Poison Princess

Chapter Twelve: We Rise by Lifting Each Other

Chapter Twelve: We Rise by Lifting Each Other

On the seventh of May, at approximately 10:00 AM, Mr. Claude Fleur was found deceased. Queen Niveral was the first to make the morbid discovery, when she entered his office and found his hollow husk slumped over on that huge mahogany desk, surrounded by the sea of crimson that was his domain. Everyone got a chance to look at one moment or another before the coroners arrived to whisk away his corpse.

When I set foot into Fleur's chambers, an intense scent flooded my nose. Not the foul stench of decay, but the overwhelming, stinging scent of the cologne he always wore. It was like an aura that emanated from him in place of his true aura, which had long since faded when his soul had fled. A few drips of blood had dribbled from the corner of his lips. His flesh appeared pale and flushed, like it was stiffening around itself. To me, it appeared less like Fleur, and more like a stiff puppet designed in his image. The toxic flower had finally wilted.

As much as I didn't want to look, my brain forced me to keep my eyes peeled, to burn the macabre sight into my memory like a hot iron brand. Like a train wreck, it was horrible, but impossible to tear myself away from.

My subconscious seemed to growl to me, "Remember this. Take a good, long look. This is what you have done. You will never forget this image for the rest of your life. This is what becomes of those who get close to the Poison Princess."

I didn't need to wonder what had happened to Mr. Fleur. I had known for a long time, and everyone else seemed to know as well. The rest of the troupe members fell into a long silence. No fingers were pointed at me. No one heaped blame upon me. Not a single accusatory word was thrown my way. Everyone seemed to have retreated into their own worlds, to come to terms with the death of the Scarlet Ringmaster.

My throat felt so tight, it might as well have been sealed. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but not a single peep would come out of me. The shock of seeing Fleur's corpse was like a freezing blast that rendered me utterly numb. For the second time in my life, I had been the cause of someone else's death. As much as I despised Mr. Fleur...I couldn't bear the fact that I had caused his untimely demise. If only I hadn't snapped back then, if I hadn't grabbed his neck with intent to kill...this never would have happened.

A long time ago, I had read that Espers born with the poison ability could control the level of their poison, to manipulate how long a person lived after being poisoned. Depending on the intensity, death could be brought in seconds, hours, or even days. As for me, I had never been trained to control my poison levels. I had no concept of such a thing, unless my body had somehow unconsciously afflicted Fleur with just enough poison to keep him living on for a few more years. But Mr. Fleur was not fully human, either. As someone who had spent a long time in the Otherworld, it seemed he had become part Fae, taking on some of their traits. If that was the case, perhaps that unusual bodily makeup was what kept him alive to fight the poison rotting his body from the inside-out. But that could not save him forever, and like all the others, he succumbed to my deadly touch.

Deep down, we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later. We noticed Mr. Fleur's staggered gait, his increasing reliance on his cane, the bandages concealing the wounds on his neck, and his notable absence in many of our recent acts. He didn't participate in acts with the other performers like he used to. On rare occasions, we would accidentally catch a glimpse of him coughing up blood into a tissue. Mr. Fleur never showed weakness, because he knew if he did, it would be the end of him. He domineered over incredibly powerful inhuman beings who could easily destroy him, but instead respected him and followed him as a leader because of his apparent aura of power. If that expression of his vanished, there would be nothing to keep the non-human performers from lashing out at him. Creatures like demons and faeries only had respect for one thing, and that was power.