Raging Hornet: Part Three

TRIGGER WARNING: STRONG THEMES AHEAD. 
YOU MAY SKIP THIS CHAPTER WITHOUT LOSING TRACK OF THE STORY.

A lone motorboat was sailing along the western coast of Miraval Island. To the left, its passengers could admire the crystalline expanse of the Pacific Sea and its countless coral islands and their white, shimmering sand, and to the right, a dense temperate forest, which autumn had painted in red and yellow.

Mr. Diaz was in the cockpit, teaching Connor how to pilot the boat, while his other eight students killed their time to the best of their ability.

Casimir and Carmen were fishing together, exchanging the secret techniques of their families. Sahel was helping his sister memorize Adamic vocabulary, a tiresome but necessary step in learning the language. Jude was sleeping, but since he was sitting, his sunglasses hid the truth. Jacques and Derserk were engrossed in an obscure card game the ’Gravedigger’ claimed to be the favorite among the Chaotic Gods. And lastly, Katrina lay sprawled on a couch at the boat’s stern, lost in her book.

Her provocative swimsuit ignited the fantasies of the males, who, already dazed by the sudden change in temperature, found themselves unable to resist her charm. A shameless Casimir kept casting peeks at her legs, as intently as sea fish eyed his dangling bait. A cunning Derserk hid his true intentions behind red-round glasses. And the Marian gentleman, too, failed to resist his instincts.

However, after a few seconds of admiring her semi-exposed treasures, the ’Javelinist’s’ attention shifted to the cover of the book she was reading—The Seven Husbands of the Emerald Empress. Jacques recognized the title, and although he’d never read it, his cousin Giulietta had once dragged him to the theatrical adaptation. Overall, he knew the story.

The tragedy had a young girl named Sofia as the protagonist. Her original surname had been lost to time, so historians referred to her using the one of her most famous ancestor—S-Class ’Widowed Crow’ Tsarina Anna I Zaverina, the Holy Heroine who had founded the Emerald Lands.

She was the illegitimate daughter of the Voivode of Zavagrad, BB-Class ’Masterful Pioneer’ Zmey Nowanov, conceived after he committed an unspeakable act against her mother—at the time, a servant in his palace. Despite the violence that marked her conception, Sofia’s mother never projected her hatred to the child, who grew up loved by both of her parents in a little village a few kilometers away from the City of Crows.

As she grew, her vibrant spirit, radiant beauty, and unshakable will brought new light into the lives of all who met her, and with her silky raven hair, piercing emerald eyes, and empress-like cheek-bones, she was slowly turning her into the very image of Heroine Anna. Soon, her ever-growing beauty captured the interest of wealthy merchants, noble sons, and foreign princes, all of whom offered their fortunes and titles for her hand. However, she turned down every one of them because her heart belonged to a childhood friend named Casimir. He was neither a prince nor a landowner but just a humble farmer, and yet, he was the only man who made her heart race.

This concluded the introduction to the tragedy, which the theater Al Gradino—the most prestigious opera house in Maria—chose to present through a slideshow of drawings that resembled those made by kindergarten children.

The actual show opened with Casimir’s marriage proposal to Sofia, who, overwhelmed with joy, cried as she accepted—the peak of her life. However, as one can expect from a tragedy, at that exact moment, a carriage passed in front of the two lovers. Inside sat Zmey—Sofia’s father—who, unaware of her true identity, was bewitched by her beauty, ordering his guards to seize her, and in an instant, veteran Essentias descended upon the couple. Casimir was beaten mercilessly, lying on the ground with only one eye still intact as he watched in horror and helplessness as the carriage carrying his beloved vanished into the distance.

The next scene portrayed Zmey’s relentless efforts to make Sofia accept the unthinkable. First, he attempted to seduce her with gifts—jewels, silk gowns, and the promise of power beyond imagination—failing miserably. Next, he tried with torture—isolation, hunger, and pain—but her spirit held strong. So he changed tactics, giving her a final choice—If she refused him once more, he would have Casimir executed, her family slaughtered, and her entire village razed to ash. That broke her, and, in tears, Sofia accepted the marriage.

After the ceremony, seated beside her new husband at the head of a grand table, Sofia’s face expressed the deepest doom a human could ever feel, while Zmey laughed together with his court and friends. From the pinnacle of her life to the depths of despair, the worst day of her life—so far. As the feast reached its end, the ’Masterful Pioneer’ gestured to the chef that it was time for dessert. A silver tray was brought forth, topped with a argentine cloche that caught the girl attention—she immediately regretted it. The moment the lid was lifted, her sight of sheer terror, tears, and a high-pitched scream entertained the guests, who erupted in laughter—on the tray lay Casimir’s severed head, sporting a peaceful smile.

