Chapter 3 - Only Scumbags Live In Castles
It took a few days of scouting and general preparation, but the Hivers were set for motion, and the plan itself would flower on this night between the 26th and 27th of July.
If all went well, then by the time that suspicion would inevitably fall on them, the team would be far from the reaches of any who dared to follow in their tracks.
Now the subject of their scheme was of course none other than Scorburg Castle, as well as by extension its despicable owner; the so-called king.
But as time moved forth, so indeed did the miserable state of this hellhole they called home; it was no longer reasonable for any man to sustain hopes or dreams in regards to the accursed town's future. And so as one might expect, the bandit-rulers hedged a plan with a brighter future in store for them in specific—and an oppressive future for the poor wretches of Scorburg. Moreover, although Damien had indeed considered the possibility of a coming power struggle and the then following stark downwards shift in Scorburg's standard of living, he had not considered that the bloody day would come so soon—certainly not on this particular night where his found family's fate was to be decided…
…For now though, the sun still burned high in the sky; and as the Hivers' were busy packing their sacks and polishing their plan: the castle itself was filled with an eerie atmosphere.
There was one individual in particular who felt that palpable dread close to her heart, a certain girl with hair that darkened the night and eyes of gray silver that seemed capable of piercing through any disingenuous veil.
A princess of sorts, that girl was seldom seen outside her room, except perhaps during the warm days of summer, when she would often lay her head against the old oak tree in the castle-yard.
Today as it was the hottest day of the year, perhaps one might assume where she currently dreamed her day away—and dream did she often; for what else was there for a lonesome noble marooned within wastes of ice.
Admittedly, the book she read today was one of little interest to her, but seeing as the books of interest had all been finished three times over during days years past, it was as good as it got.
Laying there on the green grass she could not help but notice the plentiful glances or the times she caught the guards staring, or and perhaps most importantly, how it seemed that their eyes held some sort of sinister secret. Frankly she felt something was wrong, and perhaps she had known for ages now that a day would eventually come when her life would meet a steel-tipped end. But what could she do to prevent such a fate? What possible plan could she have cogitated that would have allowed her to keep living?
No…There was nothing she could do, and the truth was that perhaps she no longer wished to resist such a fate either, or at least not fully, since a crucial part of her soul had already given up on life long before today; a certain logical section of her brain that knew she would never be free from her monotonous solitude. Regardless, the only thing left was to wait and see; whereas what little solace remained was only a hopeless attempt to divert her mind from that shroud of dread-filled anxiety that currently enveloped it.
But it was still strange, since although she had stared countless times longingly at the blade of a sharp dagger, and although life in general seemed like nothing but pain: she could never quite allow herself to fall completely into a state of hopeless gloom…An inherent stubbornness perhaps? But whatever it was, the truth remained, she did not wish to die—not truly at least, not in her heart.
Also, something of note that might in the eyes of some make the girl seem cold and heartless, but the girl would shed no tears would his father perish. And perhaps those aforementioned people would be right, perhaps these days of solitude had iced her heart and perhaps she had no humanity left to speak of—that's what she had often thought at least.
Though perhaps some would also say that she was too hard on herself, they might say that her father's cold demeanour as well as his neglect and occasional cruelty, was only deserving of his daughter's cold-shoulder…But who knows? She naturally did not.
Another thing she often wondered: whether it was right for her to feel that bitterness she often felt towards him. After all, the way she and clearly also her father saw it, she was the natural cause of her mother's death; so therefore was it not only right for him to feel bitterness and hate towards her?
Well, whatever the case was: bitterness and hate she regardless endured, and in fact, the truth is that as far as she could remember, she had always felt this coldness emanating from the king, where often as a child she had heard the cruel words from his mouth. How she had taken everything he held dear and so forth; although in her childhood these words were always said in bouts of wrath and anger, whereas she also felt that there might have still been an overall attempt to accept her on his part.
However, this all tragically changed with the death of her dearest brother; who for her had been a pillar of warmth and the source of her strength; not to mention an object of pride and joy for her father. Countless times from her father had she felt the piercing sting of cruel words and general-coldness, and countless times had her brother given his strength so that she could smile.
