The throne room shook as Caeberis parried the incoming strike, the marble tiling beneath him cracking, the air howling, his blade whining metal shrikes as sparks flew. There was the whistle of a thousand cuts, then in an abrupt moment a stone column off to Caeberis’s side fell apart into thinly sliced rubble. Caeberis glanced up and dived in time to dodge a section of the ceiling as it collapsed. He measured out a breath, knowing he’d hardy caught that last attack, a strike that almost went unseen, like the empty air itself harbored countless invisible razors.
Though if he focused his eyes enough he could see them: strings flickering in the light, finer than hair strands yet stronger than steel and sharper than a knifes edge. Without warning they would whip and lash in patterns Caeberis could hardly predict. Let alone defend. And with each assault the space around him was cut apart further. The moon shone freely through the now-open ceiling, illuminating a hall of gothic stone: a massive space built with pillar supports surrounding a guided throne that ruled the center of it all. Sitting on this throne lazed Caeberis’s opponent, one hand cradling her jaw, the other manipulating strings with the dexterity of a puppeteer.
Caeberis weaved his way through the gauntlet of near invisible assaults, slashing and deflecting the many strings as they thrashed at him from all sides. No opening presenting itself, no chance to counter. He could only dance like a puppet being made to put on a show.
His body had become a collage of lacerations and cleaved flesh, his garb made into a tapestry painted in his own blood. One of his arms dangled lifelessly by his side, numb to the point of complete obscurity, dead flesh weighing him down. Somehow his legs were keeping him upright. Somehow his eyes were still keeping track. He hoped, at the very least, that somehow his locks of blond hair hadn’t been sullied in scarlet: that if he were to die today he could do so with some dignity. Maybe even a smile if he could take this thing with him.
“You are still standing?” That thing in question asked, its tone as bored as its expression.
“I can’t die just yet,” Caeberis said, rolling a clump of blood and saliva around his mouth before spitting. “But you certainly can,” he added, pointing his blade toward a monster that dressed like it was human.
A creature carrying itself with regal demeanor; with sickening arrogance in its poise. It acted like it knew better, spoke like it was a mother leading its child by the hand. It dressed itself in royal gowns weaved from black silk and adored itself with ribbons and bows as if to masquerade its twisted malaise behind fashionable charm. It was as if it believed itself could be something other than a monster. yet Its flesh was a shell of stiff ceramic, pale and procaine in its design. Its limbs were given locomotion by ball joints and ratcheting rivets. It’s strings, witch one would think existed to play it, played the world on the subtle whims of flexing wrists and finger flicks. She was a doll given unnatural life, given unquenchable ambition and the power to rule by genocidal decree.
“The Doll Princess…” Avane muttered as she put her quill to parchment. Her mind was adrift in a state of daydream as she welded her pen. She went slashing at the paper, pulling images from fanciful machination and solidifying them into sentence and paragraph. The scribbling sounds of her quill permeated the air, pausing for brief moments before setting off again. The flow of her words came in fleeting bursts as she tapped a spot on her forehead or twisted a strand of her pale blond hair in search of words hanging off the tip of her tongue. Avane’s hand motioned on its own, dipping the quill in an ink pot she needed not look at. Her azure eyes were fixed only on the white paper; on the black words and the infinite colors of her mental depths waiting to be translated into written word.
Until a ravenous growling emanated from her stomach and she froze in place. Her quill hovering over the page, she blinked as the sound of a singular drop of ink falling from its tip woke her from her trance. The images of crazed monarch’s and noble knights disappeared, and she was dragged back into her study, back behind her desk and the countless scribble filled pages strewn across it. Avane sighed and went to return her quill to its pot, only for her eyes to fall on a puddle of spilt ink and an empty space on the corner of her desk. Her head went tilting on one side as she tried in vain to compared how she hadn’t noticed that sooner. She traced the spills of black, seeing they had soaked through several sheets of paper before she found the pot on the floor.
She couldn’t even recall having knocked it over. Her memory from when she sat down to write up till now a blank chapter. Then she saw her papers themselves, saw her elbow she hadn’t even realised was resting on her desk and turning her fine leaves of parchment into wrinkled trash. Her brows formed a frown as she removed her elbow and attempted to flatten the pages back out. Only to realize her hands were sullied in ink as she smeared black across pristine paper.
“Wait, no!” Avane put her hands to her cheeks in a fluster, painting her face with a pair of dark handprints.
“My master’s sister appears to be in distress. Amusing,” came a woman’s voice.
“wha-” Avane gasped in a jolt of shock, lurching and flinching as her startle sent her falling back in her chair. A flash of white, a moment of haze. She blew away the frayed strands of blond blocking her eyes and found herself facing the ceiling, sprawled out across the floor in a mess of crumpled paper and spilt ink.
“My, my you really are a mess,” that voice spoke again.
Avane’s eyes followed it and fell on her study’s door. It had been pushed opened by just a crack, a tiny sliver of the hallway beyond it visible. Framed there was an unblinking emerald eye staring into the room at her.
