The heavy iron door of cell 513 swung open. The metal slammed against the stone wall of the small cell with a deafening boom. The sound echoed through the cold moss-covered room. Small fragments of dust and stone showered down from the ceiling. The dust reflected in the torchlight, making the already dark space difficult to see into.
The cell was not a large space — only measuring six by four strides. A mixture of dried piss, mud, sweat, and blood covered the stone floors, causing a foul odor to fill the air. As the dust settled, the torchlight of the hall flooded into the darkest corners of the cell, highlighting the filthy state of the prison. An empty stone plate, that once held stale bread and molded cheese, lay discarded on the floor next to an overturned wooden cup.
With the toe of his boot, the prison guard kicked the cup, sending it bouncing further into the cell. The cup ceased its bouncing, rolling the remaining distance to the back wall of the cell before coming to a stop.
The cell looked to be abandoned if it were not for the thin statue-like girl sitting amongst the dirt and grime, half-hidden in the shadows. There was a stillness to her that would convince anyone that she was in fact made of stone. With the grey dirt caked on her skin, she looked as if she had been carved from the wall behind her. She looked to be no more than twenty years of age. Her eyes were sunken in, and her cheeks hollow. Dirt covered the sharp features of her face. Her collarbone stuck out above the rags she wore. Despite her haggard appearance, she looked almost peaceful sitting with her back pressed against the cold stone wall and her legs crossed. Her midnight blue hair, matted with dirt and oil, fell over her shoulders, almost reaching her waist. Despite her gaunt appearance she was beautiful by all human standards, save for the two delicately pointed ears poked out from her hair, marking her as fae.
A monster.
Rae blinked against the flickering torchlight that leaked in from the hall. The light was now much brighter than the small amount that leaked through the small window in the door of her cell. The years held in this prison had taught her just how much she hated torchlight. It was nothing but a mockery of the sun, with the limited amount of light and warmth it gave. All it did was make her long for the real thing. Though it had been so long, the memory of wha the sun felt like on her skin was beginning to fade.
She wondered if the living even remembered she had once walked among them. Now she was far closer to the dead than those who still drew breath. Rae no longer had her freedom. She was nobody; nothing more than the prison number permanently inked on the nape of her neck. 513.
Rae had come to expect the daily guard visits. She had grown used to hearing screams of other prisoners echoing through the corridors of the compound. Some were screams of pain, while others were of madness. Arden was built to break its prisoners. There was iron in everything. It was built into the walls of the prison. Iron dust was even sprinkled into the food and water. In high enough concentrations, it killed the Etherie.
Iron poisoning was a slow and painful way to die. The victims were driven mad as the iron slowly ate away at their magic and blocked them from accessing it. Unable to replenish their magic as fast as it was being consumed, death soon followed — if the madness did not kill them first.
What no one talked about was the pain. Enough iron would burn to the touch, creating almost glowing red marks called iron burn. But after a while, the pain spread to the blood as the iron began to eat away at the magic flowing through it. It felt like your blood was on fire. There was no escaping the pain, no reprieve. It lasted day and night until there was no magic left.
Rae knew her magic was gone. The iron she was chained to no longer burned her. She could not lie and say she did not miss her magic, but she had chosen to let it go. It was the only freedom she seemed to have left at the time, the freedom to choose when and how she would die. Yet, as the last of her magic had left her body, she remained. Still alive, without her magic. It should have been impossible. Yet here she was, still a slave to a kingdom she held no allegiance to. Not that Rae particularly cared. She found it easier to not care. It was less painful that way.
Their small continent was named Dyron, after the first King of the Fae. Even before he became the King of all Etherie and mortals, beings with magic had always held power over those without. It was the natural order, the strong ruling the weak. It was how strong societies were built and maintained. It had all changed when the human kingdom to the east decided to expand their borders and kill anyone with magic in their blood that might stand in their way.
They built prisons to hold and torture the Etherie — people with magical gifts and abilities... those that were different than they were. To the humans, Arden symbolized their strength and perceived power over all magical beings. To the Etherie, it represented hopelessness and death. Real monsters had once prowled the lands of Dyron. The real monsters were hollows, who skinned their victims alive and wore them like clothing. Monsters made of shadows and darkness once hunted in the dark forests — like the shades or wraiths. Even those creatures were tortured and held here. Humans were the monsters now.
"Wake up," the gruff voice of the prison guard roared as he banged his fist on the open iron cell door. Rae’s ice-blue eyes opened to the clatter of her food tray toppling to the floor. Her eyes narrowed on her only meal for the day now splattered across the stone. Rae’s lips pulled back as a snarl ripped out of her in response. She had no energy to be anything more than the monster they believed her to be. She was not even sure if she knew how to be civil anymore. Her only conversations were those she had inside of her own head. She wanted to be left in peace with her shadows and darkness. Apparently, that was too much to ask for today.
