The Poison Princess (34 page)

Why are they here now?

The Scarlett thought perused everything she
could find on the subject, eventually arriving at one that
connected the three big concepts she discovered so far.

Ruby. Strawberries. Poison.

This new thought combined those three
elements into a single story. They told of a young woman named Ruby
(a woman this assorted collection of thoughts found remarkably
beautiful) who was poisoned through her favorite food, a
strawberry. Rather than die, however, this woman was saved by
magic. The caster of this spell died during the channeling of the
magic, resulting in an unintended consequence. This woman became
something called the poison princess.

Poison Princess,
the Scarlett thought
repeated in her head.

That meant something. This woman meant
something.

What is this poison princess to me?

The warmth that she couldn’t explain grew.
Without searching it out, another image inside a thought appeared
to her.

This was of another woman, but not the poison
princess. This was of a redhead with horns and who wore orange eye
shadow. She had on a black dress, though she apparently didn’t like
wearing it and discarded it regularly. She was quite lovely too,
but unlike with the Ruby woman, she wasn’t exactly attracted to
her. Rather, the Scarlett thought felt she was her.

I have a physical body?
The growing
collection consumed this thought as well, taking it into herself
and growing rapidly. Scarlett now had an identity.

Outside the nether realm, the same voice that
had called out the name Scarlett repeated the words.

Scarlett, where are you? I need you.

She knew without proof that the voice
belonged to the poison princess, to Ruby. Ruby was…
her
princess, she realized. They were bonded. The bond of a human and a
demon. Her suspicions had been true. She did have a body. She must
have traveled into the nether realm for some reason.

The pieces of Scarlett’s memory were being
pulled toward her now. She felt powerful - strengthened by the
truth, invigorated by her princess’ needs. She focused her full
efforts on recovering every missing piece, every lost idea that had
been stripped of her. With each one, she knew more about what had
happened and why she was there. The craggy hand demon. He had
corrupted Ruby’s sister…

Leina!

Scarlett recovered that name from a new
memory. The craggy hand demon needed to be stopped. He was trying
to kill Ruby now, and the only way to defeat him would be something
hidden in an archive at the top of a mountain, Rashtalg. They had
called the place the Roof of the World. Monks had set up a
monastery inside the mountain. There was some item that would help
them. It was metal but looked more like stone. It was cold but
glowed with an arcane light. She had worn it. Scarlett pulled more
into herself. Thoughts and memories were coming toward her with
ease now. She felt nearly whole, and she wouldn’t stop until she
was the woman she used to be. She would be the woman Ruby wanted
her to be.

The bracelets,
she finally
remembered.

They were strapped around her wrists and
severing her connection back to her princess. Despite that broken
link, Ruby had called out to her for help. She had to hurry. She
had to collect everything and get back to her. There was one
glaring hole still missing. Scarlett had gone into the nether realm
for the craggy hand demon’s name. She wouldn’t leave without it.
She remembered finding it. He had trapped it deep within the hidden
recesses of the demonic realm, storing it around distracting
thoughts, notions, and needs that had ripped her apart. She had
made it out though. She had learned it, before the thoughts
completely disassembled her, nearly destroying her forever. Ruby
couldn’t allow that, though, so Scarlett wouldn’t give up either.
She reached out with her mind and grabbed that final piece.

Tyran.

That was the craggy hand demon’s name. She
could escape now that it was back in her mind’s possession.

Holding every last piece of her close to
herself, Scarlett leapt out from the nether realm and back into the
body that Ruby had willed into existence for her. She awoke on the
bed of that cold monastery room with a gasp, raising herself up and
looking wildly around. The horned demon swung her legs off the side
of the bed and tried to pull the bracelets off her wrist. They
wouldn’t budge.

Why won’t they come off?! She shouted in her
head. Ruby needs me!