But…With him gone. Well, it just so seemed that so was her happiness.
That was not all however, her father, - King Albert to be more specific, - could no longer look at his daughter's face. And excluding the occasional blunt grunts or one-word-orders, not once after did they talk, and frankly not much did she talk in general—bar the wind of course.
Now, Albert had also consequently found himself in the grips of a deep depression, and the man mostly steered clear from any practices that could have been seen as burdensome or in the slightest of sense difficult; wherefore most of the true ruling for the past five years had been conducted by his brother and steward: Ares Spring—a man that the girl's intuition could never allow her to even slightly trust, and one she had over the years come to see as nothing more than a viperish and terribly vain individual.
That particular man was just about the last person that the girl wanted to talk to, or have any contact with whatsoever for that matter. But as it was, the girl saw from the root of her tree the doors to the keep open, and who else could it have been but Ares Spring himself who waltzed out to meet the warm light of a summer day.
A sallow man with thinning hair and a nose that was thin and long, almost to the point of being grotesque. Furthermore, above where a chin normally would have been, his lips were thin and dry, whereas his eyes were empty protuberant beads absent of spark.
Now these eyes had been glued to the girl from the moment he had stepped out, and it was the kind of soulless stare that would have surely given the creeps to machos and murderers to boot.
However the young girl regardless rose to her feet, and subsequently began her unenthusiastic walk towards him.
The two of them met halfway between the tree and the keep. Ares' eyes scanned the girl's body as his mouth curled up into a frankly predatory smile; ¨Iris, you know I've been trying to find you for a while now. You see I had something important to discuss with you today.¨
Iris stood there with a defiant look in her eyes as she held her book close to her chest, her mind was filled with exasperated disgust and general-discomfort, but that much only a rare few could have observed as they hid behind the disguise of a well-practiced smile. ¨Oh? What is it uncle?¨
¨As blunt as ever I see,¨ the man chuckled, then continued; ¨you know, you've really grown into a beautiful woman over the years. You'll be seventeen soon, and as the steward I think it's about time for you to start thinking about marriage.¨
Ares' words left Iris conflicted: on the other hand, they did give the impression that perhaps she was worrying over nothing, and that her life was not about to meet a cruel end after all; but then again, she had always been a sort of romantic and an inherently adventurous person, which meant that the idea of an arranged marriage never sat quite right with her…But even with that said, perhaps it was a way out? Her mother had after all been a noble from Aragon in the south, and so had all of the other wives of house Spring—nobility that is. Furthermore, seeing as there was no longer any reason for any house to send their sons or daughters up north; therefore perhaps it also meant that she could finally leave this place. Which although wasn't exactly the dream she had in mind, was regardless more of a win than a loss.
And so she answered with a smile and a rekindled spark of hope in her eyes; ¨indeed, I believe it is about time; have you heard news from any of the nobles down south?¨
¨About that. You obviously wouldn't be marrying any of them, and even if you could why would you. You must know by now that the two of us are a perfect match.¨ The man said with an artificial smile exuding an air of delusional confidence.
The girl let out a deep defeated sigh, and for the first time in years, she felt like crying. How cruel can this world be? She thought, and as her features sank along with tiny flinches, and steam began forming inside of her ear canals, the face of Ares also fell…Her silence lasted the span of three breaths, during which time her eyes not once travelled to meet Ares' face. Until eventually she lifted her head and stared the man directly in his eyes. That glare she gave him then and there. Well, her features in general took the form of stern coldness; but it was her eyes that were like two raging blizzards; those eyes…Calling them murderous would have been nothing but a massive understatement, and as they pierced through Ares' skin and into his withered soul; he felt anxious, dreadfully so, wherefore if he did try and hide it, then he was doing a lousy job at it.