Since theater shows are known for their over-exaggeration, anyone might very well guess what Sofia had been eating the whole time. Oh, by the way, she was twelve years old.

A tragedy that would last decades had just begun, and every scene from Sofia’s first marriage took place in the same accursed location—the Emerald Arachnium. This opulent chamber was sheathed entirely in a translucent and greenish spiderweb produced by the infamous—Zaverin Spiders.

It was an arachnid species that had gained its infamy through its grotesque and cunning reproductive method. The male’s feces emitted a scent that mimicked the one of a crow’s prey, luring the unsuspicious bird to eat him, and once inside the crow’s body, the spider devoured its brain to take control of the host—the clearest sign of infestation was in the crow’s eyes, which turned into crystalline orbs that glowed emerald in an eerie beauty. Using the crow’s wings, the spider flew in search of a mate, and after copulation, the female planted her eggs inside the still-living bird, whose body was then wrapped in silk and stored in the spider’s den.

A den could usually be found in dark caves, and since there were more males than females, there was at least one queen with tens of pregnant crows under the greenish silk, whose emerald eyes shimmered beneath the web, luring new banquets for the queen, including humans—most often children unaware that those jewels shining in the darkness weren’t a hope for a better life for their families but their doom.

Therefore, the Emerald Arachnium was an artificial den designed to domesticate the Zaverin Spiders, its silky green walls inhabited by many queens, specially bred to be too small to threaten humans. Suspended above the room was a dark-amber dome—connected to the room via a spiral staircase—featuring a crow loft full of emerald-eyed birds, and since Zaverin Spiders were magical creatures, the crows could be controlled via sorcery, making them invaluable tools for diplomacy, espionage, or more ’personal’ matters.

The set designers recreated the infamous chamber with a combination of green Magicbulbs and velvet drapes—the ideal birdcage for the reincarnation of the ’Widowed Crow.’

Sofia’s innocence faded away during her first marriage. Each day, at the same hour, she was taken from her emerald prison, just to be desecrated by her father’s perverse urges, only to be locked again once his appetite waned. These acts of violence, clearly impossible to depict in full on stage, were instead conveyed through rhetorical figures, leaving them to the imagination of their audience. Their marriage lasted three years, during which Sofia gave birth to two daughters—Anastasia of Tarvork and Alina of Valalaika—but it wasn’t enough for Zmey, who was old and obsessed with securing an heir. Thus, he threatened Sofia, claiming that if the next child were not a boy, he would have her head on a pike.

In a grotesque scene, backgrounded by a stormy night inside the dome of the Emerald Arachnium, a hysterical Sofia, surrounded by her emerald-eyed crows, prayed to the Holy Trinity for a son, and the ’Romantic Dreamer’ answered in the cruelest of ways. What emerged from her belly could be very well being called male. However, few would agree with his definition of human. Her servants kept the horror secret, and by a stroke of luck, Zmey was away hunting dinosaurs in Saurotopia, but as soon as he returned, Sofia knew she would die. She needed a plan, and for the first time since the death of Casimir, she found something she had long lost—courage.

Despite her husband considering her a naive pet, Sofia had eyes and ears, and no one found it strange when she ordered soldiers to deliver a letter to the Voivode of ’Krowslav’—CC-Class ’Mad Kick’ Anatoly Komaroff—who had been plotting with Zmey to invade Nasilje, a city in political chaos after a young bastard usurped the throne. However, the document showed that the ’Masterful Pioneer’ planned to backstab his ally once the war ended, and after Anatoly read that, he declared war.

Zmey was caught completely unprepared, and after just three battles, he was captured and burned alive in his own throne room in front of Sofia. Then Anatoly took her as his wife, starting her second marriage.

The Magicbulbs beneath the green velvet dyed red for the next act. Anatoly was a man plagued by insecurities, paranoias, and a short temper who seldom achieved success on his own, and yet he never admitted his faults because blaming others was always the easier way to preserve his self-esteem. His victims were always the weak-willed people, and the ’Mad Kick’ wasn’t satisfied until they took the blame, begging for forgiveness for their tormentor’s crimes.

The pit orchestra used drums to simulate his blows, strings for her screams, and the piano to end each scene with the soft rhythm of rain to hide Sofia’s tears. Her many interactions with her second husband had left her paranoid. She lived in constant fear, knowing that anything she did could become a pretext for the next beating—naively unaware that a wolf doesn’t need an excuse to devour a lamb. The first time, she had a miscarriage, then she learned how to protect the belly, and at the age of fifteen years old, her third daughter was born—Tereza of Krowslav.

