Bleeding Crown (Red Queen 4 Fanfiction)

Chapter 3

Thank you shattered_quill, and roller_shelby2 for being so enthusiastic! So happy everyone is enjoying this! Gotta warn you guys, though, I'm running out of stock-piled chapters to instantly publish. I hope to have another chapter up tomorrow. Although this chapter doesn't have much action in it, I feel it's critical to digging deep into Mare's emotions and mind.

Enjoy! "Their blood is a threat, a warning, a promise. We are not the same and never will be."

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Mare

I cracked open the door to watch him walk away. I could only see him from behind, but he looked the same as always. The only difference seemed to be his hair. When we had first arrived at Piedmont, he told me he cut his hair himself, using his signature, crooked and cheesy smile, as he told me. I hadn't noticed it while talking to him a half hour ago, but now I could tell someone had cut it. I suppose that haircut hadn't been fit for a future king.

After awhile of thinking, I got up. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. More than anything else sometimes. I walked over to my closet to change into my night clothes. My closet was about the same size as Mareena's was, but what it held was much different.

While Mareena's held heaps upon heaps of dresses, two or three training outfits and a couple buckets of white paste, mine held nearly all athletic wear and one dress. I wonder why the dress was even in there. Maybe to go to one of the Samo's balls or for the day we infiltrate Maven's palace.

As I took off my shirt, I felt something jab at my stomach from inside my pocket. I took the object out of my pocket and found a single, red earring. I had been wearing this shirt on the day we defended Corvium, the day Cal made me jump out of a plane. I smile at the flashback of when he calmed me and gave me that earring, he promised it wouldn't end like the last plane ride to the Choke did. Just a few hours later, everything ended much worse than it could've if I had fallen into Maven's clutches that night.

I walked out of my a few minutes later, in my night shorts and shirt, in search of a maid. I wondered all the way from the second floor to the fourth, it was late at night and most maids had retired to their own chambers. But after searching for several minutes I finally found one, she was cleaning something from a wall. When I got closer I saw burn marks on the wall, the woman was cleaning off any of the soot she could. Cal. I immediately got an uneasy feeling. Cal was probably staying on this floor, there was no other reason for him to be here, it was only a residential floor.

"Excuse me, this is a strange question, but can I borrow a sewing needle for a moment?"

The women looked at me, "Little Lightning Girl," she said with wide eyes.

I smiled, "You look familiar, have I met you before?"

For a moment, she seemed to be replaying a memory in her head. "I was a servant at the Queenstrial, perhaps you saw me there, or as your time as Mareena."

"Perhaps," I respond. Although no one is around, I whisper, "Are you still considered a servant here? A red rat?"

She nods sadly. "Here's your needle, miss."

"No need to call me miss and I promise, once the Scarlet Guard takes control, the pathetic accuse the silver's call a system of power will be replaced," I say. Taking the needle, I create a small prick on my right pointer finger and squeeze several drops of blood onto the wall where the burn marks are.

I swiftly walk back to my room, the main halls of the estate get very warm during the night. I go to my bathroom and look in the mirror at my other earrings lining my ear. I touch each one. The red one held in my hand doesn't belong with them. While the other earrings are from the people I've known so long are located on my earlobe, the red one must go somewhere else.