The Princess of Wrath

Chapter 9 - Part II: Fall from Grace

Asura lost everything in a few messy hours. Or maybe in a few days? Her only companions in that dungeon, darkness and loneliness, were not able to guide her in the temporal direction, but possessing such knowledge mattered little to her.

It was of no use, knowing that she would never leave that place.

Her body had become very weak quickly from the constant cold on her naked skin, the serious wounds on her arms, and the insignificant remains of food and water that she rudely received by her silent guards. What little energy she retained made even something as trivial as rising her head require a titanic strength on her part.

She had initially considered using the curse to escape when the Wraiths —Silas, particularly— were not keeping a personal watch on her, but that brought two essential problems.

The first was that, since the curse awakened in her, she never had the opportunity or the absolute predisposition to sit and read about it, seek advice, or train on its use and control. She had believed so blindly in Roland's promise of a temporary solution that she had directly overlooked the implicit usefulness of that which parasitized both her body and soul.

Her lack of knowledge and training had deprived her of any option to use her innate gift at will; it was ironic, like possessing the most powerful artillery available but not knowing how to light the fuse. Believing that she would have more time to accept being a carrier of the curse had been one of the fundamental pillars of her downfall...

The second problem was the inability to manifest the curse in a similar way to all the times it happened involuntarily. That was due to the deep depression and sadness that had come over her in those days in dark isolation. Using the obnoxious and disgusting mental image of Roland rejoicing in his sinister schemes, or Elfriede's cold nonchalance in allowing such treachery, no longer served as a natural catalyst to draw the attention of her gift, much less to focus it on her injured arms.

How could she conjure that immeasurable fury that so attracted the curse, when the growing guilt over the death of Prince Julianos was in charge of drowning her thoughts in a sea of ​​sheer grief? The betrayal and lies of those people in whom she had blindly placed her trust became less and less serious in the face of the traumatic and horrible memory of that night in her little brother's room...

Essentially, she had no escape. All she could do was cry uncontrollably until exhaustion, carrying more and more with the guilt and growing weight of her mistakes.

Nonetheless, her tormented and curious brain did not rest. That damned but priceless organ could not help but torture her by asking countless questions about dire events in the past.

Had everything been premeditated? How long had they planned to lock her up? Did that conspiracy exist long before the day the curse awakened in her? So many questions. So much uncertainty...

The intermittent dripping into the vessels of blood that the Wraiths removed as they were filled to replace them with new, empty and unsullied, fueled those troubling doubts in the same way.

"What are they planning to do with my blood?" she had wondered, for then to remember that the elixir that Roland had made had been based on her blood.

She analyzed all the lies he told her around that specific topic, making them converge on two precise pieces of information: the serum they had been manufacturing at Belmont Pharmaceuticals and Roland's role as auditor.

"Is Mr. Belmont also a conspirator? Magnus Clapeyron? And Stan? Oh, Stan..." she had thought upon reaching that sad but possible conclusion. She wanted to believe that her best friend had nothing to do with this, but... Neither he nor his father had shown up at her engagement ceremony with Roland. If she put aside the possible lie that her "fiancé" told her, she did not have much options to consider removing Stanislaus from the equation that defined the conspiracy against her.