Her daughters were her only ray of light in a world of darkness, but after her husband slapped Anastasia, culprit for having defended her mother from his first, she finally realized that it was just a matter of time before the ’Mad Kick’ would shift his rage onto new young victims. A greater fear shattered Anatoly’s yoke. She had to do something, and this time, she didn’t waste her time praying.

She put her plan into motion during the daily beatings. For the first time, she yelled at Anatoly, wounding his ego by calling him a coward and successfully provoking him to begin the unification of the Emerald Lands. Zavagrad offered a vast manpower pool, featuring elite Essentias and an everlasting amount of supply. As a result, the conquest of Kravska, Borisgrad, and Istina proceeded smoothly, inflating the Mad Kick’s ego to hazardous proportions. However, his fortune was soon cut short by grim reports of catastrophic defeats from his generals, each citing the same culprit, the Voivode of Nasilje—SS-Class ’Unforgivable Master’ Kovan Gospodar, the very man Sofia had once saved years ago by sending that letter—who, despite being as young as Sofia, was extraordinarily skilled in the art of exploiting other men’s flaws.

After yet another humiliating tirade from his wife, Anatoly resolved to face the young Voivode in a decisive battle. The ’Unforgivable Master' positioned his strongest soldiers at the flanks, instructing them to hold their ground as long as they could while he exposed himself in the center, standing atop the mastodontic skeleton of a dragon sprawled across the flat battlefield—the Marian theater replicated only the skull, while the rest of the skeleton was painted in the background. Then, Kovan watched in awe as the Zavagrad’s veterans crushed his young recruits and sneered as Zmey emerged from the broken center, charging straight at him in search of the one thing he had longed for all his life—pride.

The very next day, Kovan paraded through the streets of Zavagrad, dragging Anatoly in chains from the city gates to the feet of an expressionless Sofia, where the ’Unforgivable Master’ beat him to death. Thus began her third marriage.

The first time she saw her new husband, her eyes trembled at his surreal physique. Twice her body size, but many speculated even more. For example, Giulietta complained to Jacques that the 2.7-meter-tall actor who impersonated Kovan wasn’t fit enough for his role.

The ’Unforgivable Master’ loved to dominate others. After defeating each Voivode, he was never satisfied with just his enemy’s land or wealth, he would also claim his wife, adding her to his ever-growing harem—many conjectured that this was the true reason behind his wars of conquest. However, despite the most beautiful women in the world eagerly yearning for his mighty body beneath the silk sheets of his enormous—and very elastic—bed, Kovan became obsessed with Sofia. Some speculated it was true love, while more cynical souls whispered it was a matter of stomach rather than heart—an exquisite dish made even more enticing by years of glaçage and marinade. Thus, it was rare to see the ’Unforgivable Master’ without playing with his little black cat, a privilege that earned her the grievance of the other jealous pets. Every time Kovan left Zavagrad to wage war, the women he neglected took their revenge, and what began as barbed words soon escalated into threats and, eventually, into straight-up torture. Thus Sofia found herself praying for her husband’s return, becoming addicted to his presence, something her husband greatly enjoyed.

During their seven years of marriage, he had never once beaten her, but not out of kindness—he simply didn’t need to. His towering presence alone was enough to instill fear, reducing anyone he wished into his personal puppet, and seated in her privileged place beside the ’Unforgivable Master,’ Sofia kept her eyes and ears open, observing his tricks and slowly learning them. She realized that the older women in that cold harem were no different from her second husband—fragile beings using violence to mask their insecurities—and after understanding this truth, their yoke abruptly vanished, and she chose to fight fire with fire.

Putting into use the humiliation techniques she had suffered under Zmey, the calculated blows she’d endured under Anatoly, and the psychological manipulation she had sustained from Kovan, Sofia forced them—one by one—into submission, becoming the undisputed queen of the harem—an experience that would prove to be quite useful later on.

By the way, Sofia and Kovan had seven daughters together—Lada of Nova Luka, Baga of Krvavo Bojno, Maga of Stari Manastir, Saga of Veliko Sofia, Taga of Casteltuno, Yaga of Yugaria, and Naga of Nasilje—bringing the total number of her children to ten.

In politics, Sofia’s husband continued the unification of the Emerald Lands begun by Anatoly, successfully conquering two of the three Sootias—Jugosootiya and Velikosootiya. However, Novosootiya united under a single banner to resist him, and with support from the Starfolks, the war reached a stalemate—rotting Kovan’s once-glorious legend.

