Black Storm - Red Queen Fan Fiction

Chapter 10 - The Mirror part III

Mare POV

You've got to be the best. You've got to change to world and use this chance to be heard.

I said it to myself like a mantra. I had to wring a victory from meeting Maven, not a defeat. It was all I wanted, wasn't it? Retribution had been my goal in the last months. Even we'd saved Newbloods, I had never been satisfied and yet, I still dreaded the moment I would see him again. When I'd confronted him, he'd outwitted me again and again, had me beaten up, burned, and humiliated. He managed to win his battles, whatever I tried. He was free to touch the sky whilst I was crushed and pulverized. But I wasn't allowed to give up. Revenge was all that was left to me, and I wouldn't stop until he burned in hell.

"Your hard times are ahead."

Griffey leaned against the glass wall with her arms crossed. The waiting time was over. She had donned her cape and let her hair down, but her dressed-up appearance didn't change the fact that red really wasn't her colour. She had brought prettier clothes for me, too. The prisoner garb I wore was seemingly not enough for Maven anymore. At least it wasn't another flimsy dress. I reacted slowly to the approach of her and two other watchwomen. But I was only playing for time and I stood up when Griffey opened the links between the manacles and the leash to dress me up, and to chain me again.

"Are you willing to come with us?" she asked. As usual, I didn't answer. She sighed.

"You have four options. One, you come with us by yourself. Two, Sallos will carry you, if you don't walk." She motioned to one of her colleagues, a strongarm. "Three, if you fight her, I'm supposed to knock you out."

"And option four?" I challenged her, raising an eyebrow.

"I hope you won't force me to do that."

I glared. She glared back.

"Option 4 is giving you twelve different kinds of pain you didn't know existed."

I remained silent.

"Gracious queen, you are no considering that!"

I let her simmer for a minute before I said, "I'll come with you."

She smiled joylessly and cocked her head before she walked out, the cape billowing behind her. It took me several seconds to realize I was to follow her, to leave the cage for once. Before the other women started to harass me, I fell into a step and crossed the threshold. It didn't feel like freedom, as two Arvens waited for me on the corridor, ready to smother any electricity I might have summoned. Yet I felt relieved that Griffey didn't want to hurt me. For all her bragging, brutality wasn't a sport for her. I reminded myself that was no reason to trust her, nonetheless. Friendliness was just another trap in the lair of my enemy.

I recognized the way we went. I assumed our destination was the dining parlour. But a few turns until we would have reached it, Griffey halted and greeted a man with a cane standing in the corridor.

"Hagen."

"Sister mine," he answered to my astonishment. They didn't ressemble each other at all. Griffey wasn't much taller than me, but this Hagen loomed over 1,8 m and looked like an Iral, in general. Yet he didn't wear their red and blue, but the black and white of House Eagrie.

"Is that her with you?" he asked. "May I?"

"Yes," she replied, taking his arm as they went to me.

"Mare Barrow?" he said to me, tilting his head. His eyes looked somewhere above me as his hand found my shoulder. I tried not to cringe at the stranger's touch. "Sleep tight," he whispered. "I wish you sweet dreams." The corners of his mouth twitched and he scrurried out of my way, his cane tipping the floor.