Whispers and Shadows

Chapter 4

Blue

Two years later

“You should come with us too, Captain. Grab a few pints and relax. After all we just went through, I think we deserve it.” Jhon said as he knelt beside me and grinned. His pristine fangs glinted in the low camp light, causing the jagged scar above his upper lip to stretch taut.

One of father’s bravest knights, Jhon was an excellent fighter. While I tended to exploit my opponent’s weaknesses, Jhon simply bulldozed through them with his powerful and massive frame. Sometimes I envied the ease with which he fought.

“Well, I don’t know, Jhon. Doubt the boys would be too keen on having their captain ‘mothering’ them all night.”

He snorted, brushing a long strand of silvery hair out of his eye. “Aye, well, you could stand to tone it down a notch. Let them get drunk off their arse once in a while. Darkness knows we’ve earned it. And you.”

His red eyes twinkled with good humor. Of all Father’s knights, Jhon was perhaps the friendliest. I had genuinely come to enjoy his company over the past two years of fighting alongside one another.

But his friendliness told me all I needed to know about him: Jhon was definitely one of Father’s spies. This was a delicate tightrope I walked.

I grinned and shook my head. “I wish, but these bodies won’t burn themselves. I’ll make sure to cover our tracks, and I need to check in with Prince Damian anyway. You guys go. I’m fine.”

He scratched the tip of his scar. Technically as Father’s spy he should stick with me, but my years spent obeying Father’s every command had finally paid off. I could see his resolve weakening. “Bah, fine! Whatever you say, Captain. But if you need me—”

“I won’t.”

He stood, all six-foot-five inches of him. Did I mention he was a monster of a man? “Fine. Fine.” He held up his hands in an I surrender pose. “Just know the offer’s there.”

“Go. Have fun. One of us should, anyway.”

Standing, I kicked at the carriage tracks in the dirt road, pretending to do busy work while I waited for him and the rest of the knights to vanish. I sighed once I knew I was alone.

We’d just ambushed twelve members of the noble DeAngelo house, which hailed from the eastern kingdom. We’d slaughtered the entire caravan, including their horses.

Or so the boys thought. I’d actually used magic to keep one of them in a deep sleep that mimicked death. Why? Well, reasons. None of which I’d cared to share with them.

It was well known that the Prince of the West—whom the caravan had been headed to—was loyal to the current Emperor Claude. This unfortunate ‘accident’ had been nothing more than a warning for Prince Mikael DeLazarus to begin open communications with father, lest he be on the losing side of this conflict.

Otherwise, the Prince of the East—Keelan “the Cunning”, father of the soon-to-be-slaughtered Princess Scimica—would be told that this wasn’t an unfortunate accident. Rather it was Prince Mikael who’d orchestrated the entire event so as not to be forced into a political alliance with a weaker kingdom like the East.

It was all very complicated, and the kind of stuff I’d had to handle for father on a routine basis. This time, though, I would not do as I’d loyally done before.

Walking over to the sleeping princess, I stared at her doll-like face. She had the fiery red hair of the house of the East, and snow-white skin with nary a blemish. Delicate ebony horns covered in tiny white flowers curled gracefully, almost like a crown, from her temples. Violet, nearly jewel-like colored irises sat within inky black sclera.

She was renowned as a rare beauty in the dark realm.

Kneeling, I withdrew my white linen handkerchief and proceeded to wipe the blood from Princess Scimica’s cheeks and forehead. Much of it was already too tacky to clean properly, but I did my best.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” I said, softly at first. But when she didn’t even bother stirring, I used a slightly more convincing tactic.

“I said. Wake. Up!” I smacked her cheek, hard enough to leave a bright red bloom behind, before standing to tower over her.

She gasped, grabbing hold of her cheek. Of course she’d been playing opossum. My magic had worn off a good five minutes ago. Her delicate hand trembled with rage.

I cocked my head, giving her a knowing look. “It would be in your best interest not to play games with me, princess. I’m really not in the mood. Now. Hi.”

She frowned, glaring at me with all the haughty hostility of a princess who’d deemed me unworthy to even lick the soles of her boots. I rolled my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache coming on.

“Civility dictates then when given a greeting the other returns one in kind. Or, did I take the wrong etiquette class?” I tapped my chest. “Entirely possible; I am a hated half-blood, after all.”

She hissed and started to sit up. “You wait till my father learns of this, you’re so dead. You’re all dead. I swear it to the—”

I slammed my booted heel into her sternum, knocking the breath from her lungs and flattening her to the ground. She writhed and sputtered beneath me.

I grinned again, this time with pure malice. “Now, now, Princess, I don’t think you appreciate the position you’re in. So let me make it crystal clear: you're my prisoner, and half-blood or not, you answer to me. So be a good girl and play nice.”

Then I let the toe of my boot tip against the hollow of her throat, just enough to make her feel her airway squeeze.

Her body trembled, and that’s when I knew I had her full attention. We were no longer pureblood and half-blood, but captive and warden. The power balance had shifted, probably for the first time in her life.

“What do you want?” she asked with a voice turned hoarse and reed thin.

Once more I knelt beside her. Everything I did was calculated. Standing over her. Putting my boot to her. Bantering. Kneeling. I was playing chess, and now she knew it too.