¨Think for a second I would ever marry you, despicable demon! I took you for many things uncle, but never a fool, which I see now was a clear fallacy on my part. You reek of filth, you are uglier than the average pufferfish, old, and your skeletal figure is one that I have no doubt has the whores in town running for cover at first sighting.¨ Iris dropped her book on the grass while she fought back tears with the calming aid of a deep breath; ¨but if only that was all. If that was the most of it, then perhaps I'd consider under circumstances dire: but it is not. Is it, uncle? Without even considering the disgusting factor of our shared blood, there is still more. Since, you see, you could be the handsomest of them all, and a king from riches plenty, no blood of mine. I would still never marry you, for inside you are nothing but a rotten wretch, too vile to properly describe in words with the deserving verity and aptness…Frankly I would rather die.¨
Ares remained still for the length of a breath, his eyes blackened by indignant wrath; then he grabbed the girl painfully by her curly black hair, and as her eyes burned and she gritted her teeth, he placed his head against her wriggling ear where his foul-smelling mouth whispered to her; ¨Then I will let you in on a secret you petulant brat. You will be dead before dawn.¨
As he released the girl from his grasp, Ares' mouth could be seen twisted into a grin of sadistic gratification. However, his face soon fell when to his surprise the girl's face had barely changed…
¨I already knew that much,¨ Iris stated proudly with a self-satisfied grin, then bluntly pushed past her uncle and hastily headed towards the castle; leaving the ugly man behind with an ego now brutally mauled, as well as a blood pressure that with any luck could have left him dead then and there.
However, as much as she had enjoyed unleashing the prior verbal assault on her despicable uncle, Iris could already feel the dread slowly crawling back into that dominant position where it would soon hold her mood captive in an inescapable chokehold.
And so as she made her way through the back-entrance of the castle, and slouched her way through the first corridor of boring dark stones and absent colours; her smile slowly morphed into something more fitting of that fear within. Wherefore by the time she finally reached the end of the corridor and continued right, reaching the door of her room in the middle of another long and more flavourful corridor: her face was already quivering, and those silver eyes of hers had been coated with wet tears yet to fall.
She slammed open her door, and immediately shut it behind her; then, once inside the safety of her mental sanctuary, the first emotional gasps left her mouth and her breathing became heavy. The black-haired girl made a sprint for her bed, jumped within its soft embrace as the bed gave its salutations in the form of a heavy creak; then nuzzled her face against her pillow for a moment while feeling the inevitable emergence of her stifled tears which now rained from her eyes into the white softness below.
In the midst of that emotional chaos she found herself pulling on her hair painfully hard in frustrated bitterness, she screamed out her pain, sharing it with her old companion that had been there for all those times that had made her curse the morning sun, who then in turn muffled those sounds so that no one else could hear what was shared.
She hurt herself. However, the truth was that no manner of physical torture could have ever matched the hurt of her soul; on the contrary, the pain had instead cleared her mind and eased her pain.
Ten minutes and a soaked pillow later, Iris in the wake of her catharsis crawled out of her bed and headed for the ornate wooden desk opposite her bed, where she opened the uppermost drawer on the left side. She pulled out a shiny dagger from within, closed the drawer behind her, and returned back to her bed where she placed herself in a legs-crossed seated position.
While sitting there with red and swollen eyes, her fingers nervously fiddled with the ruby-adorned pommel of her dagger that she held with both hands on her lap; the blade all the while remained pointed upwards at her upper body.
She did not know how long she would have to wait, and incidentally she was surprised that her uncle hadn't struck her down in the yard to begin with, but it was a good thing that he hadn't, since there was one thing she knew. Even if she had no control over her current circumstances, she could at least deny those usurper scum the satisfaction of her screams.
…And so, each time she heard footsteps behind her door, she lifted the dagger against her neck, and prepared her mind for what she would have to do.
She waited and waited for what felt like days, eventually even the sun disappeared from the sky, but she hadn't moved an inch; and her door remained firmly closed.
It must have already been close to midnight by now, and her eyelids could barely keep themselves open; she had never stayed up so late. And she could not help but wonder: how long will this torture persist?
Then suddenly in the dead of night, she heard a few hurried footsteps right outside her door—once that gave no warning and seemed to have manifested out of thin air.
Iris quickly raised her dagger against her neck, drawing blood in the process…The door to her room was pushed silently ajar, a shadowy figure slid through the crack; her eyes widened.