Chadwick Rye

Princess Cordelia Salamandrana Everlark of the Western Isles stood at her chamber window, watching seabirds wheel against a canvas of violet twilight. The salt-laden breeze carried whispers of tomorrow’s coronation ceremony, when her full royal title would be proclaimed across the kingdom for all to hear. Every. Excruciating. Syllable.

Her fingers traced the embroidered salamander on her ceremonial sash—a creature immortalized in her name through a grandfather’s misplaced enthusiasm and a mother too weak from childbirth to object. The royal seamstress had rendered the creature with surprising dignity, its golden form almost regal against azure silk.

“Your Highness?” Royal Chronicler Thorne’s voice preceded his entrance, his arms laden with ancient ledgers. “I’ve brought the ancestral records as requested.”

Cordelia gestured toward her writing desk, her signet ring catching the last rays of sunlight. “Have you found anything, Thorne? Any precedent for a royal abbreviating their middle name during coronation?”

The elderly chronicler’s expression suggested the answer before he spoke. “I’m afraid not, Your Highness. Royal proclamations require the monarch’s full naming—all titles, honors, and familial designations.”

“Of course they do,” she murmured, turning back to the window. Beyond the castle walls, the capital city sprawled like a jeweled tapestry, streets already festooned with banners celebrating tomorrow’s transition of power. None of those banners, mercifully, included her middle name.

“If I might be so bold, Your Highness,” Thorne ventured, “there is a certain… distinctive quality to your middle name. It carries significant historical—”

“Please, Thorne,” Cordelia interrupted, a rare breach of royal protocol. “I’ve endured thirty-seven years of people searching for meaning in my grandfather’s eccentric choice. I know the historical significance all too well.”

The chronicler bowed slightly, accepting the gentle rebuke. “As you wish.”

When he had gone, Cordelia moved to the ancient vanity where generations of princesses had prepared for their coronations. The mirror reflected her features—her mother’s eyes, her father’s determined jaw, the singular streak of copper in otherwise raven hair that marked the Everlark bloodline.

“Salamandrana,” she whispered to her reflection, the syllables falling like stones into still water. How many times had she practiced saying it without flinching? Without that telltale hesitation that betrayed her embarrassment?

A soft knock interrupted her thoughts. Without waiting for permission, her younger sister Alexandra slipped into the chamber, still dressed in riding clothes that smelled of forest and freedom.

“I thought I’d find you brooding,” Alexandra announced, dropping unceremoniously onto a velvet settee. “Is it the name again?”

Cordelia’s sigh answered before her words could. “Tomorrow, the royal herald will proclaim me ‘Her Serene Majesty, Queen Cordelia Salamandrana Everlark, Sovereign of the Western Isles and Protector of the Pearl Seas.’ The entire kingdom will hear it.”

“And then they’ll forget it immediately,” Alexandra countered, reaching for a crystal decanter. She poured two measures of amber liquor, offering one to her sister. “No one remembers royal middle names five minutes after they’re announced.”

“That’s not the point.” Cordelia accepted the glass but didn’t drink. “It’s about dignity. Authority. How can I command respect when my own name conjures images of… of…”

“A salamander?” Alexandra supplied helpfully. “A creature revered by the ancients as a symbol of rebirth and transformation? A being so powerful it was said to walk through fire unharmed?”

Cordelia fixed her sister with a pointed stare. “A small, slimy amphibian that children catch in garden ponds.”

Alexandra laughed, the sound warming the formal chamber. “Oh, Cordelia. Only you could turn a powerful symbolic legacy into a personal embarrassment.”

“Legacy?” Cordelia echoed, skepticism evident.

Setting aside her drink, Alexandra crossed to a bookshelf and retrieved a slender volume bound in faded red leather. “You know why Grandfather chose that name, don’t you? The real reason, not the diplomatic explanation given at court.”

“Because he was obsessed with ancient symbology and had questionable judgment?” Cordelia suggested dryly.

Alexandra opened the book, revealing illustrations of mythological creatures rendered in gold and silver ink. “Because the year before you were born, the kingdom nearly fell. The Great Drought had destroyed our crops. The Northern Alliance had blockaded our ports. Grandfather was certain we would not survive.”

She turned pages until she found what she sought—an illustration of a salamander emerging from flames, its body transformed rather than consumed. “In his private journals, he wrote that the kingdom needed a ruler who could pass through fire and emerge stronger. Who could shed an old skin and grow anew.”

Cordelia had heard variations of this explanation throughout her life, but something in her sister’s tone gave her pause. “His journals? You’ve read them?”

Alexandra’s smile turned secretive. “Some of us spend our time in the royal archives rather than running from our names.”

She placed the book in Cordelia’s hands, open to a page the princess had never seen before—their grandfather’s handwriting, spidery but determined:

*Today my first grandchild was born, a girl with Everlark eyes and a cry strong enough to rattle the nursery windows. While tradition suggests naming royal daughters after queens past, I have chosen differently. This child will rule in uncertain times. She must be named for resilience, for transformation, for the capacity to walk through fire unchanged.*

*I name her Salamandrana—after the most humble creature with the most extraordinary gift. The court will disapprove. Eventually, perhaps she will too. But when the fires of leadership test her, as they must, may she remember what sleeps within her name.*

Cordelia’s fingers traced the faded ink, feeling the impression of words pressed into paper decades ago. Outside, the last light faded from the sky, leaving her chamber in the gentle glow of oil lamps.

“He wasn’t embarrassed by it,” she said softly.

“No more than you should be,” Alexandra replied, retrieving her drink. “Tomorrow you’ll be crowned. The kingdom faces drought again. The Northern Alliance grows restless. Perhaps it’s exactly the right time for a Salamandrana to take the throne.”

As her sister departed, Cordelia returned to the window, the ancestral book cradled against her chest. Below, the first ceremonial fires were being lit in the central square, their light creating patterns that danced across ancient stone buildings.

Fire that transforms rather than destroys. A humble creature with an extraordinary gift.

For the first time in thirty-seven years, Princess Cordelia Salamandrana Everlark considered that perhaps her name wasn’t something to overcome, but something to grow into. Tomorrow, when the herald proclaimed her full title, she would stand a little straighter, her chin lifted not in defiance but in acceptance of what she carried—not just a crown, but a name shaped by hope in dark times.

She traced the salamander embroidered on her sash once more, seeing it now not as an embarrassment but as a promise made before she took her first breath. A promise she intended, finally, to keep.

“What do you think about Cordelia’s struggle? Have you ever felt defined by a name? Let me know in the comments!”

If you like this little story please consider subscribing to my blog so that you don’t miss any new ones. Also you can check out other stories that I have written and are currently writing like Forbidden Bond, a tale about a human falling in love with a Half goblin while being hunted down by fallen angels and evil nobles. Or you can check out Chronicles of the Giantess and follow Valorie the Giantess as she adventures across the land of Calladan. Please feel free to leave me a comment. I would love to know what you think about any of the stories.