The Poison Princess (44 page)

The queen seemed not to notice and simply
enjoyed watching the blood fly out, watching it pool beneath her
victim, watching Scarlett’s body rip and tear at her touch. The
corruption inside her was too deep that Ruby now thought it could
never be overcome. The princess regretted giving up the poison
inside her. It had been a mistake. That naive, idealistic decision
caused Scarlett her life. Ruby’s horned demon was dead, and her
irredeemable sister was covered in Scarlett’s blood. The princess
felt that anger and hatred inside her, but without the poison, it
was weak. It was useless.

Leina turned her head and looked up at the
craggy hand demon. “Did you like it, my master? Did I fuck her
well?”

“Yes, my little flower,” he replied with a
soft smile. “Now, then. Let’s go see your sister, shall we?”

The queen nodded enthusiastically, and her
demon held his hand out, helping Leina stand up. Hand in hand, the
pair walked toward Ruby, who was still held in place by the craggy
hand demon’s powerful sorcery.

“You’re going to die,” the princess told the
demon through gritted teeth. “I’ve seen it. You don’t win.”

He adopted a little condescending smile. “And
how do imagine that is?”

“My sister is going to kill you.”

The craggy hand demon turned to Leina,
placing his hand on her cheek. “My little flower would never hurt
me. Isn’t that right?”

The queen stared adoringly into his eyes.
“Never, my master.”

“She’d do anything I told her to do. Wouldn’t
you, my little flower?”

“Anything, my master. Let me prove it to
you.” She squirmed on the spot in anticipation. “Give me a command.
Please.”

“As you wish…” He thought for a moment about
what he wanted her to do. Another smile graced his face, as he
decided. “Cut off one of your sister’s fingers.”

Leina smiled wide and kneeled beside Ruby’s
body.

“Leina,” the princess began, beads of sweat
beginning to form at either temple. “You don’t have to do what he
says. You can fight him.”

“Silly sister,” Leina said, pulling Ruby’s
hand away from her body and laying it flat on the ground. “I don’t
want to fight him.”

“Leina…”

Her sister laid the blade down against each
finger in turn, not sure where to start. She looked to Ruby’s face,
still wearing her wicked smile. “Which one?”

The princess just shook her head, remembering
the pain that had come when she temporarily lost four of her
fingers in Gloomport.

“I know,” Leina said cheerfully. “Let’s start
with your thumb!”

The dark queen pulled Ruby’s thumb to the
side, clear of the others, and then placed the blade down, so that
it rested on the skin. She looked up to her sister’s face one more
time. “Now, then. This is going to hurt, dear sister.”

Leina cackled a little and then plunged the
blade down, passing through flesh and blood, through muscle and
bone with a crunch, until she hit the stone floor on the other
side. Ruby howled in pain, the sound echoing throughout the halls.
She wished that she could move - that she could do something to
stop the pain, stop her sister, and stop the demon. Anything. The
queen’s craggy hand demon overlooked the mutilation with a pleased
expression on his face. Leina picked up the severed appendage,
stood, and showed it to her master.

“Here you are,” she declared. “I told you I
would prove myself.”

He took the thumb and nodded to her. “You’re
such a good little girl.” The craggy hand demon paused, looking at
the bloody appendage. “Bring me the rest.”

Leina’s eyes lit up, and she eagerly dropped
back to the floor, where she continued her work. Ruby’s screams and
the sounds of her bones being broken and severed muffled almost all
thought she was capable of. All she was able to do was experience
the pain of the torture and the anger and rage from her sister’s
betrayal. She cursed herself once more for giving up the poisonous
power she once had access to. It had been a waste after all.
Choking down on her rage, Ruby thought back to the question she had
answered time and time again,

Do I do what is right, or do I do what I
want?