The guard standing at the door was an older, unimpressive man. His pale skin had a tinge of pink to it where the cold air from outside had chapped his nose and cheeks. His light brown hair was already beginning to thin. His clothes were worn and thin from overuse. Stains from the noonday meal still stained the shirt of his uniform.
Behind him, a much smaller human cowered, half hiding behind the wall. Rae blinked in disbelief. He was still a child. If his baby face had not given away how new he was to the prison, the still creased lines in his purple and gold uniform did. The heavy cloth hung from his frame like a child playing dress-up in an older siblings' clothes. He did not look like the other guards she had seen. His skin looked like bronzed gold in the torchlight. Rae stared into his golden-brown eyes. Wafts of purple like smoke crowded around his pupil. That is not what drew her interest. No, it was the innocence and kindness in his gaze that made it difficult for her to turn away. An overwhelming instinct in her screamed for her to tell him to run. To run and never look back. To save himself from this horrible place. She pushed away those thoughts, tearing her gaze from him and looked back to the man who held her chains.
"I hear you have become so animal-like you have forgotten how to speak," The guard laughed as he walked closer to her. She could hear the length of her chains shortening as he drew in, the heavy metal kept her from lunging forward. Rae knew his swaggering bravery was solely based on his belief that those iron chains holding her were weakening her. She wondered what he would think if he learned they no longer burned? Would he run screaming from her cell if he knew she had gotten used to the weight of her weak body. Did he know that she did not need magic to kill him?
A small, almost unnoticeable smile flashed across her face, if only for a fraction of a moment, at the memory of when she first came to this Fates damned prison. Her small stature, tall for a mortal woman but small for a fae female, had made the guards underestimate her strength and power. They sent only four armed guards to drag her into that cell. By the time they had realized their mistake, it had been too late.
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She remembered her desperate attempt to fight them off while still handcuffed. As they pulled her closer to the massive chains hanging from the ceiling, she had screamed and thrashed. She would never forget the moment the iron shackles touched her skin. The pain she felt was like nothing she had felt before. The iron slowly siphoned away her magic, burning her skin as it did. Tears had welled in her eyes, but she bit them back. The pain only stunned her for a moment. Long enough for the guards to relax.
When the initial shock was gone, the iron had not been able to stop her from wrapping her chains around the neck of one of her captors. That day, she had not hesitated to grab the guard’s own knife and use it against him. She slit his throat and his blood sprayed onto her face, neck, and arms. His lifeless body hit the floor before the other three guards could even draw their swords. She had given them a lazy smile, letting the weapon slip through her fingers and clatter to the floor as she raised her hands in mock surrender. Rae could still remember the feeling of his sticky red blood splattered across her face. A cruel, almost mad, smile spread across her lips as she slowly licked the blood from her fingers. She had ignored the horrible metallic taste of human blood. The look of disgust and horror on the other guards' faces had been worth it.
A hard jerk of her chains snapped her out of the memory. The guard smirked holding the end of her chains in his hands. He wanted her to be present for whatever it was he had planned for her. The iron shackles dug into her wrists as she was yanked to her feet. A small rumble of a growl reverberated in her throat. Straightening to her full height, Rae's cold eyes locked with the guard's. The man triumphantly smiled as he came to stand toe to toe with her. The younger human stayed outside the cell door.
Smart boy.
He was so close to her that the guard’s rancid breath was hot on her face. Rae did her best not to choke on the smell.
"The prince is coming today, and we need to make sure everyone stays in their place while he does his inspection," the guard explained, giving her a vicious smile as the chains continued to shorten.
When the clicking of the chains being pulled into the ceiling above stopped, Rae was practically dangling from her hands. The rough iron bracelets drew blood on her wrists as she struggled to balance on the balls of her feet.
The human guard reached out his hand. His rough fingers traced down the side of her cheek as he looked her over. Rae was not fooled by the gentle caress. She saw the hatred in his eyes and knew what was to come. Tightening her stomach muscles to reduce any damage from the blow, Rae readied for the beating to come. Her breathing slowed. The guard's fist collided with her gut. Sending her swinging back on the chains. Rae doubled forward, her hair falling in front of her face.
“Do you know who they say you are?” the guard laughed. Rae's eyes, which had been closed due to the blow, snapped open. Panic began rising inside of her, but she beat it down. Forcing those memories of who she had once been down as they began to bubble to the surface. She squeezed her eyes shut once more as emotions she had not felt in years rolled over her. She hated any reminder of what she once had been and what she had lost. She was nothing now, no one. That is how she wanted it to remain. She took a steadying breath, careful to keep all that was roaring inside of her from showing on her face.
“I don’t think it is true,” the guard whispered in her ear. Rae refused to react.
“Let’s find out?” He mused, looking her over as if she were not a person, but a thing.
Using the crook of his finger, he forced her to look up at him. Her curtain of hair fell away from her face. Hatred filled her eyes as she stared at him with a look that males, who were much stronger than this human was, ran from in terror. If she still had her magic, she was sure her feline eyes would have been shining at him in the darkness.
