Her skin was on fire. Every inch of her existence tingled in the face of the palace, whose entrance drew closer with every step. The spear in her hands weighed only as much as a thin branch and the thrill of her perception burned part of her fingertips. Her legs carried her up without hesitation. The diamond tip shimmered. The light broke; and at the latest, when the guards at the upper post caught sight of her appearance, uneasiness settled in unfamiliar bodies.
A demon had advanced to the palace. One of those eyesores that should all be drowned or burned; one of those things they should have expelled. But Salia wasn’t like the others. She wasn’t one of those monsters who no longer knew how to fight back.
And she enjoyed the power a little more with every breath. To decide for herself was the freedom she had never lived out so freely before.
Demonstratively, she let the diamond scrape over the stony steps. The sound sent shivers down her own body, pushing the throbbing in her chest up to her throat, and as her opponents drew their weapons – smart pistols, like the other two had failed to use – her hand tightened a little more around the holster.
The guns lifted, took aim at Salia, but didn’t get around to pulling the trigger. Her will overpowered her body, made her lunge out with her spear and throw it with force toward a guard. Haltlessly, it bore through the man’s chest, eliciting a gasp and forcing the gun back down.
His partner allowed himself to be distracted for a moment. Shock consumed him in a few breaths before he caught himself and turned to Salia – the demon girl already standing before him.
The breath on her lips was hot as her gaze slid up to him. Clenching her hand into a fist, she punched him in the chin from below. Resistance pressed against her knuckles, aching in her fingers and making her counterpart stagger. His steps on the stairs wavered. Indecisive and unsteady, causing Salia to venture a step to the side, taking advantage of his lack of balance. Her hands brushed against his shoulders, robbing him of his footing. His soles stepped on the edge of the step, slipped, and a breath later, he hit the side of the stairs.
It tore him down; each step grazed his body. His flesh rolled sideways, his head hit the edges, and only when he reached the bottom and stopped moving did Salia turn away from him.
Her light-footed steps led her to the dead man, behind whom the spear had bored into the stone of the step. In her hands it weighed strangely light, less than before, though it was stuck and she had to give it two good tugs to free it from the stone. It seemed as if every death made the world a little better – improved it. As if purification was easier than anything else. Maybe that was the future she could win for her kind. A simple world where there were no problems that weighed so heavily that one thought they would be crushed under them. An ideal place for each of them.
The thought drove the sweat in her palms to the back of her mind. The flames under which her body faded cooled her senses. Her steps remained buoyant, livelier than ever. And though she expected more guards, more soldiers, more anything, no one got in her way. Not until she pushed open the front door of the palace and set foot straight into the throne room.
The first evil to be seen when auditioning for the king was this pompous hall that couldn’t even house normal people. The silence that hung along the walls and smiled at her was only broken by the clatter of a few swords flashing on either side.
A handful of men had lined up on either side of the red central path, as if they had discussed something earlier. On the throne, a few steps above them, rested their king. The man who had driven them all into this misery.
Nose wrinkled, Salia felt the throbbing in her chest that seemed to bruise her ribs. Then she pointed the spear at the crown. This moment was hers. The certainty told her she could have easily killed everyone in this room. All she had to do was to grant the spear free will and it would move her body in a way that made her immortal.
But the mermaids’ talk still sat in the back of her mind. Getting more than that, destroying the world from within, almost sounded like something she could handle. An idea that made her jut her chin and raise her voice.
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“I am the chosen of the sacred spear, as you can see, and I came to claim what is mine.” Her family. Her life. A future. Everything she had never saved and now wanted to outweigh in fresh blood.
But all she was met with was whispers among those who weren’t part of the royal family. Behind them, an old man whose black beard was already streaked with white hair. A king who didn’t deserve that title and yet looked down on her – brows drawn together and hands clenched. His expression spoke of disgust.
