Belladonna landed on her face and it ached terribly. Sand made its way into her mouth as she fought to stand on her feet, ignoring the pain in her toes as she searched for Alaris amongst the many floating statues on the surface of the water, under the red sky and the pouring rain. Her eyes caught something else though, the shadows moving quickly around the statues and heading for--- her!Belladonna's hand sprung up to the sunflower that still rested on her chest. For a moment, she thought they couldn't come for her, the Thanatou had freely given her the necklace after all, until she remembered that she was the "thing" that had been stolen.Belladonna looked down, discovering that the beach was slowly turning into a shade of red. The soldiers were also coming closer to the shore, running into the invisible wall that stayed between the red river and Me'k.Lightning flashed just in time for Belladonna to realize that the wall had sustained a crack, like a cracked glass. Her throat tigh
It was a busy night in the King's chambers when they got back to the Castle. The Physicians rushed around to take care of unconscious Belladonna and Eli was forced to take care of the cut on the back of his head, as he paced around the room, his legs aching strangely. When they were done and they had her stabilized, they told him that they couldn't really predict when she would wake up. "It might take a day, three days, or even a week." One of them had said. That didn't sound like good news to Eli.At all. When they left, he cleaned her up, wiping the paint on her chest away and cleaning the blood off her body.Something one of the female physicians had offered to do but he had rejected for many reasons. Some being that he wanted to know how much damage had been done to her. There were so many recent cuts on her body. It was devasting to know that she had kept all this from him.Heartbreaking that it had even happened at all. In the silence of their room, Eli inspected the cut
The knocking shot Eli awake. He was grateful for it, until it continued. He checked Belladonna to see if she was alright and awake. She seemed to be alright, but she certainly wasn't awake.Maybe she would wake up in a few hours then, or maybe tomorrow, or---The knock again. Ah, by Ignas, who was this?!With a frown, Eli found his mask and slipped off the robe. The person on the other side must have a lot of nerves to be disturbing him this early in the morning. He dashed to the door and swung it open, ready to deal with whoever it was accordingly, with punishment included for them not to ever do this again. Except that this person was Kestra and she had brought with her an elixir for his health."Your Majesty." She greeted him with haste, revealing that there was still so much she had to say. "You are back." She stared blankly in his direction and the reminder of her blindness hurt him, as he, yet again, blamed himself for that too.Kestra was always sacrificing so much for
The door slammed shut as Kestra stumped into her room. She yelled out her pain and Collin wasn't at her beck and call to receive the aftermath of her defeat. She had already been told about the state of his health and right now he was useless to her. What had he been doing in the woods, anyway? Looking for the Bride, she presumed. Coming to that conclusion due to her knowledge of the pretty little thing's stupid disappearance last night.That was so stupid of him. He had probably slipped and hit his head badly in the dark, the rain must have worsened things. She would have tried to pull up some magic tricks for his sake, but honestly, it looked like nature had kindly helped her get rid of Collin. After everything she had taken from him and all the secrets he knew, this was for the best. The Physicians had said he was most likely not going to survive and he had lost a lot of blood when he had been found. Soon enough, he would be dead. She wouldn't interfere to hasten it, she would
Life as a Tower woman had been hard on Taria. Night and day she was flogged for dishonoring her womanhood and bringing shame to her family. Her punishment was even worse than the others, because she attempted to escape on the night she was to be taken to the tower.She didn't even remember much of that night, all she could remember was that at a point she had found herself in the cave with a strange woman and skeletons running towards them, all around them. It had felt so real but the more she had thought about it, the more she convinced herself that her sadness had made her delusional, and she had imagined the whole thing. But the Cave of Badura had been breached that night and this made everything really confusing. Her mother came every day as she had promised. That was why when her mother came to see her yesterday, crying excessively, she had thought nothing of it.Her mother was always crying during her visits. But no. The Right-Hand woman of the King had come with her, and s
Taria's father wouldn't let her out of his sight after that, not even after they had gotten to the guest chambers in the Village Head's house. He showered her with so much care and attention that no one would be able to see through his actions and sense the evil motive that laid at the center of it. Her reception of her father's care was cold, and some of the physicians that had come to take care of her, silently judged her for being spoilt, ungrateful, and rude. Zeppus apologized profusely for the incident but she needed no apology from him, but from that nosy warrior that had saved her. Everyone left but her father. Why wasn't he going to his room yet?It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Her heart was racing and fear claimed her chest as its abode. He paced back and forth and she watched, her body tensed, praying with all her heart that he wouldn't turn to her with his usual demand, while at another corner of her heart, she pitied her mother for ending up with a snake
An hour after Kestra left the Castle, Eli found his dragon frozen in stone. His first suspect had been no other than Kestra, of course. He was foolish to think that she wouldn't put up a fight or try to make him take back his order of not wanting her in the Castle. But that wasn't all. He found black zig-zag lines on his Donna's hands, blood dripping from the lines as she groaned from pain, in her sleep. His rage collided with worry, he was a catastrophic combination of emotions. The physicians didn't know what to do, of course, this wasn't their specialty. With bitterness thick in his throat, he ordered for Kestra to be found and brought back to him urgently. This shouldn't have happened, the dragon ring should have been able to protect her, but the dragon herself had obviously been affected. By Ignas, he should have seen this coming!So stupid!Kestra hadn't gone far, so she was found quickly. That infuriated him. She had been so confident her evil magic would work. Eli di
((Trigger warning - violence, physical and sexual abuse))It had been two days since they arrived at Tikivah, and one night since Taria's suicide attempt.Last night, her father had been busy discussing a proposal with Head Zeppus, that he hadn't come to check on her. She hoped that tonight would be the same. She had spent the whole day alone in this guest room that had been allocated to her, and she wished to spend her night the same way. Except that she had never really been alone, not after that night with the nosy warrior. She had even forgotten what his name was, but she remembered his words clearly.In fact, they had been haunting her ever since she had heard them, and the more she thought about it, the more her mind entertained the possibility of her killing her father.Maybe it was because of how he had looked at her when he had said it, like he considered her capable of erasing her troubles if she wanted to. Like all she had to do was snap and it would all be gone. He loo