Scarlett decided she couldn’t worry about
that for the moment. She stood and ran to the door, flinging it
open before setting off down the empty hallway. Within seconds, the
hallway was behind her, and she stood in the great hall. Without
her connection, she couldn’t feel where her princess was, but as
you can imagine, the sound of the poison maelstrom made the task of
finding Ruby easy enough.

Scarlett ran as fast as she could toward the
stairs, then up them, then into the cavernous room behind a set of
double doors made of some strange metal with equally odd sigils
carved into their surface. She ignored them and moved into the
room, staring at the swirling abyss of poison. Her instinct was to
rush forward to help her princess, and she even began to do just
that, until a stray splash of the venom landed on the skin of her
hand. Normally, this wouldn’t have meant anything, as she had
Ruby’s immunity, but that was no longer the case. The bracelets
were breaking her bond, which meant she no longer benefitted from
the poison resistance. The toxin sizzled on her demonic skin eating
away at it like she was anyone else. She jerked her hand, flinging
the poison off her, and she took a step back. She couldn’t imagine
how to reach her princess with the bond breaking bracelets on.

The horned demon tugged once more at the
stone-like bracelets, attempting to wrench them off her body and
restore the connection that she and Ruby had together. Still, they
wouldn’t budge. Scarlett got down on the ground, putting her heels
on the bands of the metal, trying to exert enough force to just get
them off her skin. Instead, the flesh began to peel off as she
pushed, but the bracelets stayed where they were. She crawled
toward the stairs, bashing the rocky metal against the handrail,
but the bracelets were unaffected. They must have some magical
restriction, she told herself. Something to keep the wearer from
taking them off before the human is ready
.
She realized she
needed her princess to remove the bracelets, but her princess
needed her to save herself from her own poisonous spout. She had to
make a decision. She had to decide how much pain she was willing to
suffer for Ruby.

Scarlett stood back up, staring into the
maelstrom swirling and filling the cavernous chamber. A tear
trickled down her cheek, while the bracelets hung defiantly from
her wrists, unwilling to loosen their grip on her. The horned demon
took a deep breath and then plunged forward through the spiraling
poison storm. It was the first thing back from a sensationless
realm of pure thought, and she dove face-first into a swirling
tidal wave of toxic filth capable of killing mortals in seconds if
Ruby made the venom strong enough. Scarlett had never felt anything
so terrible. She couldn’t even have imagined that such pain
existed. She had only rudimentary magical powers without her
connection to her princess, so the poison ate away at her flesh
like nearly anyone else. She attempted to mend it, as she went, but
the pain was nearly unbearable and a mind-altering distraction.
Nearly tripping over the jagged rocks of the cave floor, Scarlett
caught herself and plunged ever forward after her princess. The
timespan from the outside to the eye of the storm was probably only
measured in seconds, but the pain aggrandized it to seem like hours
of torture.

When she had finally made it through the
acidic waves, her skin was boiling with burn marks where it had
managed to remain. Chunks of bone and muscle were exposed, and
there was certainly nothing left of the dress. Her long orange hair
was nothing to speak of, having been lost to the all-consuming
poison as well. Her curled horns lay bare on her skull. She
stumbled forward, falling to her skinless knees just before Ruby,
who was still spouting out everything she had inside her. The bones
of her exposed knees crunched against the rocks in agonizing
defiance, as she crawled forward to help her princess. The black
soot and gravel ground into her bones and under what skin she had
left. She blacked in and out of consciousness but never wavered in
her efforts to get to Ruby. After another lengthened section of
time, she had made it to within inches of her human connection to
that realm.

Her lips and tongue were both in bad shape
from the venom, and her throat burned, but she forced herself to
speak. “Ruby.” The one word took nearly everything she had.

The princess turned to see her demon, flesh
in shreds and in terrible pain from her own lack of control.

Scarlett held out her bloody and purple ooze
covered arm to the princess. Another terrible effort, and she said,
“Pull.”

