To say I was furious would be a great understatement. Laid to rest less than a year ago, less than even half a year, to be woken by a spindly rauzire shaking with determination in my tomb, a glass of blood in his hand, and his neck unscarred. And beyond all this, I graciously gave him a change to explain his pitiful self, mostly because I figured it would amuse me for a time before I ripped his head off and drank straight from the spine. Yet when I heard him out, he was justified in awaking me, and beyond that, I was simultaneously modified and angered, slipping like fog through the halls and arriving at her doorway, only to hear her say what would not have been wrong to consider the most ridiculous statement in the history of communication.
"Can what?" The girl replied as I entered, her voice desperate and shy. I could see what Illy liked about her sure, but she was much more trouble than she was worth for me, and I had not raised that child to disregard all the world the moment a shiny drop of red catches her eye.
"Can live, without you." She replied slowly, her voice soft and cautious.
"Well I for one, think you're gonna have to." I broke the silence like glass, and they both turned abruptly to it's source at the doorway. Mortification consumed them as they stared upon me, their Queen.
"Who awoke you, Mother?" Illy asked, her voice trembling. Had she dulled this much since I spent time with her to ask such stupid questions. That wretched little child stepped closer to her, trying to shelter myself from me, as though there was any hope. I'de already have her head off if that was what I wanted, she was living proof of the only thing I found repugnant to face, but a corpse isn't quite as fun as a living body, filled with's crimson possibilities.
"Are you not happy to see me, your own mother? A little birdie woke me. They told me I might have some cleaning to do, but I told them that often times when I clean, in the end, the floor ends up dirtier than when I began, but the birdie seemed alright with that. Are you alright with that, my beloved little devil?" I replied to her stupid question anyway. Now she was shifting closer to that child, as though the little bird might protect her from her own Queen. I almost laughed out loud at them, standing together in stupidity, as though they had some chance of success. That child might be stronger than me but she is far less refined, and far more yielding than myself, the meagre utterance of betrayal and she's up in arms by my side.
"No Mother, I can't say I'm terribly happy about it." Now her voice shook too, like the faint children as they answer questions. This was not the type of interesting I had wished for.
"Then you'll disobey? Disobey your Queen, disappoint your Mother, commit treason against your country, all for the nefarious wretch that wretched your own family's happiness?" I gawked at them, stepping forward to advance, thinking my battle, if you might call it that, almost won. But the curtain flared with a large gust of wind, almost obscuring them at the edges. I waved my hand and slammed it shut, but as the curtains fell away in white wisps of fabric, a figure emerged. For a moment, if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I was mad, because there, beside the closed, cracked window pane, stood my betrothed.
Her pale lips were cracked and worn, her face of a gastly pallor and her black hair was long and windblown. Her limps were boney and distraught, and she wore only a white death robe, yet in the tired glow of her big blue eyes, I knew who she was. In her stature, in her scent as it wafted towards me, in her being as I sensed it, in her everything, I knew who she was. I stumbled back almost unconsciously as she spoke.
"No, Mortemine, I do not ask you spare me, not abandoned, dirty me. I'll die in moments anyway, for I've not had poison, and without your lips, it does little for me anyway." Her voice was cracked and horse, but I could still hear her sweet tone coming through, and before I remembered what it was she did to me, what she took from me, I almost raced forward to hold her up. "Spare my child, for all she's done, anything she might of done, she's not wretched or nasty, I kept that burden to myself. That child is pure, and whatever you do you must not touch her." She swayed back and forth like a leaf in the wind.
"How?" I asked, seeing everyone else looking. Illy gawked, but that little, mysterious girl, she only smiled with a fond pain. "Rose," I began, but I was interupted.
"I awoke her." The girl said confidently, her voice not even shaking. She stepped forward as if to distinguish herself. I laughed out loud.
"You, awoke her?" I asked, thinking this the best joke made yet, "It takes a godly strong creature to raise the dead, and to raise a dead like that, you're insane. It's not possible."
"You did?" Illy asked in a more serious tone, turning to that girl as if she thought her serious.
"Yes. You told me a pureblood, depending upon it's strengths, can bend most things in this world. It wasn't difficult, I did it in my sleep, in fact." She looked around like we were all the crazy ones, and Rosetta seemed to look up at the stars as if someone had spoken down to her her dazed expression thankful in nature.
"Don't you see, darling?" She exclaimed, turning to me and for a moment forgetting entirely that we had in fact not met for years, and our engagement ended with a couple poisonings, unfaithfulness, a seventeen year long chase, and murder. "I didn't commit treason at all, that child has only one origin, not two. Don't you understand, Mine, she's a," But her time had expired, and as she sunk down to the floor in a faint, from her lips I almost thought I heard her utter, "Sole Blood". As she landed limp on the floor I almost raced forward to help her, but I stopped myself short, watching as the girl raced to her mother.
I shivered at the pronunciation, but quickly brushed it off, as I must have misheard. Sole bloods are a mythical creature detailed in a very old book, named The Fables of The People: Aparicita Janiman, but there only exists a couple of copies, of which only one is in Caedis and all others require extremely extensive connections. She never read the book, I'm sure, as it was one of thousands in my library, and couldn't have know the story. In it, is detailed a god like breed of creature that leads the world through it's rough patches, it's strength outmatched by none, and in fact, not even rivaled. This breed is born from a single parent, made from the refining of a sole individual's blood, and done without their control.
