When the great ones under the protection of Nuadga draw their final breath, they go to Rarkaddan.

  A land where there is no hunger, disease, or pain, at the cost of one gold coin.

  All the great generals will meet once again past the gate, in the free land.

  So ye who listen, do not fear death.

  Love as you will, rejoice as you will, fight as you will.

  Rarke in the north did not fear fighting mighty enemies.

  The glory of the utopia where all loved ones gather is their old faith.

  Preface

  This tale begins with a queen from two hundred years ago. A tragedy and a comedy of a queen who madly loved her country, a brother who worshipped her, and a man who loved her as a woman.

  The time will come for the dance of the swords that could not leave the battlefield,

  For the arrival of those who come back through the stream of time,

  And the return of a lost butterfly,

  When a blue flower that has not been seen before blooms.

  Fallen Glory

  It all began two hundred years ago, in a small country in the north.

  Rarke was a kingdom on the border between the north and the west of the continent. Dolomete III was the twenty-fourth king of the kingdom, which remained a weak country a quarter of a century since its foundation. He had eleven children: three children from the queen, and eight from two concubines. The eleven children were all intelligent and talented, but the most beloved was the first princess, Swan Sekalrid Rarkalia.

  The princess had the king’s fiery hair, and she loved Rarke more than anyone else. The soil, the air, and even the grain from Rarke were her source of pride. She shared her bread with the hungry and gave her clothes to the cold. The people widely praised her for the mercy and love she displayed not with her words but with her actions. Hence, the king adored and trusted Swan very much, and the rough-natured nobles admired her as well.

  As a merciful ruler to all she decided was hers, Swan was a royal born to reign. The old nobles and the young all agreed about her. “Though she has the body of a woman, she has a better mind and charisma than most men,” they would say.

  Swan followed the cunning Thick Black Theory, an eastern philosophy that emphasized developing a thick skin and a black mind, encouraging followers to pursue their own benefits while thoroughly hiding themselves behind a thick mask. At a young age, she was sharp-witted and aggressive, believing in the blood-and-iron policy.

  She grew up on the rough land, gulling her brothers into thinking of her as a friend by volunteering to train with them and thawing her sisters’ cold hearts with calculated generosity and appeasement. Even her natural beauty became a weapon, for the nobles could not resist her smile, which was like a single rose on a rocky land.

  Only a couple of years after she first bled, she became the only princess who knew how to utilize her sex, instead of considering it an irreparable weakness.

  Though she was beloved by all her blood, she did not truly return their love in the slightest. Her brothers were talente
d and gifted with the masculinity she was not, but they had no ambition, like satisfied fish in a little pond. The concubines’ children who dared to get in line for the throne were imbeciles wrecking Rarke.

  Such were her opinions about her siblings, except Peijak Dollehan Rarkalia, the sixth prince of Rarke, five years younger than her.

  “Rest assured, brother, I will protect you from now on,” she told him.

  “And I will protect you, sister, when I am grown. I swear it.”

  She smiled at him. “You’ve got a snake’s tongue, child.”

  She took note of her half-brother’s potential. She gathered all the love that could have gone to her other brothers and sisters and gave it to Peijak, who looked just like their father and therefore like her.

  “I will protect you.” As she had spoken, Swan eliminated the remaining supporters of her two brothers, who destroyed each other fighting for the throne. She was soon praised as the sole true heir. Thus, she solidified her road to the throne even before the age of nineteen.

  When she reached twenty-one, the king met an untimely death not long after his fortieth birthday.

  After the king’s funeral, Swan married the margrave from House Brionake, the largest house of warriors, and sat on the coldest and most beautiful throne in the world. In the process of securing her accession, she destroyed her professor, Yeigan, and handed those young sisters who remained in the palace to her supporting houses.

  It seemed as if a peaceful era under the rule of a queen was to commence. But alas, her ambitions did not aim at a peaceful reign.

  A year after a bitterly cold winter, the most horrifying war since the beginning of time began.

  “Until when should the people of Rarke fight over small lands in this cold?” she declared. “Shall we leave the rich, fertile lands with golden crops to the hillbillies in the south and continue to hold our breath for the coming of winter? If you truly are patriots, shed your tears and rise. If you understand the duty of force, follow. Raising my shield and sword for you, even at the risk of my own life, is the future I seek. I will fill your bellies with food and let you strip off your thick coats and run about the fields freely. Prince Consort Margrave Brionake will be given a dukedom and will rule Rarke as regent. Sir Peijak Dollehan will go to war with me as the commander of my army.”

  Her unexpected ambition thus commenced.

  Countless nobles stood by the queen in front of her throne in Norte Hall. In the solemn, suffocating atmosphere, the queen placed her sword on the left shoulder of her red-haired and blue-eyed half-brother, Peijak, who was said to be a superb swordsman. The two, soon to be written as the worst queen and knight in history, swore to each other.

  “I, Swan Sekalrid Rarkalia, as the successor of the Bay Tree and the Queen of Rarke, swear to be fair to you. Your life, death, glory, and everything will be as they are done in my hands. All you will achieve from this day on will be in my name.”

  “As you wish, my queen. Saturga guire Rarke.”

  Thus, Peijak Dollehan officially became the queen’s knight.

