The Poison Princess (2 page)

Amassing every fiber of her being into the
task, Ruby raised the weapon and brought it down diagonally at the
guard’s neck. The blade landed with a sickening thunk in the man’s
flesh and lodged there. Ruby released the hilt, as it reverberated
painfully in her hands. She winced and backed up, watching blood
spurt out from the wound, covering the guard’s armor in the red
liquid. He screamed again, finally paying her the attention she was
due. The blade hadn’t gone far enough into him to kill him and
hadn’t hit anything truly vital, but she was certain that he was in
great pain.

The guard somehow stood and turned to face
Ruby, the weapon still planted firmly in his shoulder and neck. He
hobbled toward her, holding his shoulders hunched to the side from
the weight of the blade. Ruby backed up once again, but she knew he
could do nothing to her now. Their roles reversed, she toyed with
him. He moved slowly, and she outpaced him, as he attempted to
approach her. She saw the poison that she had inadvertently spit
out onto the blade of the sword was dripping toward the guard’s
spurting neck. Something within her forced her to smile, as she
watched the sludge mix with the guard’s blood and then finally seep
inside the wound.

As the dark purple goop dripped inside him,
the skin at his neck turned blue, and all blood streaming forth
looked to have been tinted an ashy black. He stopped dead in his
tracks and collapsed to the hard, stone floor, landing on his
knees. His eyes were wide open and staring at Ruby. She stared back
in defiance. He seemed frozen by pain but was no longer screaming,
though his mouth hung wide open and slack jaw. Ruby approached him
and kicked his body backward with the heel of her shoe. She could
tell that he was still alive, but that wouldn’t last for long.
Standing over his face, Ruby allowed the poison from her mouth to
drip into his, drowning him in the vile substance that she was now
plagued with. For a few moments, he struggled and gurgled against
the muck, but his body seemed almost completely incapable of
movement, so his fate was sealed.

After Ruby was certain that he was dead, she
snapped out of the moment and realized what she had just done.
Never had she thought herself capable of taking a life, especially
in such a gory and violent way. The princess stepped back, tripping
her foot over his body and nearly falling to the floor. She twisted
about, facing Durin’s body next to the table of poisoned food. Ruby
leaned down, rolling him over to see if he had survived the attack.
The court wizard was limp and lifeless, but his eyes and mouth were
still wide open. She couldn’t stand to see him like that, so she
rubbed a hand over his eyelids, closing them, and she pushed his
jaw up to his face, giving him a look of relative calm.

The purple ooze that continued to slop out of
her mouth dirtied her hands, however, and some of that poison got
onto the wizard. Ruby leaned up to the table and picked up a cloth
napkin, using it to wipe the gunk that she had covered him in. The
princess then turned the cloth to her own face, attempting to clean
herself as well, but there was no end to the venom’s flow.

Dropping the cloth with a sudden thought
occurring to her, Ruby considered that whatever had occurred in
that dining hall wasn’t over. What had happened to the rest of her
family? She feared that this was not an isolated incident. The food
had been meant to kill her, and if Durin had not been there, it
certainly would have. She had to find her loved ones, and she
believed that the poison within her would serve in her endeavor.
Ruby located a small dagger on the guard’s body that was much more
manageable for her than the large sword. Picking it up, she spit
out a hefty sampling of the purplish ooze onto both sides of the
blade, giving it an excessive coating in the awful substance. She
would protect herself if she had to.

Ruby left the dining hall, dagger in hand and
drenched in the poison flowing forth from her mouth. Her lips,
teeth, and chin were completely stained the purple black color, as
the liquid continued to stream out from her following Durin’s
spell. The ooze muddied her once yellow dress all the way from her
neck down to the hem at her feet. Ruby’s skin was pale white and
the dark veins beneath stood out in stark contrast. The poison was
beginning to do more to her than merely flow out from her mouth.
Her light brown hair had turned black, and the soft green eyes she
once had were now ebony abysses. Even her mind felt like it was
changing. Dark thoughts permeated her head, as she strode through
those familiar hallways. She wanted to inflict pain on whoever had
done this. Needed it. Every suppressed thought was flooding to the
surface, and she felt unable to quell her own dark desires. Ruby
didn’t entirely want to either.

