Page 45 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

A Town That Doesn’t Know Her Name

T he market smells of oranges and salt, of seaweed drying on nets strung between poles, of bread crisping golden in brick ovens that never heard the word bloodshed.

The sea wind whips through the narrow streets, tugging at skirts, rattling awnings, carrying the vendors’ shouts in dialects older than Rome.

I move among them in silence, a woven basket balanced against my hip, my black dress loose and unremarkable.

Here, I am no queen. No widow. No survivor of a bloody empire. Here, I am simply Signora Bianca .

They nod as I pass—polite, unknowing. A fisherman gestures proudly at his catch, hands rough from rope and salt.

He smiles, easy and thoughtless. He doesn’t see the calluses beneath my gloves, the pale scars that rope my wrists.

He doesn’t know I once sat at the head of a table carved from oak and blood, that I once wore crowns heavier than iron, sharper than steel.

“I used to wear diamonds like armor,” I murmur beneath my breath as I choose two lemons and a loaf of bread. “Now I wear salt on my skin and quiet on my tongue.”

The words taste foreign. They taste like lies I want to believe.

A little girl darts past, tugging on my skirt before daring to look up.

Her eyes are brown, wide as the sea. She offers me a flower—wild, white, delicate as ash.

I tuck it behind my ear, and she giggles before running back to her mother.

For one dangerous second, my chest warms. For one dangerous second, I forget that every stranger could be a watcher, every smile a mask, every hand a blade waiting to cut.

The sound of waves breaking against cliffs follows me home.

Our villa perches above the water, a pale stone square built for hiding, not for living.

It smells of rosemary in the windowsill, olive oil slicking the counter, woodsmoke curling up from the hearth.

Too small for a queen, too fragile for a fortress—but enough for survival.

Guido waits on the porch, bent over a chessboard, the pieces carved from driftwood.

His small shoulders hunch forward, his mouth pursed in concentration.

He has grown taller, leaner, harder in the year since fire drove us from our throne.

The child who once trembled at shadows now studies the board like a general measuring battle lines.

“You’ll lose your queen that way,” I say softly as I climb the steps.

He doesn’t look up, just shrugs, moving his knight with careful precision. “Better her than the king.”

The words lance straight through me. A dagger twisting in the ribs. My boy, speaking of sacrifice as if it were second nature. As if he hasn’t just learned it—he’s inherited it, carried it in his blood.

I set down the basket and brush a hand over his hair, thick and dark like Giovanni’s.

Like the man whose ghost still haunts our exile.

Guido doesn’t flinch. That unsettles me most. My son, once wide-eyed and fragile, no longer startles at touch.

He sits steady, jaw set like a soldier in miniature. Healing, yes. Whole, no.

I sit beside him, letting the roar of the sea fill the silence. I should feel peace. This town doesn’t know my name. The market doesn’t bow to me. No whispers follow me home. But power isn’t something you bury. It is stitched to your bones.

The gulls cry. The waves churn. The flower the girl gave me trembles in my hair, fragile and fleeting.

I look at Guido. At the boy who has already lost too much, who carries fire he doesn’t yet understand. I look at the sea that stretches endless, wide enough to swallow kingdoms.

And I know the truth: I may walk these streets as Signora Bianca. But the Queen is only sleeping.

Motherhood, Peace, and the Sword Beneath the Table

The kitchen fills with the warm scent of tomatoes simmering in oil, garlic hissing as it hits the pan, basil crushed between my fingers until its perfume blooms in the air. A normal meal, in a normal house, in a normal town. The kind of life I once thought belonged only to strangers.

“Ma!” Guido’s voice cuts through the hum of the stove. “I’m stuck.”

I set the knife down and glance toward the doorway. His tone is half-whine, half-command—the way children sound when they believe their mothers can fix anything, even the broken edges of the world. My lips twitch into something dangerously close to a smile.

I step into the sunlit room and find him cross-legged on the floor, puzzle pieces scattered across the board between his knees.

The picture half-formed—a seaside castle, its towers jutting upward like the cliffs outside our window.

His hair is a storm of black tufts, his face pinched with frustration.

“Here.” He jabs at a jagged piece that refuses to fit where he wants it. “It should go there. Why won’t it?”

I kneel beside him, take the piece, rotate it once, and slide it into place. The picture sharpens, the tower rising whole from the chaos of fractured stone.