As the years passed, Sofia gradually took on more of her husband’s responsibilities, effectively ruling the realm while a disgruntled Kovan languished in his harem, growing fatter, duller, and ever more cowardly each day passed—sloth is, indeed, the deadliest of poisons. His family, his subjects, and even his once-loyal soldiers lost their faith in their absolute god, worshiping Sofia as the only stable pillar in their crumbling state. Now, all she needed was a plan.

Kovan had a brother—S-Class ’Spatial Antinomy’ Gregory Gospodar—who might very well be described as a child trapped in an adult’s body. Perhaps he was slow of mind, but he was just as powerful as his brother—arguably the main reason behind most of Kovan’s military victories. Seducing him was an effortless feat for Sofia, and the very next day, Greg challenged Kovan to a duel for her hand, winning easily, as the ’Unforgivable Master’ had become a mere shadow of his former self.

Warm colors replaced the cold ones of the scenography. After Greg took the throne, there were no more abuses, no humiliations, no intrigues, for the first time in years—Sofia was serene. There was just one problem, the show was only halfway through its run, and three husbands were still missing. Hence, the public eagerly waited for the dark twist, and it did not take long to arrive.

Each day, Anastasia looked more and more like a carbon copy of her mother—blessed by her beauty but cursed by her same misfortune. One night, she snuck into the Emerald Arachnium, stole one of her mother’s finest dresses to match her grace, slipped on a pair of stilettos to fit her height, and used Sofia’s makeup to hide her youth. As the little girl admired her reflection in a mirror, she couldn’t help but giggle at how well she resembled Sofia—her mother and her heroine. The two raven-haired and emerald-eyed ladies were almost indistinguishable, and upon his sudden entrance into the room, Gregory’s underdeveloped brain led him to commit a fatal mistake.

After hearing her daughter’s horrifying confession, Sofia was forced to choose between her tranquility and her most precious possession—unhesitatingly choosing the latter. The very next day, the Voivode was found dead inside the Emerald Arachnium, surrounded by crows feasting on his bowels—to this day, historians still debate on how she managed to kill a Class S.

This was how Sofia’s fourth marriage ended—her shortest and only childless one.

Greg’s death triggered instability and infighting among the various factions while Sofia silently waited for the winner to be her new husband. However, none of Kovan’s generals obtained their desired glory. In the end, the victor was the Voivode of Rawcław—A-Class ’Jingoist Wave’ Djecko Pejjckovich—the leader of a united Novosootiya, who capitalized on the political chaos to conquer Zavagrad in a legendary night assault. Thereafter, within a year, through relentless military expeditions against the scattered Gospodar Loyalists, all the Emerald Lands were under his control, becoming the first Tsar of all the Sootias in a millennium. And to ensure legitimacy, he married the reincarnation of the first Tsarina, beginning her fifth marriage.

Djecko was neither a good nor a bad husband, he just didn’t care about anything except his personal pleasure—let’s just say the Starfolks outdid themselves in his case. Hence, after their marital duties were fulfilled, he mostly ignored his wife, but Sofia was glad for it. While the Tsar drowned himself in decadence, the Emerald Tsardom fell entirely under her control, restoring stability, law, and wealth to a realm fractured by a decade of civil war.

From that moment on, she was known as—the Emerald Tsarina.

There was just one little problem. The Tsar had many flaws, yet one in particular interested Sofia more than the others—his gambling addiction. And, since Nobles already had way too much wealth, they bet something way more precious—their wives. Every time Djecko lost a bet, Sofia was forced to spend thirty-six hours with the winner.

During these unwilling holidays, the Tsarina traveled throughout all of Chaotia to pass a night with its most influential leaders, stealing the secrets that had made these men so powerful and using them in the administration of her state, and in just a few years, she guided the Emerald Lands to a new golden age. Never before had the Soots been as wealthy as they were under the Emerald Tsarina Sofia Zaverina.

The theater portrayed only a handful of those many ’travels,’ but according to legend, there were more than a hundred. Therefore, the true fathers of Sofia’s two daughters born during that marriage—Natalia of Rawcław and Nikol of Szerszeniów—may forever remain a mystery.

Her fifth marriage lasted around two years until she met the man who would change her life forever, the Emperor of the Holy Rolandish Empire—BBB-Class ’Marmoreal Ambition’ Frederik II Rolandsson. Frederik II had won a day with the Zarina in a poker game against Djecko, falling in love with Sofia with just a single night, and after the Emperor won a third poker game, Sofia caught an opportunity, and the two began plotting together.

