"Where Shadows Court the Sun" by Sasha Ravae
- Sasha Ravae
- Jun 9
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 19
In a court of silk and shadow, Queen Iishani Monroe is fire wrapped in flesh—worshipped by some, feared by others, and untouchable by all. When she refuses to choose a consort, the court calls it scandal.
But her defiance is more than pride—it’s prophecy.
When a quiet stranger steps from the shadows, Iishani’s flame begins to flicker in ways it never has before. Not with submission. With remembering.
As ancient magic stirs and forgotten bloodlines return to claim their due, Iishani must decide: rule by tradition—or ignite the truth.
Prologue
Before the fire, there was only shadow—endless, silent, waiting. But then came the flame, fierce and eternal, tearing through the dark with a hunger that could not be sated. She blazed—radiant, untouchable—a queen crowned not by men, but by the light she commanded. They called her divine. They called her death. And they came, as fools always do, hearts outstretched, certain they could cradle the sun.
…they burned.
For fire does not yield. It consumes. It devours. And she—she was the brightest flame of them all, leaving ash and ruin in her wake. They named her Queen, but she was no monarch to be worshipped. She was a force. A fury. A woman born of heat and longing, wrapped in silks and sharper still than any blade drawn in her name.
But even the sun, in all her glory, casts a shadow.
And what is shadow, but proof of the light’s existence? A darkness shaped not by absence, but by the very brilliance it cannot escape. For every flame that rises, a shadow waits to meet it—quiet, patient, unafraid.
This is the story of Fire and Shadow—of a queen who burned too brightly and the man who did not flinch when the blaze reached for him. It’s a story of want, of ruin, of what remains when the ash settles.
And like all stories worth telling, it begins with fire…but the ash always remembers.
Chapter One
The sun loomed high, an unrelenting blaze searing the courtyard, its heat clinging to stone and skin like an omen. It dared challengers to rise, but none could match its fury. None…except her. But even the sun seemed like a dim echo compared to her.
Iishani Monroe reclined upon her throne—not one crafted of gold or carved marble, but of presence alone. Draped in silks the color of dying embers, her skin shimmered like molten bronze, kissed by the very fire that seemed to rise in her name. The delicate chains that adorned her wrists and throat caught the light, glinting with every subtle movement she made. She was radiant, untouchable, and she knew it.
Around her, the suitors gathered, men dressed in their finest, faces fixed with rehearsed charm and desperate bravado. They brought with them gifts—jewels plucked from the earth's deepest veins, poetry stitched with fragile metaphors, promises wrapped in gilded words. But none of it mattered though. None of them mattered.
Iishani's gaze swept over them lazily, like a flame deciding what to consume next. Beneath the curve of her smile, sharp as glass, coiled a quiet restlessness—an ache not for admiration, nor for conquest, but for something beyond reach, something unspoken, something real. Is this all there is? she mused, inwardly. The ache of boredom was a familiar companion, dull yet persistent.
The first suitor stepped forward, a man with too much silk and too little substance. He presented a jewel the size of her palm, its facets catching the light as if desperate for her approval too.
“For the woman whose beauty outshines the stars themselves,” he declared with a practiced bow.
Iishani tilted her head, a slow, deliberate movement that made the chains at her throat chime softly.
“Outshines the stars?” she echoed, voice smooth as velvet, but with an edge beneath it. “A bold claim, considering that I have yet to see you shine at all.”
Laughter rippled through the gathered court, sharp and brittle, like glass poised to shatter—more like a reflex than genuine amusement, as if even their laughter sought her consent. The suitor’s face flushed, his confidence fracturing as he stumbled back.
Another stepped forward, undeterred. This one with words instead of jewels, but they were no less hollow.
“My heart,” he proclaimed, hand pressed theatrically against his chest, “is yours to command, my queen.”
Iishani’s smile grew, though it did not reach her eyes.
“A heart so easily given is rarely worth holding,” she replied.
The suitor faltered, but she had already turned away, her attention drifting elsewhere—anywhere but here. The routine was suffocating, each attempt at wooing her a mirror reflecting the same fragile vanity back at her.
More suitors came, and more suitors fell—each one more forgettable than the last. One composed sonnets in her name; another promised riches beyond her wildest imaginings. A third swore devotion, claiming he would give his very life for the chance to stand beside her. She dismissed them all with the ease of a flame devouring parchment. Words, trinkets…oaths—they were all the same. Empty. Predictable. Worthless.
Across the courtyard, her mother, Ella, watched with a gaze sharper than any sword. She approached, her steps measured, voice low enough to keep their conversation private, yet pointed enough to cut through the noise.
“You cannot continue to dismiss every suitor, Iishani,” Ella said, eyes narrowing. “Not if you intend to secure your future.”
Iishani didn’t look at her. “I am the Sun incarnate, Mother. What future do I need securing?”
Ella’s jaw tightened, the faintest crack in her composed facade. “Let the Sun boast if it must—but when the day is done…it’s done, my dear.”
Iishani turned then, fully meeting her mother’s gaze, her lips curved in something resembling enjoyment.
“But tell me, Mother, what happens when the Sun refuses to fall?”
A flicker of something—Frustration? Fear?—crossed Ella’s features, gone in an instant though.
“Pride is a fine garment, daughter, but it will not keep you warm when the night comes.”
Those words lingered, sharp as broken glass, but Iishani let them pass, unacknowledged. Her gaze drifted once more across the suitors, her restlessness growing, a flame with nothing left to burn…until he arrived.
His presence slid through the space like the first breath of a coming storm—an absence of sound, a tightening of air, a shift in gravity that demanded to be felt before it was seen. No grand entrance, no gaudy offerings. Just a man in dark clothing, his eyes steady, unflinching—not with admiration, but with something else. Something Iishani couldn’t name…and for the first time, her flame flickered.
The court felt it too. The murmurs, once buzzing in the background, ceased. The air thickened. A shift in the balance of things so slight yet undeniable, as though some invisible force had entered the space and turned the world slightly askew.
The man did not bow, nor did he announce himself. He stood where the light bent just shy of reaching, his silhouette dark against the opulence of the court. The other men, so accustomed to fawning, stiffened in his presence. Their gazes flickered toward Iishani, awaiting her reaction.
She sat up straighter, a predator sizing up the first worthy prey she had seen in ages.
“…you carry no gifts,” she noted, her voice a slow-burning spark.
The man met her gaze without effort.
“I did not come to offer…I came to see.”
Intrigue curled through her, slow and curling, like smoke.
“And what have you seen?”
Something like a smirk ghosted the corner of his lips—there, then gone.
“A queen so accustomed to being admired that she has forgotten what it is to truly be seen.”
A hush smothered the court, thick as velvet, swallowing breath and sound alike. Even the torches, once lively with flame, seemed to bow to the weight of this moment. A challenge had been spoken. And the Sun had finally found something that it could not immediately burn away.
Chapter 1 was the omen. Now, the threads are pulling, the crown is cracking—and Iishani can’t outrun what’s calling.
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No mercy. No escape. Just power, legacy, and a fate she never chose.
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