“Prince Mikael,” I said matter-of-factly. “Why has your father thrown his lot in with him?”

By now she knew who sent me, and so she assumed I was still my father’s lackey. I wanted all the world to think this while I enacted my plan. I’d failed to see the significance of the prince in my last life; I needed to know why and how Prince Mikael built the coalition that almost defeated my father..

She frowned and her hands curled, her torso flexed. She wanted to sit up. Time to play good cop. I flicked my fingers. “Sit up, then. But answer truthfully. No second chances.”

She scooted to a sitting position, casting me a wary look the entire time. “I-I don’t know.”

I lifted a brow. “Oh really.” And before she could blink I had one of my many hidden blades in hand, delicately picking my thumbnail with it. She let out a small hiss.

“I really don’t know,” she squeezed her eyes shut quickly. “I suspect, but that’s all.”

“Okay, then let’s start there.”

“He’s smart.”

I rolled my eyes. “The realm is full of mad geniuses. What else is new?”

She shook her head. “No, as in unimaginably calculating. If you’d met him, you’d know exactly what I mean. If you think five steps ahead, Prince Mikael thinks twenty. He…” She was speaking quickly, then released a shaky breath. “He’s bound to win the throne. I know it, and so does Father.”

Licking my teeth, I mulled over her words. In the other time Father had routed Prince Mikael’s machinations, so I’d never given him much thought. But when I thought back on it, Father had always feared Mikael more than any of the other princes. He seemed to regard his victory against Mikael as luck. There had to be a reason why.

I looked Scimica up and down, almost appraisingly. “He love you?”

The instant flash of disgust that crossed her pretty face almost made me laugh. “This is a political alliance,” she said, as though I was an idiot for thinking otherwise. “And I don’t know why I’m still answering your questions. I demand you release me at once. Father will pay whatever price you ask, I’m sure of it,” she said, tone going flippant and dismissive in an instant.

“What if I don’t have a price?”

“Everyone has a price,” she snapped.

I chuckled at this, and the princess raised her chin. “And we don’t forget favors, or insults.

“See that I make it home safely,” she continued, “and there will be even greater rewards. You’ll be grateful you did once I am Empress.” She smiled then, as if she could see her crown now.

I took a deep breath and tsked. “Oh, you poor pitiful princess. Did you really think you’d walk away from this?”

Horror welled up in her eyes. They glowed a brilliant amethyst hue, much like Father’s. Maybe evil was all in the eye color?

“I… I answered every question you—”

Gripping her shoulder so swiftly that my nails dug into the tender meat of her flesh like claws, I yanked her forward until her ear rested beside my lips. “I know what you do,” I whispered.

“The babies you kill. The blood you consume.”

She hissed at me, but trembled violently all over.

“No,” she murmured, so soft it was little more than a breath.

“Oh, yes,” I caressed the shell of her ear with my mouth; a perverse moment perhaps, but I’d always enjoyed killing a little more than I should. “You take the lowest and most innocent among us, the forgotten, the abused… and you butcher them. All because a false god promised you power when you drink their blood.”

I felt the wetness of her tears trickle onto my cheeks.

“I…I…don’t.”

“Oh, Scimica, I thought I told you not to lie. A princess should never lie. Especially not one who promised to protect her people. She shouldn’t slaughter them for her own perverse gains. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Please. Don’t,” she whispered brokenly as her hands scrabbled desperately against my back, clawing and frantically trying to shove me off her. But for all her pureblood bluster, she was no match for me.

Imbuing my hands with the pure blue light of my mother’s people, I drove the blade I held straight through her temple.

I’d made her death quick, but not out of mercy. I shoved my fist through her chest, then ripped out her soul orb and quickly absorbed it. She wasn’t as powerful as some, but she still had the above-average power befitting a would-be Empress. I’d absorbed her soul once before in my first life, so I didn’t feel a mighty surge of power. But a warmth spread through me nonetheless.

Using the same dirk I’d killed her with, I severed the tendons of her neck and lifted her head by its ruby-red hair.

I needed her to remain recognizable.

I tucked her head into the magiced pouch at my side, then made quick work of cleaning up the mess. I cast a spell over the forest floor where the massacre had taken place, so no one who didn’t know would ever suspect it.

The night smelled of honeysuckle once more. The dirt was not stained with blood. Even the horses’ hoofprints were entirely absent from the road.

Passing a hand over my form, I bathed in the fire of my magic, cleaning myself up so that I once more looked presentable. I also removed my armor and hid it amongst the bushes; I’d retrieve it on my way back. I put on a moss-green dress with a corset that cinched my waist tight, and I finger-brushed my pale blue hair into some semblance of order.

In the previous timeline I’d returned back to father after having killed Scimica, but not this time. I’d asked the princess a seemingly benign question for a very good reason.

Had he loved her?

And by that, of course, I’d meant Prince Mikael. The reason was simple: if he loved her then he probably knew and accepted her for the disgusting monster she truly was, and there would be no reason for us to meet in this lifetime either. But since he hadn’t, if this had truly been nothing more than a political alliance, then maybe it was time to finally meet the one prince everyone seemed so keen to either destroy or make theirs.

Placing a blood-red cloak around my shoulders, I drew up the hood, and then I flashed to Prince Mikael’s castle grounds.