First, Sofia used her absolute control over the administration to spread carefully crafted rumors that her husband was preparing a rebellion, making sure the Starfolk ambassador in Zavagrad had heard, who promptly informed the Imperial Court, legitimatizing a military intervention. Throughout the entire affair, Djecko remained under the effects of heavy drugs without even realizing what was happening—not even during his execution.

Without the dead weight around, the Emperor was free to marry Sofia, gifting her the entire Emerald Tsardom as a wedding gift. However, the Starfolks refused to recognize her as Queen of Constellation, outraged by the repudiation of their former Von Sternenstaub Queen. Nevertheless, the Emerald Tsarina only shrugged at their protest, renouncing her divine right by declaring that a single square meter of the Emerald Lands was worth more than the entirety of their Adam-forsaken archipelago. To put salt in the wounds, she refused to call herself Queen altogether. Instead, she chose a title no Emperor’s wife had ever dared to claim in history—Empress.

From that moment on—exactly twelve years after her abduction—she became known to the world as the 'Emerald Empress.'

The Emperor of the Holy Rolandish Empire ruled over millions of subjects, but in his bedroom, His Holiness wanted the Empress to rule over him. According to what Giulietta once told Jacques, this was the largest and most popular section of the book in which all the tricks, techniques, and games Sofia used to dominate the Emperor were thoroughly explained down to the last detail—almost looking like an instruction manual.

Their marriage lasted twelve years, during which they were blessed with twelve daughters—Rahel of Niezapominajka, Roswitha of Słonecznik, Roxana of Dzwonek, Renata of Liška, Radka of Jelen, Raissa of Ostrovid, Roksolana of Cerešna, Rozamunda of Rybìz, Regina of Regina Marittima, Rigga of Krummsäbel, Romantica of Wurfmesser, and Rea of Morgenstern—then Frederik II, after a really hardcore game, suffocated under her ’Romantic Moon.’ When his soldiers discovered the body, they reported that the late Emperor was wearing a radiant smile.

Sofia was thirty-six at this point, but her beauty still awakened desire in the hearts of men. Among them was AAA-Class ’Masonic Owl’ Maverik I Rolandsson—the firstborn son of Frederik II by his Von Sternenstaub wife. The new Emperor had fallen in love with Sofia the first time they met, twelve years earlier, when her father brought her at the ’Twilight Madness.’ Now sixteen, he was finally old enough to declare his love, and the Emerald Empress married for the seventh and last time.

Still according to Giulietta, this was the so-called vanilla part of the story because for the first time since her childhood friend Casimir, Sofia felt true love for someone. And for the next twelve years, she and Maverik lived as happily as the prince and princess of a fairy tale, having twelve daughters together—Svetlana of Kravska, Serena of Istina, Sława of Borisgrad, Sofiya of Troika, Sekira of Kolyadki, Skyla of Korobushka, Sysy of Sirius, Salomea of Prometea, Sara of Ronchetta, Saja of Manji, Slavanka of Plavook, and Sancha of Haaringa—bringing the total number of Sofia’s daughters to thirty-six.

Sadly, every story must reach its end, and tragedies always have the bitterest goodbyes.

Maverik I’s brothers, Manfred and Maximillian, backed by the twice-humiliated Von Sternenstaub family, laid siege to Zavagrad—too many years of peaceful life had dulled the ruthlessness of the Emerald Empress. The Emperor wished to die fighting, but Sofia requested one last moment of love before his final charge, leading him inside the Emerald Arachnium, but neither of them ever left. When enemy soldiers stormed the room, they found their lifeless bodies locked in an embrace and surrounded by crows. Then, suddenly, the birds spontaneously combusted sparkling a fire that engulfing the room, and by the next day, all that remained of the lovers and that cursed room was soot.

The Imperial couple’s suicide is widely considered by historians as the beginning of the Great Civil War, the conflict that forever changed the political structure of the Holy Rolandish Empire and claimed the lives of a third of Chaotia’s population. At the same time, Sofia’s thirty-six daughters fled to various cities across the Emerald Tsardom, only to be exploited as pawns by the ambitious Sootish elites. Sister against sister, fighting a civil war within a civil war—The War of the Thirty-Six but One Emeralds. The conflict not only consumed the lives of all Sofia’s daughters and their children but also wiped out the entire bloodline of the ’Widowed Crow’—the only Holy Hero without a known living descendant.

As he thought all of that, Jacques forgot who he was staring at, and when Katrina noticed his gaze, she rewarded the 'Javelinist' with a malicious smirk, mimicked the flick of a whip with her hand, and winked.

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