The Demons in us All

The Reckoning

Cassie winced as she ran her knife through the layers of already scarred skin tissue which covered her right hip bone. As blood ran down her leg the tears came, as they always did, but she didn't whimper this time. Each stroke of the knife was full of anger and pride, and this gave her strength and determination. She steadied her hands as she traced the design she'd already imprinted on her skin from previous sessions. Two interlocking circles to represent love. An arrow was traced directly through the circles, representing communication and freedom. When Cassie finished retracing the pattern, she disinfected the wound and sprawled across her bed.

It wasn't that Cassie enjoyed the pain or bloody pattern. She just felt that, nowadays, it was the only control over her body she had left. A princess could never belong to herself as long as she belonged to her people. And Cassandra Borealis was the princess and sole heir of Gehenna, the most prosperous dynasty on the continent. So since birth she had been forbidden from playing with the servant's children, from running through the rain and mud, from living her own life: not that it had stopped her. Today Elizabeth, the courtier who had been assigned to instruct Cassie's "womanly upbringing," had informed her that from here on out Cassie would stay on a vegan diet. Cassie was already quite scrawny, but Elizabeth wanted to make sure she "stayed that way." If all the court cared about was keeping Cassie's body in prime shape so that she could marry some foreign king, Cassie felt it her duty to mutilate this vessel they cared so much about. The symbols she had carved into her flesh - love, communication, freedom... the things she didn't yet have - were a reminder that she owned herself and she owned her future, no matter what the court and her father told her. The scars were invisible under her dresses, but their presence was enough to remind Cassie of her independence.

As she lay on the bed, Cassie lost herself in thoughts about today's court meeting. The Archines, a group of Barbarians who resided in the Southern woods, had been attacking smaller villages. In a particularly violent raid last week, thirty-nine people had died. The Archines had always fascinated Cassie. There were rumors... rumors that they were different from humans, rumors that they practiced magic, rumors that they were something out of our darkest nightmares. Her father continued to ignore her persistent questions on the subject, perturbing her more and fueling her growing interest.

But at the end of the day, none of that mattered. What mattered was that 39 of her people were dead, and the nobles were too busy worrying about their public image and political power to do something about it. Every time she would speak up, a male courtier would tell her she should stay out of it. A "young woman such as yourself" has "insufficient" knowledge on the subject matter. Yet Cassie knew enough to know that the three soldiers they sent as protection weren't enough to defend the town. She was informed enough to know that, even though the nobles claimed that they had almost no soldiers to spare, Gehenna had an army large enough to send three hundred men easily. She was smart enough to see that what little money and support the court did send wasn't for the benefit of the people, but rather to allow the nobles to keep up their appearances and popularity. And she was angry enough to storm out halfway through the meeting, her back facing the table of nobles and her middle finger stuck up high. She felt her father's eyes digging into her back and almost turned around to apologize. She hated how he ran things, but she didn't want to disappoint him either... The moment of doubt passed when she heard Elizabeth whisper-scold her to sit back down. With renewed resolve and spite, Cassie left the meeting, muttering a string of profanities all the way to her room.

Cassie's recollection of the meeting was soon interrupted. Her eyes snapped open and her body lurched up when she was awakened by a resound bang that seemed to be coming from the wall next to her. Looking to the left, she found that two of the ceramic bricks that made up her bedroom walls had been pushed out of place. With another bang, a third brick followed, and out of the gap in her wall crawled Alex.