Guido’s grin breaks like sunrise. For a fleeting second, his shadows lift, and I see the boy he was before bombs, before blood, before crowns. My chest aches with the sight.

“See?” I murmur, brushing his hair back from his face. “Not everything belongs where we want it. But it still has a place.”

He nods, satisfied, and bends back over the puzzle. I watch him for a moment longer, then retreat to the kitchen. The tomatoes are bubbling, the sauce thickening, its hiss like a reminder that ordinary life continues even in exile.

I open the drawer beside the stove. The wood slides quietly, but my heart still pounds as though someone might hear.

Inside lie the tools of survival: three passports with false names, a stack of euros wrapped tight in twine, and at the bottom, Giovanni’s dagger.

The steel gleams as though it hasn’t dulled in a hundred years, the hilt smoothed by too many hands.

My fingers brush the blade, a shiver running through me.

A mother in exile is still a mother at war.

I close the drawer before Guido notices. He deserves his puzzle, his tower, his fragile piece of childhood. He doesn’t need to see the weapons that lurk beneath our bread and basil.

“Ma, look!” he calls again, pride bubbling in his voice. “The tower’s finished!”

I wipe my hands on a linen cloth and step back into the room. Sure enough, the castle stands complete, the sea crashing around it in painted blue. Guido beams up at me, waiting for praise, his eyes bright for once instead of haunted.

“Well done,” I whisper, kneeling to kiss the top of his head. The scent of soap and salt clings to him. For a heartbeat, I let myself believe in this peace.

But then I see the puzzle for what it is: a fortress with fragile walls, a tower already destined to fall.

“Remember,” I add softly, my hand lingering in his hair, “every castle has enemies at its gates.”

His smile falters. Just slightly. A shadow flickers across his face, quick as lightning. He may not understand the words, but he feels them. My son carries ghosts in his blood, and no puzzle can piece them away.

I curse myself silently for planting that fear in him. He deserves to laugh. To run. To be a boy. But I cannot give him that. Not here. Not ever.

Because I know the truth: castles crumble, crowns tarnish, puzzles scatter. And the quiet life we’ve built above these cliffs is not an ending. It’s only a pause before the war begins again.

Reflection – Letters Never Sent

The oak table by the window is scarred with knife marks from cooks long gone, its surface softened by sea air and salt.

My leather-bound journal lies open across it, the pages swollen and yellowed from damp winds.

Ink bleeds like old wounds, curling into the fibers until each word looks half-buried, half-immortal.

Every page is a letter I never sent. To Emiliano. To Santino. And tonight—for the first time—to myself.

The pen trembles in my grip, not from weakness but from the weight of what I carry. Crowns, scars, memories that claw like ghosts. I steady my hand, press the nib down, and carve the truth onto paper.

Forgive him. Forgive yourself. But never forget.

The ink scratches deep, biting through the page.

My chest aches with moments that will never fade—Giovanni’s coffin lowered into the dirt, Guido’s cries the night I fled, the silence in Emiliano’s eyes when I kissed him goodbye.

That kiss said nothing. And everything. His quiet had been the loudest vow: I will love you even if I let you go.

I write harder, faster, as if bleeding truth will make it lighter.

To Emiliano:

You are still mine. I am still yours. Exile doesn’t break chains like ours—it only stretches them across distance. I left to protect our son, not to unlove you. Nothing—not war, not oceans, not even time—will sever what binds us.

I pause, whisper it aloud, tasting the words in the quiet kitchen. “This is our happily ever after. It doesn’t look like theirs. But it’s ours.”

Tears sting, but I don’t brush them away. They are not weakness. They are proof.

To Guido:

You are my kingdom. My throne. My reason for every lie I tell, every weapon I sharpen, every mask I wear. In saving you, I save myself. I will die before I let the world take you. And if death dares try, it will find me waiting with fire in my hands.

My vision blurs, but the words remain, steady, strong.

Flashbacks slice through me— · The headlights chasing us down the cliff road the night I ran.

· Guido’s tiny fists clutching my nightdress, his sobs pressed into my throat.

· Emiliano’s mouth sealing against mine, not saying goodbye but branding me with silence.

· Romeo’s whisper at the gate: We’ll call when it’s time.

The memory cuts and heals at once.

I close the journal with a snap, the leather strap binding it tight. Some truths aren’t meant to be sent. They’re meant to be carried. Like scars. Like crowns. Like vows.