Dubiousbyhabit of Sartorially Smart Heroines has posted a new portrait of Queen Viarraluca, the protagonist of Dubious’s upcoming fantasy novel, First Empress. Once again, the portrait is the work of the talented MJ Barros.
Queen Vi is looking particularly imposing in this portrait. As Dubious explains on Tumblr:
The scene here is where she confronts a nobleman who conspired to pay an assassin to take her out. The confrontation doesn’t go well for him.
It doesn’t go well for the assassin, either. Somehow, we’ve developed this cultural idea of assassins as the ultimate death machines, but we forget: assassins don’t have opponents, they have victims. If an assassin is fighting anyone, they’ve already screwed up. And if they’re dealing with a warrior, a warrior who sees them coming…well. In that case, it tends to be the warrior who has a victim instead of an opponent.
PS – I recommend you check out “Portrait Four”. It’s just as NSFW as Dubious warns, but it’s also beautiful.