“Evelyn?” Avane said, slightly unnerved by the intensity of her spy’s gaze. “How long have you been there?”
“Since you stat down.”
“O-oh really?” Avane said, recalling it had to be around dawn, when her brother left, that she sat down to write. She tried and failed to hide her concern as she added: “And what time is it now?”
“Sundown.”
“What! Evelyne you have been watching me this whole time?”
“Yes. Your brother told me to keep an eye on you.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to spy in on me like I’m some child.”
A moment went by where Evelyn said nothing, her glare radiating doubt. “This is your 13th summer is it not?”
Avane opened her mouth, made to confront Evalyn further on terms of privacy, boundaries and that she was perfectly capable of being home alone before some arrogant maid showed up, only for the empty space of her stomach to gurgle out an answer for her.
Evelyn’s glare softened, her eye resting into a tired frowned. “You have so far skipped every meal of the day. Would the young master like something to eat?”
“I’m not young,” Avane mumbled. She paused, laying in silence . “Yes please,” was all she could grumble in the end.
“Very well. I shall return shortly.” And with that Evelyn’s eye disappeared behind a shut door.
“A-and don’t spy on me anymore!” Avane groaned as her vision found the ceiling again. She considered picking herself up off the floor only to find an unnerving sense of belonging tying her to this position. Like this was where a useless person like her was supposed to be. Buried in a heap of her own failings. Once again she’d fallen into a self-imposed spell of intensive daydream. Once again she’d reduced her workspace to a cluttered mess of disarray. She could already see her brother’s face if he were to walk in this moment. The way his expression would twist and warp into something disgusted with disappointment. That he was out working to keep a roof over her head whilst she redecorated her space in ink and paper like some child obsessed with play.
Avane laid in her study, the space illuminated in the flickering glow of candlelight. A room made up of a bed and a desk with a small chest where what little possessions she owned rested. Nailed to the surrounding walls where sheets of paper and unraveled scrolls. Favored pages of books or poems she’d borrowed and transcribed. A map of a world she’d only explored through the words of others. And then there were the sketches, drawings of far off lands and creatures she’d never seen. Alchemical breakdowns inscribed with patterned pictures she found mesmerizing. Diagrams for spell circles and illustrations of runic languages. It brought her some comfort to lay in the center of it all, in a montage of literary wonders whilst clinging onto a vague hope at the back of her mind. An impossible dream her brother had given her.
‘Keep writing, your stories will pull us out of this hell.’ She could still recall the day her brother had spoken those words. When the roof over her head was stars and clouds in the sky. When the greatest comfort of the day was knowing she’d live to see the next. When the sky rained with ash and the quill in her hand was the one thing she’d salvaged from a home, to which, she could never return.
Avane observed the black stains on her hand, for a moment they almost looked red.
She abruptly shook her head free of such thoughts, picking herself off the floor. Her attention went to a pair of drawn curtains, patched up rags that held the vista’s of the outside world at bay when she would write. With both hands she tugged them open, allowed the orange glow of the setting sun to flood her room, allowed the outside world to fill her eyes.
Tides of thatched roofs stretching out towards distant walls of grey stone, an ocean of cottages flowing in all directions. From her window, Avane could spot the run down hovels of the outer districts, to the market and festival centers of mid-town, to the inner battlement walls that defended the illustrious manners and holy dwellings of the city center. She could just about make out the cathedral spires and gothic towers patruding from the obsidian palace. This was the city Avane called home, Garlinthrall, or the town of beginnings as she had read in some texts. Almost every great champion to ever leave a mark on history could track their origins here.
The city itself was hardly what kept her attention though. It was the fields, the forests and grand expanses of hills and mountains which stole her eye. And of course a certain silhouette that hung amongst the clouds. A place that glittered silver like star light no matter the time of day. A city that floated in the sky. Again Avane’s mind went back to that day. When She and her brother sat with their backs against charred stone, handled under one cloak in effort to escape a frigid night. Their eyes gazing on the stars above.
Avane blinked, realizing she was reaching out a hand through the open window. She clenched a fist as if to grip hold of that distant city in the sky and more of her brother’s words came back to her.
‘We’ll go there together. No matter what I’ll always be there for you.’
Avane stared at her hand, her eyes finding the thing she always made efforts to keep off her mind. A symbol which had branded the back of her palm since birth. A mark that induced a tightness in her chest; a weakness in her legs as if burdened by the weight of the world itself.
A knock at the door shook Avane from her pensive state. “E-Eve?” There was no response.
Avane went and creaked open the door to her study, half expecting to fid the piercing gaze of emerald eyes. Instead an empty hallway greeted her, a tantalizing sent of meat mixed in steaming vegetables finding her nose. Avane looked at the bowl of stew sitting at her feet, her smile finding her again.
“Thanks for the food Evelyn!” she called out, taking her meal back to her desk, ready to give way to the throngs of her imagination once more.
