Faculty of Design

Illustration

Caden Zhang

The Queen's Mirage

The owner of the golden eye finally reveals herself as the young ruler of the country. At the grand unveiling of the Tian-ren’s corpse, the queen orchestrates a spectacle of awe and deception. Using hallucinogenic spores, she conjures a mirage of the goddess—a radiant, sacred vision that captivates the gathered onlookers. Beneath this ethereal display, however, lies a darker reality: her soldiers work swiftly, dissecting the ancient corpse and secretly transporting its fragments back to the capital for study and exploitation.This piece juxtaposes the divine and the profane, highlighting the absurdity of human ambition. The sacred mirage evokes reverence, yet it masks an act of profound desecration. The queen, with her cunning gaze, wields the spores not only as a tool of manipulation but as a symbol of her dominion over faith andpower.