The girl took her mother's collapse well, propping up her head and looking up at Illy, her blue eyes questioning and silent, but Illy shook her head. Just from the witness, I knew it was a silent plea for poison. "Serves her right, the devil," I heard from behind me, turning to see the Clementian boy speak. He would look good on my wall, but he's far too noisy of a decoration to rope up there. "Poisined enough people in her time to deserve it, she should be dead right now, you stupid little brute, not alive, alive she can suffer. I thought you cared about her, but maybe now you see what a wretch she is."
Illy's hand flew up like a bird, it's bony fingers clenched around the air as I watched him flung through the door by a vice grip on his neck, just another rag doll when it came down to it.
"I was going to decapitate that weasel." I muttered, disappointed as he crashed down the staircase and the door slammed shut, Illy's hand dropping back to her side. "He might have been a nuisance but his blood would have been good warm." I said, turning back to her.
"You can have him later mother, I doubt he'll manage to decapitate himself on the way down to the parlor."She replied coldly.
"Mortemine," I heard now the voice of the girl, smooth and coragous as it pronounced my name.
"That's queen to your lips you little," I began, but as Illy tensed I decided not to push it for today.
"Mortemine," She said again. Her voice was silken like that of her mother's, but not as refined, nor as filled with pleasureful endeavors. But my heart still hurt hearing it, seeing her crippled body on the floor, her white lips parted in agony, I hated it, but I hated what she had done to me more. I was the god of this country, and she had stolen that from me forever, and beyond all that, she stole my own belief in it, my belief in myself, and my belief in her. "You will won't you?" She asked, her voice soft, coaxing me forward, endeavoring me to meet whatever request she offered. "You'll come here, won't you, no one things you a fool for what you did, and I don't believe a word of what they say she did. You want to, I know it, if only for yourself, come forth, and kiss her."
"Are you insane, child?" I asked, realizing I had been slipping under her trance, edging forward, "You'll ask this of your Queen, to kiss her the betrothed she cased aside because of treason, Caedis's dead runaway, whom you brought to life in your sleep?" She looked disappointed, but stood and retrieved a small piece of silver from the dresser table.
"Then you'll do it for something else." She replied, "This is all that is left of my Mother, her engagement ring. It is something I know you wish for greatly. For something like this, a kiss is a small price to pay, isn't it?"
"And what's to prevent me from taking it from you without paying, or receiving the product before you do the same of the price? And why would you assume that a kiss from me would awaken her, do you honestly think I still love her?" I asked, stepping forward.
"You may do as you please, but I know greater than perhaps even you do what you wish to do, and if you take this ring, you will kiss her, for me, for Illy, for all your kingdom, but mostly for yourself." She cast the ring towards me, and I caught it in the air, pulling it forward into my hand and slipping my fingers around it, tracing out the rope texture of the wavy write, and pressing my thumb to the circle at the center. I knew it's shape so well, it's symbol so imbedded itself in my head, I almost though myself a new monarch again, freshly tender with the loss of my husband and newly prideful over the glorious country I had curated from a couple deserted valleys and a hoard of fleeing people. But this was more than the symbol of my kingdom's peace, it was of my lost peace as well.
"You think yourself clever, don't you?" I said, "think I've still got a shred of remorse, a sore spot for that crippled miscreant on the floor, you really must think again." As I spoke I cast my hand out and pulled her limp head up from the floor by the black, windblown hair, evicting a groan from her white lips so painful I almost faltered again. As I had had enough, and the sun was rising, I decided I was done playing around, and with a snap of my fingers Illy and her capture fell to the floor unconscious, a clap of my hands and there were two guards for each body.
"Separate cells, you know the drill, I'll send when I want to see them." I said colding, spinning on my heals to survey the body at the base of the stairs. He was brused and beaten, but as expected, breathing fine, so I took him by the hair and dragged him forward.
"Queen Mortemine, if you would wish it, we would be willing to heal him for you." The pitiful twins spoke in unison, hutlled together at the edge of the parlor. I knew Illy kept them around just to watch them flinch but they were too much trouble for me.
"I have plenty of others, and I don't think Illy would want you healing him, since she was the one who threw him down the stairs."I replied, watching them grimace, edging towards the door. "Go to bed, and tell the others the same now, don't even let Ebony up to see her, she said next person to disturb her goes out through the window." They ran through that door like the devil was after them, the lock heard in moments, as I dragged the body out. I might have wished for excitement, but this much was not what I had in mind, and the nature of it, felt like a knife in my chest.
I returned to Illy's room after dropping his body with a guard to bring to my doctors, letting out a loud sigh at the empty room before me, bedsheets wrinkled and closet door ajar. I pushed it aside and stepped in. Eleven looked up at me with his big glassy eyes, a ball gag clutched in his teeth, it's buckles handing loose. "You could have dropped it," I said, taking it from his and leaving it on the corner of a shelf.
"It's yours Master, I couldn't have dropped something you gave me, not like that." He replied. I unclipped the chains, slinging him over my shoulder and stepping towards the door.
"What she telling the truth?" I asked.
"About waking Rosetta in her sleep?" He asked, I affirmed. "Yes, I watched the whole scene, and more than that, she went back to visit her in flight multiple times. That child is something I've never seen before, Master, and I don't quite understand it. I'm not sure I like it."
"Do you know her name, I've forgotten."
"Eleutheria Clementia, Elly, I believe." He replied, "But to the public she is Sapphire, for now at least."
"Elly Clementia," I grimaced as I spoke the name. How dare she? To name the child of betray after freedom, and then mock my own with her nickname, how could it be anything less than treason.