Ruby understood what she needed. The bracelet
had to come off. Through the force of the poisonous hurricane
surrounding her, she managed to twist her body to face her demon.
With everything she had, she raised her hands and grabbed the stony
metal bracelet. Rather than pull, the princess just held tight and
fell backward using her own weight to accomplish the task. The
first bracelet came off, falling to the ground and then getting
swept up in the current.

The horned demon felt power flow back through
her. Though not immune, she did feel a level of resistance to the
poison return to her. Her flesh began to knit itself back together,
and her body generally began an involuntary repair process. She
even generated another dress back over her skin, though she’d have
preferred it stay off. Her strength restored, she moved quickly to
her princess and held her up. She wrapped her arms around her
nearly limp frame, letting her own power flow into Ruby’s body.

With her demon’s touch, the princess felt
some strength reenter her. She managed to reach down inside
herself, where that poisonous lever was housed. Wrenching it back
to an off state required all of that newfound strength, but she
managed it nevertheless. The poison began to flow back inside her,
just as painful as it was going out. After the process finished
over the course of several minutes, she collapsed to the floor
sucking in air, like she had been drowning in the spewing filth.
The cavernous ceiling dripped more than the beast ever had. It was
an orchestra of blips on a scale she wouldn’t have thought
possible. She was too exhausted by the expenditure and retrieval to
be bothered with it.

“Are you alright?” Scarlett asked.

“Thanks… to… you,” the princess replied,
still gasping for air.

The horned demon looked up to see why Ruby
had risked so much. The terrible poisons that flooded the room had
seared the beast that cowered at the edge of the room, but now that
they had cleared, it was beginning to move again. “My princess, I
believe it is time we go.”

“I… can’t,” she said, unable to catch her
breath. Her throat was parched like she had been walking in the
desert without water for days. “Need… poison…”

Scarlett held the other wrist, still
manacled, to her master, nearly shoving it in her face. “Take this
off, and I’ll oblige.”

The princess kind of shuddered, feeling
feverish, and she jerked back at the sudden sight of the bracelet.
She swallowed the air, burning her throat on the way down, and
raised herself off her hands. One hand was all she could manage,
and she collapsed back on the other, using it to brace herself. The
free hand clasped Scarlett’s wrist weakly. Her fingers grabbed hold
of the stony metal and tried to move it, but she couldn’t manage
the feat.

The beast’s limbs began to fall down from
where it had shielded itself. The dozens upon dozens of eyes
blinked open, scanning the room and determining whether it was
truly safe. It seemed to think so. Its limbs slithered forward,
while the strange nostril tentacles crept out and sucked at the
air. The dripping poison from the ceiling was all that was
protecting the women now. Each drop that landed on a tendril or
limb recoiled, causing it to shrink back into the creature’s form.
It was only a matter of time before it braved the poison and
attempted to continue what it had started.

Scarlett saw her princess’ weakness and knew
that she had to help her efforts. While Ruby grabbed the bracelet,
the horned demon grabbed Ruby. She helped her slide the bracelet
from her wrist, which whatever magic that had held it in place
seemed amenable to. The metal slipped from her wrist and fell with
a clang to the floor, tumbling down and landing near the other. Her
magic power and the bond to her princess was restored. Using that
recovered energy, Scarlett manifested and funneled a dark poison
into her princess. She forced it in at just a touch. Her power was
not complete due to all it had taken to teleport her and her
princess, however. The funnel closed and stopped, leaving her a
small pool to draw from if needed.

Ruby too recovered, but not fully. She was,
however, able to stand, along with her demon. The beast was still
there and still tempting its luck, trying to reach out into the
dripping poison, but the drops were continuing to hold it at bay
for the moment. The princess took that time to pick up the
bracelets and then to locate the orb. The artifact had luckily
drifted away from the creature, back toward the door. She ran over
to it, her shoes slapping in the puddles of ooze along the way, and
Scarlett followed her, thinking they were leaving, as they should
have been.