For the past decade, the princess felt like
the darkness inside her had been forced upon her by the miscast
spell that had attempted to save her life. She felt like it had
guided her decisions and caused her to go down paths she never
would have otherwise. Ruby could forgive herself for those
transgressions, because there had been something twisted gnawing
its way through her mind. What she did in that moment, however, was
unforgivable. Rather than the darkness simply rising up inside her
against her will, Ruby now chose to reach down into the filth and
pull back the darkness that she so desperately desired. She had
finally made the decision. Right and wrong were no longer concerns
to her. Ruby’s dark desires had control. She was beyond redemption
now. Death was all that remained of the Oracle’s prophecy.

The poisonous lever inside her had never
left. Choosing to tap into those terrible emotions restored it to
what she now realized was its rightful place. Her malevolent energy
flowed once more, and a terrible hate overwhelmed her senses. There
was an explosion of poison, knocking both Leina and the craggy hand
demon away from her. The wounds in her gut healed, her skin grew
pale, and the same dark thoughts permeated her mind, as the poison
spread. The sludge poured out of her severed fingers, reaching out
and reconnecting with the bloody digits that had dropped to the
stone floor. Her hands were repaired, but the craggy hand demon was
up, and he was no worse for wear from the poison explosion.

He raised his hand to perform some additional
sorcery, but Ruby was a step ahead of him. She globbed a ball of
venom in her mouth and spit it into his face, temporarily blinding
him. The princess stood and ran over to her war hammer, as a layer
of toxic sludge oozed out from her. This time, it was not limited
to coming out her mouth. It secreted out of her skin, covering her
entire form in a purplish-black layer of the filth. The sludge
dripped off her, and she picked up the weapon. Turning back, Ruby
saw that the craggy hand demon had pulled out a weapon of his own.
It was an enormous, two-handed sword that looked almost like a
butcher’s knife, elongated over the length of the huge blade. Ruby
stepped forward to meet him, while Leina, on the other hand, had
made her way over to her throne, where she eagerly watched the show
begin.

The demon swiped the huge blade across the
room, making Ruby dodge backward. The princess swung her war hammer
in reply, but he raised his wide sword, using it as a makeshift
shield, so that it just clashed loudly into the metal. The craggy
hand demon wasn’t just brute strength. He had great magical powers
that he had already shown off during the battle at the Cloister. He
wasn’t above using them against Ruby, either. The demon somehow
generated an electrical current that shot through the metal of his
blade, into the war hammer, and finally into the princess’ hands.
The current then launched her weapon out of her hands, colliding
into the wall and falling with a thud to the floor.

The craggy hand demon raised his enormous
sword over his head preparing to bring it down on Ruby. Without her
weapon, the princess briefly thought that she was unarmed, but she
quickly dismissed that notion. She had great and terrible power
festering inside her. She simply had to use it. Lifting her hands
to meet the huge blade falling toward her, Ruby released a wave of
toxins that ate away the metal of the colossal sword before it
could slice her in two. All that was left of it was the hilt, which
the craggy hand demon still held in his hand. He looked at it with
a scowl and tossed it to the side, sliding on the cold stone tile
of the throne room.

Ruby recognized that he was no less dangerous
without the weapon, and that she had to continue the fight. The
princess rushed toward him, wielding nothing but her own dark
energy, while the craggy hand demon began to shape some spell
between his hands. A yellow ball formed there between his two
palms, as they rotated around the energy. When Ruby was close
enough to him to pounce on him and release her poison, he unleashed
this yellow energy on her. The blast exploded out in a long,
straight beam directly into her chest. The princess instinctively
raised her hands, covered in her dark purple sludge. The poison
served as a buffer between herself and the crackling energy he had
launched toward her, but the beam continued to push her back toward
the edge of the room. Her feet slid against the cold tile, while
she tried to fight against the force of the blast with little
success. She gritted her teeth, and her eyes glowed with the red
light of the wights from the undercroft, as her rage grew inside
her.

Her hands began to form their own ball of
energy, hers composed of the dark purple toxins she was so
comfortable with. As the poisons wrapped over each other, forming
layers upon layers, her slide into the wall slowed, and she started
to fight against the yellow beam. Ruby’s rage grew and with it, so
did the ball of venom manifesting between her hands. With every
passing second, her anger grew more and more uncontrollable, and
the poison grew larger. Eventually, the princess stopped entirely,
and she pushed back against the energy of the craggy hand demon.
The purple sludge became its own beam, and tainted the bright
yellow beam, pushing toward him.

