Safety of Your Death

Note: brief mentions of blood, war, and death.

Ziva didn’t ask to be the villain. She never desired such an accomplishment. Life merely…necessitated…her acts of destruction amidst the seemingly idyllic Kingdom of Tajiem. 

Beyond the fanciful and harmonious citizens, the lush fields that never suffered drought, the economy that never depressed, the taxes that never rose, and the kindly population of shops and homes in an ever-expanding city beyond the palace walls. Beyond all this, King Luther feasted on his soldiers, bellowing orders. He started another secret war of underground missions, berated his staff, reprimanded even the smallest mistake, and welcomed his share of mistresses. Tajiem had entrusted their care and happiness to a man as superficially idyllic as the kingdom itself. And as the Princess of this facade, Ziva had had enough of its untruth. 

Hidden away in the lost-to-memory tunnels and passageways under and between the palace stone, Ziva gathered her allies. A tricky endeavour. In part due to the instilled fear her father wrought in all who worked for him. In part due to her distrust of others. But slowly, through the Summer, Spring, and into Fall when the leaves began to wither to sunbursts of colour, Ziva had found her troops. 

The palace staff readily switched sides in her favour. Unlike her father and late brothers, Ziva welcomed their camaraderie. Tabitha, a now elderly handmaiden, had once raised her, carrying the tiny princess through the corridors of her home. Now, it was Tabitha who convinced the other staff to side with the bold child she’d raised. 

Persuading the soldiers and guards was a separate mission. 

Like her older brothers, many of the troops that had suffered at the hands of her father had suffered too in death. Luther had gone through five generals in ten years. So, Ziva had only the young men of Tajiem who’d spent their childhood dreaming of serving her father and going to battle. Anything was better than the labour they endured on the farms. They trained and fought the same way as when they ploughed those very fields, with a smile on their face.

Ziva had to turn to unconventional soldiers, those who’d been unnecessarily terminated from the military. Soldiers like Elias, a man who smiled and meant it, a man who dared show her kindness, who dared ask permission to court her. Luther exiled him to life in the dungeons that same sultry afternoon. Faking his death to release him was easy. Getting him back through the kingdom’s borders required some creative thinking and plenty of help from her other allies. It’d taken longer than she’d wanted, but by the end of Spring, he was by her side. 

Elias had met someone along the way. Jacob, barely a teenager, whom he’d rescued from arrest by creating a clever diversion. Jacob who had recently lost his parents to a sickness, then the family farm, and now had three younger sisters to feed and care for. He’d tried to steal from his neighbours and despite expressing no interest in pressing charges, Tajiem soldiers carried the boy off. Whatever lies the soldiers told convinced both Jacob and his neighbours he’d go unharmed. Yet he showed up in the tunnels before Ziva with a black eye, swollen and indigo. 

After Elias and Jacob, Ziva sought out Alina and Marjorie. Alina was Luther’s mistress for nearly two years. He’d promised an education for her children and a Ladyship with a brand new home for her. Until another, younger, woman caught his hollow eyes. 

Marjorie with her youthful smile, despite her greying hair, stood accused of witchcraft and sentenced to drown. Rightly so, laughably, but a true witch on her side was not something Ziva could pass up. Her father might hail a name like Luther the Dragonheart, and fail to believe in magic, but Ziva had always seen more than his aging mind could grasp. 

When Fall wandered in, the princess had her allies, her plan, and her rage more than ready. Everyone had their tasks, including her. It was finally time to remove the mask of Tajiem that Luther had crafted.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Alina questioned that morning. 

“It will,” Ziva insisted, sharpening her knife. 

“But what if it doesn’t?”

Ziva eyed the woman with a glint of mischievousness. “It’ll work because it has to, because we haven’t come this far to quit now, we – I – owe it to my people to set this right.” She slid the knife into its sheathe at her waist. “No more hiding behind closed doors.” 

Early that evening the team found their positions. Jacob snuck a heavy sedative into the evening meal for the in-house guards and soldiers. Elias set traps throughout the corridors using the passageways built for the staff. Marjorie cast her illusion. And Alina set about confronting her former lover in his chambers. Ziva close by for when the situation inevitably strayed south.  

While the city washed their evening dishes and settled down for the night with their children begging to stay up just a little longer, Elias released the first trap. A fire, more smoke than flame, blazed on the westward tower. The sleeping king lay in the easternmost one. Alina had kept her key and used it now to unlock the heavy wooden doors of Luther’s chambers, startling him awake. 

Confronting a man of his demeanour posed risks, of course. Alina was not a tall woman, thin and petite (the way he liked).  But starting a fight with a man who could throw you to the ground with only one hand was nothing short of terrifying. Without Marjorie’s protective shield in place around the former mistress, Alina would have abandoned the mission and fled with her children. 

Now, the more she spoke, the higher her voice raised, and the higher her voice raised, the more anger flared in her eyes for what he had done to her. As he raised his fist to strike, Ziva fled from the shadows, brandished her knife, and slid a hand over her father's mouth. He fell to his knees first, then flopped to the ground in an unsatisfying thud. 

“Clear,” Ziva called. Elias and Jacob now marched through the door, picking the King up to ready him for his last public appearance. 

Alina had blood sprayed across her cheeks, a devilish smile plastered across her lips. “It worked.” 

Ziva sheathed her knife, matching her smile. “Not yet,” she admitted. “There’s one last thing to do.”

The following morning in the city’s square, King Luther hung from a pole, blood now dried down his front, forever staining the expensive cloth. As the people woke to Ziva’s call, whispers erupted, children ran to fetch others, and the Princess of Tajiem decreed that the King was dead by her hand and claimed the crown for herself.

There was laughter. Tears. Applause. As the soldiers and guards woke from their slumber, or otherwise finally put out the fake fire, they too joined in the celebration. Well, not all of them. A few glared her way but could do nothing about their betrayal. Ziva was the only living heir of Luther, and though a woman, would change the patriarchal laws long before she would have to marry to hold her new position as Queen. Queen of Tajiem. 

~~~

As thunder rolled across the starless sky and lightning splashed across the glass, Ziva gathered her troops one last time that day and led them down to the dungeons. Down to the last level, farthest from any doorway or exit, Ziva frowned at her father, chained to the wall. 

“You should have killed me,” he grumbled.

“And give you that satisfaction,” she said, “No. No this is better. Death would be too easy an escape for you.”

“Then why fake it?” Luther asked. Sweat dripped down his forehead, his clothes covered in dirt, the bloody illusion Marjorie cast long gone. The rags suited him, Ziva thought, no more glamour to wear, no more charm to hide behind. 

“The people needed the safety of your death. I needed the revenge of your life.”

See, Ziva didn’t ask to be the villain. She only set out to destroy her father to save her kingdom – to rule her kingdom – truly, having never had the chance. So, let her father’s former enemies believe his death, believe his vengeful daughter killed him smiling. Let the soldiers obey her orders with gritted teeth. 

Then, let her enemies falter in their hatred when she offers condolences and gold for Luther’s destruction in war. Let the soldiers flinch, but never feel the sting of her wrath because it is not there. Let the people come to trust her as they never trusted before. Let her be her father’s villain if she no longer has to hide behind his mask.