Her goal was clear though. She had to find
her younger sister, Leina. She had to make sure that she was
unharmed. If anything had happened to her, Ruby was uncertain what
she would do, but if the dark thoughts in her mind were any
indication, it would be savage. Monstrous.

Walking through the hallways, Ruby heard a
great deal of chaos breaking out throughout the castle’s walls, and
she was certain that her assumption was correct - her ordeal had
not been an isolated incident. Her pace quickened with the hope of
reaching Leina sooner. Turning a corner, however, were two of the
castle guards standing in her way. They had their swords out,
already bloodied from some other poor souls, and when they saw
Ruby, they approached her with a clear ill intent.

The princess couldn’t imagine she would be
able to defend herself against two armed guards. She knew little of
combat, and armed with only a poisoned dagger, she feared she would
not be able to hold her own.

When the guards got close enough to clearly
see what was happening to Ruby, their faces turned from violence to
fear. Though she had not seen her reflection since the poison began
to pour forth from her, she was certain that she must have looked
ghastly. Perhaps, she could use their fear in her favor.

Ruby stopped in the middle of the narrow
hallway, and the horrified guards reactively followed her lead. The
princess raised her poison-coated dagger and prepared to issue some
threat.

“Lay down your weapons,” she ordered them. As
she spoke, the poison spat from her mouth, coating every syllable
in the toxic substance.

Being intimidating, however, was not
something that came easily to her and the guards must have seen
through her false bravado, as neither did what she’d demanded of
them. Instead, their resolve only strengthened, and they continued
to cautiously approach her. Instinctively, the flow of the poison
inside of her ratcheted up. The steady drizzle had become a deluge,
and the purplish goop exploded out from her. Opening her mouth
wide, the poison flooded the hallway in front of her, showering the
two guards in the sticky substance.

Both men screamed as the poison wrapped them
in its dark embrace. The noxious liquid was stronger than it had
been against the former guard. The venom devoured the men’s flesh
and ripped through their clothing and armor. Amidst the onslaught
of dark purple, Ruby could see the men dissolved beneath the
endless waves billowing forth from her mouth. She felt like she
might drown against the rushing stream of poison flowing out from
her, but she somehow continued to breathe through her nose. Again,
the smell of the men being ripped apart by the poison seemed sweet
as the scent wafted into her nostrils. Something about it just
appealed to her on an aesthetic level. This concerned Ruby, as she
feared she was beginning to have a taste for the murder of these
men. The darkness growing inside of her was wrapping her mind in
its warmth the same as the poison had the guards. It felt good.

Ruby fought against the gleeful sensation.
Leina needed her. The poison slowed its pace back to what it had
been before the gusher, and the princess walked forward, stepping
over and through what remained of the guards. Their bodies had been
broken down until almost nothing was left. The bottom of her dress
dragged through the poison and their remains, further discoloring
the now soggy cloth. She continued through the hallways toward
Leina’s room, her trail of excreted poison slopped out behind
her.

The chaos and the screams throughout the
castle endured, and Ruby wondered if there was anyone who remained
safe following the treasonous act. Before she made it to her
sister’s room, Ruby had to pass by the throne room. From there, she
could hear a great deal of commotion, as the room seemed to be a
focal point of what was transpiring in the castle. Halting at the
corner before the room, Ruby saw a pair of guards rush into the
chamber. No one else was in sight, so she moved forward. Her
initial intent was to move past the throne room and hurry to
Leina’s chamber. As she passed by, however, she turned her head to
inspect it. The sight was one she could not ignore.

