The Poison Princess (45 page)

Finally finished, Ruby dropped the hammer and
tried to catch her breath. She looked over to Scarlett’s body, mere
feet from where she had taken the craggy hand demon’s life. Seeing
the body of her bound demon brought on a lack of control, and the
toxic sludge dripped from her mouth like it had when her journey
had started, beginning to pool and congeal beneath her.

The red glow returned once more to Ruby’s
eyes, as she thought about Scarlett. The mirror had shown her a
future where the horned demon was still alive and by her side. That
future, she decided, was hers for the taking. Ruby approached her
demon, allowing her poison, fueled by the red necromantic power
she’d stolen from the wight king, to drip down on her servant’s
body, into her grievous wounds. The sludge pooled there in those
wounds, and Scarlett’s body began to knit itself back together at
her command. Before long the red faded from Ruby’s eyes, having
been fully transferred into her horned demon.

Scarlett coughed and sputtered, sitting
upright and staring about the room in a state of panicked
confusion. “What… What happened?”

“You died,” Ruby said turning and walking
toward the throne. “I brought you back.”

“Where’s the craggy hand demon?”

Still walking toward the throne, the princess
pointed back to the splattered remains. “Dead.”

“And… your sister?”

Ruby approached the throne and grabbed what
remained of her sister. She tossed the corpse out of the seat, so
that it landed on the stone floor and tumbled down the couple steps
leading up to the throne. “Dead.”

Ruby sat down in her throne, with the poison
still flowing freely from her lips. Her horned demon stood and
walked over to Leina’s body, where she picked up the crown from the
woman’s tangled bloody hair. Scarlett returned to the throne,
placing the crown on the princess’ brow.

“My queen,” the horned demon added, kneeling
in respect.

The poison queen looked out over the throne
room and all that she had wrought. Her eyes lingered on the
bloodied remains of the craggy hand demon and then to her own
sister’s lifeless body. Her decade-long task had succeeded, but the
darkness had taken her sister from her. She forced herself not to
care for the death of Leina, her body still warm on the cold steps
of the throne room. Ruby’s mind was concerned with the kingdom she
now ruled.

That same question returned to the forefront
of her thoughts -
Do I do what is right, or do I do what I
want?

For the first time in her life, there was no
longer a debate regarding the answer to that question. Smiling, the
purple poison slopped forth past her curled lips. The age of poison
had begun.