The demon, however, had more strength still
inside him, and he refused to let her win this contest of power. He
shook with ferocity, pushing the poison back toward her, as Ruby
began to slide once more toward the wall. Leina, meanwhile, laughed
and clapped enthusiastically from the safety of her throne.

The princess’ rage had overtaken her, and
there was no more logical thought rattling around inside her head
in that moment. Using everything that had happened to her in the
past decade, Ruby exploded once more, channeling all that anguish
and hate toward the craggy hand demon. Both her poison and the
yellow beam suddenly ceased, as the craggy hand demon was knocked
back.

The princess, however, was not concerned with
him. Now, she focused all her anger on her sister, on Leina. She
had wasted more than a decade on the thought that her sister could
be saved, and seeing her now, Ruby knew that Leina wasn’t worth
saving. While the craggy hand demon was momentarily distracted, the
princess rushed toward her sister. Horror washed over Leina’s face,
as she stopped her giddy laughing.

Ruby grabbed her sister by the head and
smashed it into the back of the stone throne. Leina’s eyes went
wide, as her skull crashed into that hard surface. Blood splattered
out onto Ruby’s fingers, and she pulled her sister’s head back
toward her before smashing it into the throne once more. Leina’s
hands tried to claw at Ruby’s wrists, but the poison princess was
far too powerful in that moment. Her rage had overtaken her, and
there was no stopping the terrible wrath she felt. Leina’s skull
was smashed against the back of the stone throne more than a dozen
more times, before Ruby even realized what she had done.

Shivering, the princess removed her bloody
hands from her sister’s crushed skull. To Ruby, the time she spent
staring at her sister’s lifeless body seemed to drag on for ages,
but in reality, it was only seconds. She turned back to find the
craggy hand demon and ascertain his fate, but to her surprise, he
was still alive and kneeling over Scarlett’s body. He smiled
wickedly at her, showing her the bracelets he now wore on his
wrists. He had severed his own connection to Leina to save himself
from death.

“Even if you kill me…” he said. “I win.”

The princess looked back to her sister’s dead
body once more before returning her eyes to the craggy hand demon.
There were no words left for Ruby to speak. Only action would serve
her now. The princess walked over to where he still kneeled, kicked
him onto his back, and straddled over his body. He hardly even
fought her. Ruby plunged her thumbs into his eyes. His smile faded,
as he screamed in pain. Eventually pulling her thumbs out, she put
a knee into his cheek, twisting his head to the side. With all her
strength from the darkness inside her, Ruby grabbed the craggy hand
demon’s ear and wrenched the flesh from his face. More wailing and
mewling. The princess turned his head back toward her and pried his
jaw open, unhinging it with a loud pop.

Ruby reached her fingers into his mouth,
grabbing his slippery tongue. He tried to fight back, attempting to
bite her fingers with his broken jaw, but it was useless. She
pierced the tongue with her fingernails, and placing a knee into
his throat, Ruby yanked back and pulled out a chunk of the pink
muscle. Blood pooled and gurgled in his mouth, as she tossed aside
the tongue.

She wasn’t done. She needed more. Ruby forced
open his mouth, spitting the vile substance inside. She increased
the flow, so that he couldn’t cough it out or swallow it fast
enough. Every once in a while, she would let him turn his head and
get his breath back, only to repeat the act. She had mutated the
poison, so that it would physically hurt him but not contribute to
killing him. Ruby took her time, and she enjoyed it, just as the
black dragon mirror had told her.

The princess eventually stood, allowing the
craggy hand demon to perform some guttural wail as he caught his
breath. He rolled side to side on the floor, his hands pawing at
his broken face, while Ruby picked the hammer back up. She stared
down at him, trying to decide if she was done. Not quite, she told
herself. The princess proceeded to beat everything that was left
out of the mutilated figure on the ground. She crushed his body for
hours with her hammer. Her hands, face, and dress were splattered
in his blood by the end of it.