They all stood around the royal bed, silence overhanging them. Ralof was stroking the queen’s damp brow, tears in his eyes. Melora had summoned Meena, who was on Fadiya’s other side, looking defeated. One clawed hand was rubbing the ridge of her brows, anxious by the situation. The Argonian woman had done all she could for the ailing queen, which had not been much. A hard truth was hanging over them: their queen was dying, and would be gone by dawn.
“I just don’t understand what happened,” Ralof said for the hundredth time. “She was fine when we left; angry, yes, but healthy, sound mind.” He gestured wildly at Melora. “You saying you watched her slip into madness is utterly baffling!”
“Watch your tone, friend,” Murdyn said sternly.
Melora waved down her husband for rising to Ralof’s bait for the hundredth time. She had had her time to think, to piece together the pieces of this maddening puzzle. Maddening…
“Ralof,” Melora started gently, “would you not say Fadiya has… not been herself of late?”
“What? Of course she has!” He sounded insulted, as though Melora had suggested his children, the heirs, were not legitimate.
“So, you would not say the queen had been prone to boughts of melancholia and paranoia recently?” Ralof was about to argue, but thought better of it and remained silent. “I think the Mad God has been after her for sometime, she used to talk about that chamber non-stop after her father’s anniversary ball.” She looked to Murdyn, “You remember the one, my love, where he officially named her his heir?”
Murdyn chuckled. “The one she disappeared from thinking no one would notice…” Her husband grinned, it had been a fond memory for them all.
“She was fixated on that place, convinced her mother had been taken by it,” Melora continued. “But we all knew the truth… that it had been Jofarr. Fadiya had just never accepted that.” She swallowed. “Until this mission of hers, no one had ever seen it in the palace before. I think it was all an elaborate ruse to get Fadiya where Sheogorath could easily, and possibly unhindered, take her.” Ralof began to protest, but Melora cut him off. “You yourself said there were no Daedra through his portal. How strange do you think that is? That the Mad God has no pets in the Shivering Isles? No guards? No traps? You really think you lot are all just that good that you slipped in undetected? No, that’s what he wanted.
Melora’s gaze turned back to her old friend. Remembering watching her as a small child. Mentoring her at the Sewing Table. “And now he has her,” she finished.
Inktober 2024, Prompt #19: RIDGE🧡🖤👻🎃
Whitney Writes... 
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