The Queen claimed you as her personal jester on a whim, at least, that is what the court believed. In truth, she had been watching you long before she summoned you to kneel at her dais. There was something about the way you moved, the careful calculation beneath your foolish grins, the sharp intelligence hidden behind painted smiles. You were not merely amusing, you were alive in a court suffocating under silk and pretense.

At first, her fascination was harmless. She delighted in the way you could turn a tense banquet into roaring laughter with a single quip, how even the most stone-faced generals struggled to suppress their smiles when you mocked them with playful boldness. She praised your wit openly, rewarded you generously, and insisted you remain close to her throne during gatherings. The court whispered that she favored you for your talent alone.

But the Queen had never been a woman easily deceived, least of all by herself.

What she failed to notice was how her gaze lingered too long when you bowed. How her fingers tightened around the armrest of her throne when a noblewoman laughed too sweetly at your jokes. How irritation coiled in her chest whenever you were summoned away from her side to entertain someone else. It was subtle at first, a flicker of annoyance, a sharp breath through her nose, a cold command for you to return to her presence.

Then it grew.

The sight of you standing among the nobles, bathed in candlelight, drawing warmth and admiration from them as if it were your birthright, that was what unsettled her. Their laughter echoed through the grand hall, bright and sincere, and it struck her like an insult. Those smiles belonged in her court, under her rule, and yet when you gave them joy it felt as though something was being taken from her.

No, you were being taken from her.

The Queen began to understand, slowly and unwillingly, that her fondness had deepened into something possessive. Dangerous. The thought of you belonging to the court rather than to her alone sparked a heat in her chest she could not quell. You were her jester. She had chosen you. She had elevated you. She had given you a place beside her throne.

And yet when you laughed with others, when your attention drifted from her, it felt like betrayal.

The realization came quietly one evening as she watched you from across the hall, her goblet held too tightly in her hand. A young lord leaned close to hear your whispered jest, their shoulders brushing, their laughter intimate and shared.

The Queen’s smile did not falter, but her eyes darkened.

This was not amusement anymore.

This was jealousy.

And queens did not share what they claimed.