“How can it be that a mistake of society has been chosen?” His voice quivered. “I cannot comprehend the will of the sacred weapon, but as king, it is my duty even to ... reward someone like you.”
He didn’t sound convinced, and no matter how Salia looked at it, he wasn’t willing to give up more than was necessary. Not even the legends they all raved about were enough to make them realise that something had gone terribly wrong at some point. They weren’t capable of accepting a freak when there were better things in the world than ugly people with ugly deformities.
“I allow you to live and spend your life somewhere far away from Couvia. That is all I can give you. Now get out of my sight, you misshapen thing.” With a dismissive wave of his hand, he tried to shoo her away, but Salia didn’t budge – not an inch.
It was almost unbelievable how short-sighted this man looked down on her, acting as if she was just another ant he ruled. A “thing” he didn’t have to pay attention to and who had the audacity to take the legendary spear for itself. In his eyes, she was little more than what they hunted every day.
“But father!” Only the bright voice of a young woman, barely older than Salia, broke the tense atmosphere.
Heads jerked up to the throne, then most bowed and before the king could object, the stranger danced down the steps in light strides. The summer yellow dress on her body highlighted the wild red hair and the brown eyes sparkled with life Salia had never seen before. This woman looked like someone who had never seen the world out there, and she seemed to stop at nothing as she threw her arms around Salia’s neck.
“We shouldn’t treat a hero like this. She may look a little changed, but she’s still no different from us!” She broke away from Salia slightly. “Father, don’t you think the higher powers are trying to tell us something by passing the spear to someone who would otherwise be hunted?”
She didn’t know that there were dead people outside the palace. She had no idea what kind of monster lurked inside Salia. Instead, she simply spoke as if she knew about the suffering of those who were perishing out there.
The tightness in Salia’s chest flamed. Simultaneously, she raised her hand, ready to snap the neck of this stranger – the princess. But she barely reached the woman’s waist-length hair as she turned to her, presenting a radiant smile as her father gasped.
“I am one of yours,” she brought to her lips, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We all are. We are all part of the same path and all part of the same species. Some have merely been blessed with different weapons.”
The warmth emanating from this stranger faded as she broke away from Salia and took a few steps back. Hands clasped behind her back, she spun once in a circle with a flourish so that her dress fluttered like a bell across the red carpet.
“That’s enough!” Only the king’s thunderous voice brought the redhead to a halt. “You don’t know enough about the world outside and even less about the poisonous claws of demons. Be an obedient child and go back into the palace!”
“But father, I hugged that girl and don’t feel like I’ve been poisoned.” She snorted. “Superstition, all superstition!”
It was the first time anyone had stood up for Salia. The first time anyone from the normal humans had stood there to speak out for the demons. Almost as if she had nothing to fear because she didn’t know the hell out there.
And maybe it was a good thing.
She was untainted and pure. A woman who might make a difference, and yet had nothing to say. Her body was so puny and weak that she didn’t even fight back when two soldiers grabbed her and dragged her back inside. She just let it happen, as if her words were only a deaf front behind which she could stand but not defend.
“And you, get out.” Again the king gestured for her to leave, and though Salia’s gaze still lingered on this young woman, she shuffled her feet back a little.
In another life, in a less messed up country, this princess might have been a sign of hope. A person who changed everything. But this life was no different and the glimmer of this woman was suffocated when she allowed herself to be taken away.
There was no more hope for this life.
Slowly, Salia’s gaze fixed on the king again, and her legs came to a stop. Her movements stopped. “I will kill you.”
“What?”
“I will kill you,” Salia repeated her harsh, hopeless tone. “Today, civilisation will fall and you will go with it. Far away into the shallows of Aywotoc.”
She raised the spear.
There was nothing left worth saving. All that remained was the wallowing retribution within her. Seething hatred that was ready to destroy everything that had ever hurt her. It wouldn’t be long before Couvia would be nothing more than a legend. A story that no one was interested in anymore.