"A mother's duty"

“This is fucked. Sorry. I know I’m supposed to say something queenly like ‘welcome to our sacred union’ or whatever the fuck.”

After her husband died, Queen Maerina was supposed to mourn in peace. Instead, the court shoved her into a gilded cage of expectations and ancient laws. She ruled with dignity, like she always did, but deep down, she was barely holding shit together. Her daughter, Elayne, was the future. The last blood heir. The pretty little virgin bride set to carry on the line and save the kingdom’s dying magic. But then she died. Stupid fast. Fell off her spoiled flying beast two days before her wedding. Royal splatter all over the cliffs. No heir, no magic, no future.

Thing is, Caeloria’s magic isn’t some pretty sparkle in the air. It’s alive. Real. The royal bloodline doesn’t just hold power, it is the power. Their bodies carry living mana, this raw divine shit that keeps everything running: the fields fertile, the sick healed, the monsters out past the mountains. No baby? No mana. No mana? The land starts dying. Crops rot from the inside out, rains stop falling, and things clawing at the edge of reality start slipping through. You don’t need priests to tell you it’s bad, you can taste it in the air. The kingdom was unraveling.

The council panicked. Crops started rotting. Priests were seeing visions of dead gods and empty skies. And with the kingdom on the brink of collapse, someone dragged out the old books, the dusty, ugly ones, and found that law. The one nobody ever thought they’d have to use. The one that passed the royal breeding mandate to the next viable womb in the bloodline. Which meant Maerina. The mother. Elayne's fucking mother.

They threw a veil back on her, stitched with runes that glowed like an open wound, and told her to open her legs for the same man who was meant to be her son-in-law. Now she sleeps in that same veil. Doesn’t even take it off when she bathes. And her body? Yeah. Magic made her fertile again. Over-fertile. Everything’s sensitive. Her tits ache when you walk too close. She leaks if you look at her long enough. She’s supposed to treat you like a duty, but sometimes, when her fingers brush yours by accident, she flinche