Bodies of important members of her father’s
court were scattered throughout the room. Trails of blood and
bloody footprints connected the corpses together in a grim pattern.
A series of guards with red blades stood over the bodies, while her
father kneeled next to the throne. Her mother’s body already lay
crumpled and discarded to his side. A bloodied dagger was at the
king’s throat, held by Leina. In her other hand was a stuffed dog
that she often slept with at night. She was dressed in a night robe
splattered in blood, and her eyes were malevolent and full of
malice. She smiled a wicked little grin that didn’t suit her
innocent nature. The scene made no sense to Ruby’s mind. Her
thoughts demanded answers as to what could have possibly driven her
nine-year-old sister to ever hold a blade to her father’s neck.

Leina looked up to meet her sister’s eyes,
but she was not overly concerned with her presence, as the young
girl moved her gaze back down to her father at the tip of her
blade. Ruby realized what was about to happen, even though it made
no sense to her.

“No!” the princess shouted, stepping forward
into the throne room.

Her word held no power over her younger
sister. Leina plunged the dagger into the king’s throat, ripping it
to the side. Blood seemed to explode from the wound, mimicking the
flow of poison from Ruby’s mouth. Her father fell to the floor,
gurgling on blood and gasping for air through the crimson
fluid.

Ruby started to make her way across the room
toward her sister and dying father, but several guards moved
between her and her goal. She watched from a distance, unable to
change the course of events, as her father slowly succumbed to the
wound.

“What have you done, Leina?” Ruby asked,
dark, oily tears streaking from the corners of her eyes and meeting
the poison from her mouth.

Her sister ignored the question, impudently
replying with her own. “Why aren’t you dead?” she pouted.

Ruby did not answer, still staring in
disbelief at her dead mother and father lying in front of their
throne. From behind a pillar crept another figure, clothed in a
long, dark robe with an overhanging hood and a simple white mask
disguising his face. He had his hands folded behind his back, but
as he approached Leina, joining her at her side, he raised a hand
and placed it on her shoulder. The hand was craggy, dusty red and
ended with thick, cracked fingers filed into sharp tips.

At his touch, Leina looked up to him with a
gleeful smile and asked, “Have I done well, my master?”

“Very well, my little flower,” he replied in
a deep, booming voice. “But you have one left to dispose of.”

“Yes, my master” she said with a nod. Looking
to the guards between her and Ruby, she ordered them, “Kill her! My
sister has been ever so wicked!”

Ruby’s mind had been growing darker with each
passing moment since the poison had infected her. With the
catalytic event of her father’s death at the hands of her sister,
the princess felt everything drift away. Before any of the guards
could react, Ruby lunged forward with her poisoned dagger in hand.
The blade penetrated one of the men’s gut, infecting him with the
noxious fluid. He fell back with her on top of him, and Ruby’s
momentum carried her forward. She performed a somersault, as he
landed on the stone floor, and the princess sprinted toward the
robed man, knowing him to be responsible for all the foul deeds
that had been perpetrated that day. Her vengeance was not fated to
be fulfilled for some time, however, as the robed man raised his
craggy hand, palm toward her, and Ruby disappeared in a cloud of
ash and smoke.

“You’re not dead,” a deep, raspy but
somehow altogether alluring woman’s voice informed her. The sound
seemed to echo and reverberate from some perfect adjustment of
acoustics, making the voice even more interesting. She felt like in
a dream, but she was aware enough to know that wasn’t true.

Ruby jolted back into consciousness, opening
her eyes and raising herself up from a lying position. She was full
of that sensation you have when you think you’ve woken late and
missed something - her whole body was tingling with energy. Looking
around, she saw that the entire area was a completely unfiltered
bright white and was blinding. In every direction, she could see
nothing but white. She squinted her eyes and covered them with the
inside nook of her elbow, attempting to allow them to adjust to the
intense luminance. She managed to stand and then tried to find the
source of the voice, ultimately turning around and finding the
fuzzy outline of the feet and legs of the woman who had spoken.

“I suppose it is a bit bright in here,” she
went on. “You’ll adjust in a moment.”

“Who are you?” the princess asked, still
struggling to see who she was talking to.