Their humble beginnings: They wear a simple gown of fine hemp and ink-dark collar, signifying they are a child of a scribe adopted for their talent and usefulness.

The ceremony at the shrine required it.

To end the kingdom.

They/them/theirs

Deck used: Chinese Tarot Deck

Card: Six of Staves

Torches lit in a dark room as the princess entered a chamber. They shrink away, but the eyes gleaming in the half-light swerve at the sight of them and the figures come closer until they can make out the shapes of six women in robes and armor holding torches aloft.

“So it is you,” says the gray-haired dame at the head. “The Kingdom-Killer. We will stop you to protect the realm–by any means necessary.”

The women approach with deadly intent, and what the princess first thought to be torches turn out to be weapons that blaze into full fire in flaming blades, points, and staves, streaking the attackers' faces in fell stripes of light an shadow.

(Facing a challenge, completely out of their depth: Flip 1 coin. It comes up heads.)

The princess fights their opponents with wild and untrained swings, but the sword guides their arm with deadly accurately and they cut down one of the warriors to break through and flee. The princess's side bleeds from a wound taken in the fray, however, and behind them the women give chase though the princess has lost them for now.

“Kingdom-killer? Me?” They look down with sick dread at the sword in their hand, whose blood-streaked blade tosses back the dim light of the hallways in uneven strips.

Card: Five of Coins

Feeling faint and weak from blood loss, the princess stumbles toward a light underground and finds themself in a library, among the fragrance of old books and the sourness of ground ink. At a writing table sits a scribe feverishly writing in a book, his ankle chained to the writing desk, and the princess gasps out loud at the sight.

“Father!”

They rush to their father's side and bow first, not sure how to greet a parent they have not met in years, and when he pulls them into his arms they hold him close with relief and a momentary comfort.

After a moment they draw away. “Father, what are you doing here? What happened to you?”

“The Doom of the Kingdom. You have it.” His eyes, gleaming with a light like hunger, rest on the sword in the princess's hand. “Good, good. My writing has not been in vain.”

“What are you-”

“This is why they took you away from me. They thought marrying you to a Princess of the Blood and binding your power to the king's line would prevent it, but it will not. Go! Bring an end to it all. The kingdom must fall.”

“I'm not leaving without you!” Already the princess can hear the women in the hall, and though the mention of their betrothed places a leaden weight in their stomach they try to lift the writing table to free their father, and when it proves too heavy, rattle one-handed at the chain to no avail. The door snaps open and the women warriors rush in.

(Facing a challenge, the past has prepared them: Flip 2 coins. Both come up heads. What the hell? Is the randomizer stuck?)

Remembering the sword in their hand they strike down at the chain, slicing cleanly through it. The blade buries itself into the floor, and the elderly warrior woman takes that moment to strike with a flaming glaive. The princess's father, however, newly freed of his shackle, throws himself in the way to shield his child. He slumps onto the blade of the glaive and looks over his shoulder at his child, gasping: “Run!”

With a terrible shriek the princess pulls the cursed sword from the floor and beheads the woman warrior in a single swing. The other warriors rush the princess who kills one of them in a blow, though their movements are slowing from their wound.

“I said… go…” The princess's father reaches for the book on the table and writes words on the page with a blood-dripping finger. “End it–all.”

Just as a warrior woman is about to strike them down, the princess wavers and seeps through cracks of perception like water on sand, still reaching for their father.

Card: Three of Swords

The princess sinks to their knees as they appear on the top floor of a pagoda set high above the sprawling compound below, clutching their side in pain and calling for their father. They look up when a footfall sounds before them: The Princess of the Blood, Suming, who was to be their wife once the coming-of-age ceremony was done.

“I came as soon as I could.” Suming, heedless of the blood, comes to kneel in silken threads beside her fiancé. “We need to get you to a healer.”

The princess recoils from her, even now feeling a twinge in their heart at the hurt look in Suming's face. “Your family stole me from my father. Imprisoned him here while I was led to believe he was well and thriving from giving up his child. All so you could–what?–stop some danger to the kingdom?”

“We did it so the kingdom would live on. It is all of our duty to sacrifice for the greater good. And once you are bound to the root of the kingdom by marriage, truly a princess, there will be no more threat and your father's sacrifice would not have been in vain.”

Suming reaches for the princess, the look in her eyes soft and yearning, and the princess feels the strength of their bond tug deep within.

(Facing a challenge, the past has prepared them: Flip 2 coins. Both come up tails.)

Unable to resist the flood of love they feel, the princess reaches for Suming's hand–but it is their sword hand that reacts first, and sweeps a deadly arc toward the Princess of the Blood. Suming leaps nimbly back and throws out her hands in a blast of wind that lifts the princess high over the balcony and sends them flying into the air. Suming screams out the name of her betrothed in true terror, trying to grab them back, but the princess is beyond her reach, far above the grounds of the ruins-

Card: Queen of Swords

Is this where the sword belongs? YES.

The princess closes their eyes, expecting to feel the rush and then abrupt end of the fall, an end to it all and perhaps a reunion with their father. Yet if anything they soar higher and open their eyes to find themself buoyed up by shimmering transluscent beings. They think they recognize their father's voice and gaze in the mass.

But before their eyes, commanding all their attention, stands a tall being in heavy robes with a sword in their hand–the twin to the cursed sword that remains as firmly gripped in their hand as their past and relationships.

“We are the spirits of the ages who have sworn the kingdom will fall,” says the Spirit of the Sword, for that is who the princess knows it must be. It wears a face much like the princess's long-lost mother, filling them with the same sense of longing and warmth. “Fulfill our wish, and you will have the one thing you most desire: Suming as your love, for if the kingdom is no more she will no longer be a princess, and being bound to her will not bind you to the kingdom.”

They look at the pagoda far below, at Suming gazing up in wonder while her attendants shout, point, and even shoot arrows though the winds turn them away like twigs.

“That means I will have to fight Suming's family, and her.”

“You will. And you will win.”

“Will she still want me, after?”

“That is up to the two of you. But at least both of you will have a chance to choose.”

The princess brings the cursed blade to their palm and cuts across it. “I accept.”

The droplets of blood fly in the wind, staining it to a red whirlwind that swirls around the ghostly parade. So the war begins.

Card for inspiration (not in rules): Knight of Coins

The princess is no longer a princess, but a traitor. They declare war on the royal family that has lost its virtue and the mandate of heaven, and call those who oppose it to their side. Suming the Princess of the Blood rallies the royal military and the provinces in turn to repel this threat.

It will be a long fight, no easier than felling a tree with roots deep in the ground which is what the kingdom has become. The traitor knows, as do all the rebels, that it will not be easy. Yet they have prophesy and the powers of the spirits on their side, and the will of heaven that has decreed the corrupt must fall.

And every time the traitor is reminded why they are doing this every time they face Princess Suming across a battlefield to cross swords and powers and looks of helpless yearning: To set her free, for the first time, to make a choice. They do not know if that day will ever come. They only know they have to try.