Princess Turned Barter

Chapter Two

Kyra

I drive my small dagger into his large, bloated stomach. The feeling of fat sinking around the blade brings me a great sense of deplorable pleasure. Blood starts pouring out from his mouth and down his neck like a gentle brook, occasionally splattering around him as he coughs dramatically.

"I swear, I don't know where she is!" The man cries, blood now oozing from his nose as I twist the blade around his stomach.

He cringes as the unignorable pain sinks deeper into his bones. The man shakes violently as an icy soft breeze blows around us, rustling the sin-covered grass.

"I believe you," I say, completely undisturbed by the sight of him squirming. "But why is it that you won't give me any more information? Because you simply don't have any, or do you still think there is some hope for you to survive?"

The knight's eyes become glossy with fresh tears, which trickle down his rounded cheeks and mix with his blood on the grass.

"I don't know anything else," the man sobs on the end of my dagger. "Please." He begs, his eyes slowly rolling back into his skull.

I realise he is unable to answer any more questions in this unsettling state, so I remove the knife and swiftly slice it over his neck - slitting his throat as easily as if I were dragging my dagger through fresh, soft bread. The knight's eyes are wide with horror and he grips tightly to his neck, as if he can somehow stop his newly fated death.

I stare into his dark orbs, seeing fear and pain swirling around, his soul trying to escape. I want so desperately to feel remorse at the anguish in his dissipating gaze, but my sympathy stays unaltered. I tap him gently on the cheek and stand up to my full height, straightening my back so I am looming over his dying body. It's a strange power, being able to change someone's fate as easily as this.

I swiftly wipe the glistening red blade on my trousers before slipping it back into the sheath that sits on my hip.

A couple more cries of pain and coughs, and the man is lying still on the grassy hill of. Ice that had begun to settle on the blades of grass is now melting due to the warm blood. I put my cloak back over my head and turn away from the body, not wanting to look at the desecration any longer. While sympathy and remorse visit my heart infrequently, regret seems to always loom in the darkest depths of my person.

My eyes scan the area and flicker over all the men lifeless on the ground. Armour clattered around at least six knights with missing limbs or some kind of gaping gash that no one could survive from, not even those with unequivocal love from their doctor.

"That was absolutely horrendous, Kyra," Darius says to me, bewilderment causing his eyes to bulge. "Did you have to be so harsh? I can quite literally see that poor knight's insides."

Ever so slowly, Darius leans over the dead body and examines the insides, before vomiting next to the man. I flinch and repulse away from the new, sour smell.

I grunt, my breath cold but my body heating up like a fire. "You think these men would have taken me seriously if I just cut them a little? Punched them in the gut once or twice? No, they wouldn't have. I need to show them that I'm willing to mutilate to get the answers I want."

Darius wipes his mouth on the corner of his cloak and turns away from the bodies, staring me directly in the eyes before asking, "But did you have to, you know,"

Darius looks past me to a particularly repugnant knight.

"Well," I tilt my head to the side, seeing if a change of angle might enable me to put that man's torso back where it should be. "Right, yes you have a point."