The uncontrollable power lurking beneath Princess Alethia's skin can either be the savior of the Four Kingdoms or its destruction.
Princess Alethia was raised on three principles: (1) Mercy is for the weak, (2) Emotions are an unwanted distraction...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: THERE'S A SURPRISE AT THE END YOU GUYS :) ALSO THE ATTACHED PICTURE ABOVE IS WHAT I ENVISIONED ALETHIA TO LOOK LIKE. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK, DON'T BE GREEDY WITH YOUR THOUGHTS :)
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"You know what you must do." Even whispering, her mother's cold voice thundered loud in her ears. The only reaction her body gave was the tightening of her fingers on the hilt of the blade, her nails cutting the skin of her palm.
Alethia knew what she had to do, but it wasn't what she wanted to do. The searing pain in her back was a reminder of the consequences that came with disloyalty.
The prisoner's head lolled back in the chair, and he gurgled blood out of his mouth. "Please, don't. I only did it for my children."
Alethia's stomach twisted in knots as nausea threatened to overtake her. She wanted to scream, I know. I understand. It's okay. She wanted to ignore his mumbled words. But she'd hear them when she slept as clear as day; the words, the agony, the suffering, all of it would be committed to memory. Everything she had done to him. From the moment she shoved the poison into his mouth.
The same poison her mother had shoved down her throat when she was ten years old. She knew about the hallucinations he had seen, the way his body felt like it was melting apart, and the way his veins seemed to creak against each other. But she couldn't react. She couldn't do anything except watch.
"Now, Alethia," her mother snapped. "Do not waste my time."
Fear made her take a step forward. The prisoner jerked in the metal chair bolted to the ground, his hazy, diluted brown eyes latching on to her face. The last face he was ever going to see; the last face the men before him had ever seen. Alethia swallowed the taste of the bile that arose with the thought of what she had to do.
She pulled the long sword out of its sheath, the rasping sound echoing the ringing calls of the reaper. The prisoner's eyes glowed brighter as he attempted to use his earth magic. But in a metal room designed for Kantian prisoners, there was no soil or mud for him to pull from—especially in his weakened state.
The scabbed over wounds across her back burned from the effort of lifting her sword. Ignoring the pain and refusing to show any weakness in front of her mother, Alethia sliced the sword through the air and his neck. His head fell off, landing with a plopping sound and rolling across the floor. Blood splattered onto the metal walls, the sound echoing in the small space.
She wiped the blood off her sword. Returning the blade to her sheath, she looked away from the table filled with torturous instruments and the head that now rested near its leg. Alethia turned from the darkened, bloodstained cell. She dragged controlled breaths through her mouth to avoid the awful stench of rusted iron that perforated the air.
"Good girl." Her mother's vacant icy grey eyes took in Alethia's face then ran over her body. "If you had done that before, we could have avoided your punishment. I do not wish to inflict pain on you at such an age. You simply have to do as you're told. Do you understand?"
