Empress - Atrocious

She outlawed the color blue. Not because it offended her, but because the painter Jian of the Northern Hills had once refused her commission. Every blue thing—skies were ignored, for even she could not leash heaven—but every dyed cloth, every painted shutter, every kingfisher feather in a lady’s hat was burned in the Great Azure Pyre. The sea itself she ordered salted with lime, just to watch it turn a sickly green.

She sat on the cold marble floor and waited for someone to come and kill her. But no one did. Because in crushing every spark of will, she had also crushed the one thing that could have made her feel alive: the possibility of being hated enough to matter. atrocious empress

The Atrocious Empress had won nothing at all. She outlawed the color blue

She stepped onto the cobblestones in a simple gray dress. The sea itself she ordered salted with lime,

She walked past the baker’s stall. The baker, bandaged hands tucked into his apron, looked at the ground.

But here is the thing about an atrocious empress: even monsters grow bored.