“You’re nothing but a pretty, dumb animal,"
The chains clicked as he backed her up towards the wall. His hand, wrapping around her throat, lifting her from the ground.
“Aren’t you Princess?” His final words made her look up at him, her eyes burning with hatred. Rae bared her teeth as his hand tightened around her throat. She felt the stone behind her give a bit as her head slammed against it.
“That is what you are now, isn’t it?” He continued, “Your the only one left. A Princess of nothing,” the guard laughed.
Rae felt as if the world had been pulled out from under her. The truth of his words hit her harder than the knowledge that he was trying to kill her, or at least beat her into submission. How many others had he done this to?
Anger. Anger and hatred, at herself and these humans, was all that she felt. Maybe she would play their games after all. If he wanted the monster she had once been, then he would get her.
It was like a switch had flipped in her head. The fog that she had let cloud her mind and numb her senses cleared. A slow vicious smile sliced across her face as she let out a cruel laugh.
"Nothing but a weak, dumb human," she rasped, her voice was hoarse from disuse.
Realization flashed across the guard's face a moment too late. The promise of death in her eyes made it seem as if the temperature in the room dropped and the shadows around her darkened. With a solid pull of her arms, the gears of the pulley holding her chains slipped on their tracks. The chains began to fall on the ground around them. The sound of iron on stone was deafening.
The guard holding her flinched, lowering his arms just enough for her feet to fully touch the floor. Air rushed back into her lungs as a calm focus filled her mind. After all, even without her magic, she was still one of the most powerful races of Etherie. She was a full-blooded fae from the line of Maeve. Her instincts had been honed on killing fields for over a hundred years. This human was nothing compared to the hundreds she had killed in her life. Rae gave into those primal instincts, and that monster she had once been was free once more.
In a blur of movement, her arms came down against the guard's wrists. His grip was ripped from her throat. The man's eyes widened in horror as he could do nothing but watch as she attacked. Grasping the guard's shoulders, Rae used the leverage of his own body against him. She brought her knee up, slamming it into his groin. The guard doubled over in pain.
The boy guard rushed forward, desperately trying to collect the fallen chains that could pull her back into submission. They were fools. She may be weak from lack of proper food, but she was still stronger, faster, and far more deadly than they were.
Before the boy could get the chains locked back in the pulley system, Rae yanked the length of them back. The boy watched in horror as she quickly wrapped the chains around the red-faced guard's neck. She pulled hard enough on the chains to send the man falling to his knees. One of his hands was braced on the ground while the other helplessly clawed at his neck.
She leaned down, her breath tickling the back of the guard's neck as she spoke, "I'm no Princess,"
Then, the chains around the guard's neck were gone. He fell forward, gasping for breath. The boy, who still loosely held the chains, let out a breath of relief. The guard began to spit on the floor, cursing as he tried to stand.
"Fae bitch! You will regret that!" he roared with anger, "Who do you think you are?"
Rae just cocked her head and smiled. She supposed his question, though rhetorical, deserved some kind of answer. And she would give it to him.
"I am Death," she whispered quietly so only he could hear. She forced herself to remain unbothered by her words. It had been so long since she had claimed that title, and if she was honest, it felt good to say it once more.
With a solid kick to his back, the guard fell back down onto his knees. Before he was able to react, she grabbed his chin and the back of his head. In a single quick jerk to the side, the guard's neck made a sickening snap. She let go, and the guard's lifeless body fell face-first into the stone floor.
Rae stared down at the body on the ground for a moment before stepping over him. She turned her attention back to the boy, standing frozen in fear, just outside the cell door. He was shaking so hard, the chains in his hands clanked together. The distinct smell of fresh pee wafted towards her as the inside of his pant legs darkened.
She cocked her head to the side as she studied him. He was so young — just a kid, forced into a war he never asked for. He had probably been drafted as a soldier the minute he turned fifteen. The boy slowly backed away from her as if she was an animal about to attack.
Rae bared her fanged teeth and let out a low growl that sent the boy running from the door. She could hear his cries for help as he ran. The sound of his boots hitting the stone floor grew quieter the further away he got.
Rae did not hesitate to grab the chains that now freely dangled from the ceiling. She had stopped caring about her fate so long ago, but maybe it was time she did care. Maybe it would be different this time. She pulled at them with all her strength, but the iron links would not budge in their tracks.
A small cry of desperation pieced through her as she pulled harder, but the chains stayed secured. The small amount of hope she had dared let in faded quickly. The anchor at the end prevented the chains from coming free. Rae let out a silent sob before sinking to the cold stone floor. Using the heel of her foot, she gave the dead guard's body a sharp kick. It only moved a small distance.
Turning, she slowly scooted towards the threshold of the door. As her muscles screamed in pain from sudden use. The air from the corridor carried the crisp cool breeze of winter. It burned her lungs as she breathed it in deeply. She closed her eyes. Imagining she was home. Though she doubted she would ever see those northern mountains ever again.