  No one dared to oppose the twenty-six-year-old queen with the greatest knight in the country, Peijak Dollehan, on her left, and the best margrave in the north, Belbarote Paseid of Brionake, House of Warriors, on her right.

  A conquest began that would last eleven years. After five hundred years of peace, neighboring kingdoms fell without even putting up a fight at the sudden invasion. Though Rarke retreated from time to time, they were never defeated.

  “All rise and stop the queen of Rarke. Else, you will meet your doom splattered with blood,” exclaimed the king of a small kingdom at death’s door.

  No one could stop the cold-hearted queen, who developed new ways of war, burning castles, changing or blocking water supply routes, and building roads in the mountains instead of declaring a war and then fighting out in the field as the others did. One by one, her enemies succumbed.

  Even the nomadic country in the west swore their loyalty to the queen after being chased to the edge of the desert. She finished her preparations to march to the fertile south. This only took her two years.

  Swan was like a goddess of war, as good or better than men at sword fighting, archery, horseback riding, spear-throwing, and even hand-to-hand combat. She also had the merciless ghost of war, Sir Peijak Dollehan, by her side. The queen stood at the front of her army and granted love to her soldiers and shameless death to her enemies.

  Peijak worshipped his only sister and kissed her blood-soaked hair. “I respect you for your love for Rarke. I love you with all my worthless body and mind.”

  She reached the age of twenty-eight after two years of war.

  She had her first child on the battlefield. It was the child of her half-brother, not her husband, who was ruling back in the palace in her place.

  After a small battle, Peijak came back bloodied from destroying a town in the south to find Swan glaring at herself in the mirror.

  He fell down and cried. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s my fault for not predicting this. Not yours.”

  She was pregnant but had not gone back to the palace for two years, because of the war. Things had changed. Instead of wallowing in despair, she sent a letter to her husband.

  Duke Brionake replied to her letter and did not blame her for having another man’s child. “Even if it is a son, I will keep it a secret if you make our child the heir.”

  “I will, Belbarote. Belbi, I truly do not know what to say.”

  Though she did not wallow in despair, she did feel terrible at this moment. The wifeless husband gave a bitter smile.

  “But come back to the palace and tend to the affairs of state, Your Majesty,” he said.

  So, a yearlong truce was pronounced.

  The nobles were starting to grow tired of the long war, which they had expected would end in a few years. Those who raised their voices with concern that the queen had no heir held a feast. Small kingdoms in the south who trembled at the news of Rarke’s invasion were delighted and sent tribute disguised as gifts. The people prayed the war would end at this.

  Seven months later, the queen gave birth to a son. The child looked like his mother, and hence like his father.

  Two months later, Swan led her army back onto the battlefield, despite her vassals pleading her to stay and rule.

  From then on, Belbarote came to visit her on the battlefield from time to time. She did not blame him for leaving the palace, for she had promised him a child. He implored her to end the war and rule her country whenever he visited.

  Peijak, who supported her ambitious plan to conquer the entire continent, opposed Brionake and claimed he was a coward. “You seem to have grown scared even of the littlest things since you got locked up in that castle and started playing with paper instead of a sword, Your Grace.”

  “Though you may be winning war after war, the people of Rarke are tired,” Brionake snapped in reply. “Do you not realize that the number of widows will increase if the drafted men do not come home, and we will soon run out of food because many are taken to forced labor? Not all of that can be replaced with plunder.”

  “If you mean to stop my sister, I will not just stand aside.”

  Duke Brionake glared at him, revealing his personal hatred. “The only reason you’re still alive after laying your hands on Swan is because you are protecting her.”

  While her two supporters’ animosity toward each other grew day by day, Swan carried another child. It was Belbarote’s.

  The queen decided to compromise.

  She promoted Peijak Dollehan to commander-in-chief. She decided to return to the palace for two years to straighten her country’s affairs. Not long after her return, she gave birth to her second child. Another son.

  Belbarote pleaded with the queen, who only showed any kind of passion at the continuous reports from the battlefield, even after giving birth. “Your conquest has yielded enough, my queen.”

  “A little more. We
will soon reach Morgana.”

  In less than eight years, they reached the final border in the far south. With the richest and the most beautiful kingdom, Morgana, left, she ignored her advisors’ words.

  “A little more, a little more, and the north and the south will unite, and this continent will be named the continent of Rarke,” she repeated obsessively.

  She was now the age of thirty-four.

  She even ignored her husband’s pleading and returned to the battlefield, to experience the moment of uniting the country with Peijak, who had been faithfully keeping his place on the battlefield for their grand triumph.

  But under the rule of Dernajuke IV, the Blond King, Morgana was an enemy of vast strength that she had not faced yet. The legend of the undefeated army crumbled like a sand castle. The Rarkian army struggled.

  And they were defeated.

  To Swan, facing defeat was something unforgivable that shook her very core. After repeatedly advancing and then retreating, she roared in rage at the dead bodies of her soldiers. “I will not return before I crush those sons of whores!”

  The purpose for her war with Morgana changed from patriotism to merciless hate. More people died, and the war turned into a war of attrition. Even at the cost of countless lives of her soldiers, Swan slowly advanced and reached Olzore at last.