Valeria "Jinx" Marceau—
a creature of moonlight, a jester by dawn.
Magnetic yet menacing,
she speaks in riddles, in verses laced with velvet tones and veiled threats.
Each step she takes is deliberate,
as if she's performing on a stage only she can see,
and the world, unwittingly, her captive audience.
Behind the laughter lies a sharpened intellect,
a will honed like a blade—
one she keeps aimed solely at the king.
A tyrant who deserved not mercy, but legend-worthy ruin.
And yet, how could someone so vile—
so steeped in cruelty—
have sired something as radiant as her?
Valeria couldn't fathom it.
It felt as though the gods themselves had mocked her,
bestowing upon that wretched lineage a daughter as divine as a dream.
Princess.
Even the word clung to her like honey.
Seraphina Lys de Vaillant.
Valeria would whisper it in the dark like a sacred chant,
her lips brushing it into the silence of night,
as if by saying her name, the ache might lessen.
How often had she gazed at her?
The way Seraphina sat on the throne,
poised between her brutish father and hollow brothers,
her delicate hand cradling a fan—
not from need, but as a statement of grace.
Ornamented in modest but masterful jewels:
pearls, lilac stones, golden filigree—
all echoing her family's sigil: the violet rose.
Oh, that violet rose…
The words fluttered across Valeria's mind like a forbidden hymn.
Blasphemous, surely.
Were the Church to uncover her longing,
they'd burn her for less.
The king—Alaric II of House Vaillant—
a name that might once have inspired reverence
now reeked of decay,
dragging behind it a trail of bloodied banners and rotting ideals.
With a careless gesture,
he dismissed her once more,
ordering her to remember her place.
Valeria bowed,
but not in reverence—
her bells jingled with deliberate insolence,
a sound sharp enough to draw his ire
and his children's delight.
Still, she knew better.
She fled the hall before her defiance cost her head.
But leaving Seraphina behind felt like slicing her own soul.
It was torment—an ache beneath her ribs,
a longing too vast to swallow.
She needed Seraphina like breath itself.
But survival, for now, meant silence.
And silence meant keeping her head attached to her shoulders.
The halls reeked of the king's obsession with warfare.
Blades lined the walls—polished, proudly displayed—
silent monuments to decades of cruelty,
their pale metal faces glinting with the memory of blood.
Some regretted it.
Valeria knew.
She could hear it in the stillness—
the sons of slaughtered souls weeping quietly in the dead of night.
Her bells chimed faintly as she passed—
a subtle gesture of respect to the guards stationed along the corridor.
In return, she received only the smallest of nods,
a wordless acknowledgment shared between the silent.
Walking these hushed halls felt like a punishment.
Each step a reminder of what she couldn't have—
what she ached for.
Her curse.
Her violet.
Her princess.
"GODS! Pull yourself together, Valeria!"
The rebuke echoed in her mind.
Her lips never moved, bound by her vow of silence,
but her thoughts screamed—
desperate, cracking under the pressure of silence.
Yet no one could hear her.
No one must.
If they did, she'd be dragged away,
burned for treason of the heart,
treated like some foreign plague in her own home.
She barely made it to her chamber
without breaking beneath the weight of her longing.
She cursed herself for loving Seraphina so foolishly—
so openly, at least within her own mind.
She couldn't afford a mistake.
She needed her head to remain exactly where it was.
This kingdom… Vaeloria.
Once sung about in storybooks,
tales spun with golden threads, praising an age of glory and peace.
But those days lived in the shadow of a queen—
Isolde of House Rhéne.
A sovereign of unmatched grace and empathy,
the only one who ever tempered the king's bloodlust.
The only soul who could soothe the itch for war that festered in his bones.
But she was gone now.
And peace had gone with her.
Now, that radiant smile—
that gentle kindness—
lingered in her daughter.
The queen's legacy lived on in the most beautiful way:
in her child.
Once inside her room,
Valeria yanked the cursed jester's hat from her head,
tossing it aside along with the carved wooden mask—
its fixed laughter now feeling like mockery.
She collapsed onto the edge of her worn mattress,
gloved hands dragging down her face
as her dark curls spilled forward,
curtaining her anguish.
— "This is torturous..."
The words slipped out in a breathless whisper,
shattering the vow of silence she had so dutifully upheld.
But the room was empty.
Only the walls bore witness to her breaking.
Her face, stripped of paint and pretense,
looked hollow in the dim light—
eyes heavy, soul heavier.
The jester, once dazzling and defiant,
was simply... tired.