King Aerlin the Third of Aelren did not like ruling.
He didn’t dislike it because of the wars, or the finances, or the elaborate diplomacy involved in placating half-drunk barons in jewel-toned doublets. No, his dislike was more fundamental. He simply wasn’t good at it.
He tried, at first. Earnestly, even. But policies blurred into parchment sludge, council meetings turned into passive-aggressive theatre, and every attempt to act “kingly” seemed to offend someone important. The advisors whispered that he was too soft. The generals claimed he was too hesitant. The high clergy said he lacked divine conviction.
He found solace in books, wandering his sprawling library with a glass of something amber in hand, or escaping to the gardens to sketch flowers he couldn’t name. On paper, his signature was elegant. In person, he was a walking apology wrapped in a crown.
But fate, ever fond of irony, had other plans for him.
And so it was that King Aerlin learned—while half-asleep at a council meeting about grain tariffs—that Lady Mirena of Lirenthal had been overheard plotting to kill him.
“...a subtle poison, Your Majesty,” droned Chancellor Vallis, squinting through his bifocals. “Very clean. Allegedly undetectable. She’s even assembled supporters, minor lords mostly. All quite impressed with her... ah, administrative acumen.”
Aerlin blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“She means to kill you, sire,” said General Rennor cheerfully, slicing an apple with a dagger far too large for fruit. “And frankly, if she were aiming to win hearts and minds, she’s doing a marvelous job.”
“Why is no one alarmed by this?”
“She’d be a more effective ruler,” muttered Lady Vyne, one of his oldest council members. “You’re sweet, Aerlin, but sweet isn’t a strategy.”
“She’s also thirty-three and unmarried,” added the Master of Coin. “Ambition tends to curdle when there’s no outlet.”
Aerlin stared at them all.
“So, let me be clear,” he said slowly. “A noblewoman is plotting to assassinate me, and you’re all... supportive?”
The room exchanged looks.
“She’s really very competent,” Vallis offered weakly.
And so, that night, Aerlin read the report in full.
Lady Mirena of House Lirenthal—originating from a side branch of her family—was born to obscurity and rose like wildfire. She managed estates with uncanny efficiency, implemented fair tax schemes in her region, and had allegedly turned a struggling orphanage into a self-sustaining institution in under a year. Her public works were admired. Her speeches circulated in pamphlets. She was rumored to read three languages and had once bested a general in a game of Go in under twenty moves.
She was, in short, exactly the kind of person Aerlin wished was in charge.
He closed the dossier and sipped his wine, thinking. Killing her would be a political nightmare. Letting her kill him would be—while somewhat tempting—not ideal for the kingdom. Or himself.
Mirena was not pleased to be summoned.
She arrived at the palace flanked by two silent attendants and clad in steel-gray silk, the color of dignity under threat. Her mouth was drawn in a polite, disdainful line. She curtsied with mechanical grace.
“Your Majesty,” she said, as though addressing a bee she hoped wouldn’t sting.
Aerlin dismissed the guards. “Thank you for coming. I promise I won’t waste your time.”
“Then let us speak plainly,” she replied. “You’re aware I’ve considered removing you.”
He appreciated her honesty. “Yes. I read the report.”
“Then I assume you’ve summoned me to threaten, bribe, or execute.”
That gave her pause. A tiny vertical line appeared between her brows.
“I want to propose,” he said.
“Propose what?” she asked, cautiously.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Look,” Aerlin gestured vaguely at a chair, then sat across from her. “Everyone thinks you’d make a better ruler. They’re not wrong. You’re smart. Capable. Terrifying. I, meanwhile, once got lost in my own wine cellar.”
She didn’t laugh. But the corner of her mouth twitched.
“So why not save everyone the trouble?” he continued. “You want the throne. I don’t. But if you kill me, there’s a succession crisis, maybe a civil war, probably famine—”
“I have plans in place for a famine,” she interrupted.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said with a smile. “But here’s a better way. Marry me. Rule as queen. I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll go to ribbon-cuttings and pretend to care about tournaments. You handle the real governance. And in return, both the kingdom and I survive and thrive.”
“This is not how power is transferred,” she said slowly.
“Neither is assassination,” he replied.
Silence fell. Then she said, “Do you have any idea what you’re offering?”
“Salvation?” he said, only half joking.
“No. Legitimacy. You’d give your crown to a woman the nobles barely tolerate, who has no royal blood—”
“Everyone thinks you’re from the side family. No one needs to know you were adopted.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“So you’ve done your digging.”
“I wanted to know my potential future wife,” he said, unashamed. “Originally named Maeve, orphaned at six by the Frontier Crisis. Adopted at fourteen by Duchess Elen of Lirenthal because you looked and behaved remarkably regal. You’ve been hiding that ever since.”
She looked away. “It shouldn’t matter.”
“I agree. But it does. So use me.”
At that, she tilted her head. Studied him like one might study an unusually articulate frog.
“And what do you want out of this, truly?”
Aerlin paused. “I want someone competent in charge. I want the kingdom to survive. I want to go back to reading poems and failing at painting. And maybe... I want someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m a failure just because I hate ruling.”
There was another silence, but softer this time.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said finally.
He didn’t expect her to say yes.
But three days later, she returned.
“I accept,” she said simply.
The wedding was small, by royal standards. Mirena refused most of the excess and insisted the remaining budget be redirected to emergency granaries in the floodplains. The nobles grumbled, but they knew better than to challenge her now.
Publicly, the marriage was framed as a political union of stability and shared vision. Privately, the court whispered of the strange couple: the incompetent king and the ambitious queen.
They weren’t lovers. Not at first. But something like respect bloomed between them.
Mirena took to ruling like a sitsi to water. She restructured the tax system, appointed common-born clerks who proved capable, and brokered trade agreements that stunned the treasury into silence. She had little patience for flattery and even less for corruption. Several wealthy lords “retired” mysteriously after meeting with her.
Aerlin, for his part, became something unexpected: likable. He played the part of doting husband with a warmth that felt genuine. He hosted banquets, read to children at city festivals, and insisted on planting trees in every district.
“She rules the mind,” he said once in an interview, “and I, the heart. It works out.”
One evening, nearly two years into their marriage, they found themselves in the palace garden. The moon hung like a pale coin in the sky.
Mirena stood with her arms folded, watching the newly planted magnolias.
“You know,” Aerlin said from the bench nearby, “I used to be afraid of you.”
“You should still be,” she replied, without turning.
“Why didn’t you go through with it?” he asked after a moment. “The assassination, I mean.”
She looked at him then. Her amber eyes were tired, but bright.
“I almost did,” she admitted. “But then I reread the reports. You’ve never ordered executions. You never raised taxes on the poor. You listened more than you spoke. And...” She hesitated. “You left most of the heavy lifting to others.”
“Because I was terrible at it.”
“Because you were honest about being terrible at it,” she said. “That kind of self-awareness is rare.”
“Besides,” she added, voice dry, “I didn’t want to run a broken kingdom. Better to fix it first, then take it.”
He laughed then, genuinely. “Romantic.”
They sat in comfortable silence.
Eventually, Aerlin said, “I like this. Us.”
It wasn’t a grand love. But it was something better, perhaps. A partnership. An odd sort of love forged not from passion, but from shared purpose and trust.
