Blood.
There was so much blood.
It spilled on the floor and pooled until it touched the tips of her bare toes.
Mica could not move at the sight before her, it was no longer the hand on her shoulder that stilled her movement but the terrified state of the view.
Bodies piled upon each other in a grotesque mockery of a mountain.
The beauty of all the princesses twisted by the face of death. Its smell was sharp and sickly in the cavern, her nostrils flared and her gut twisted stomach lurching as food rushed up her throat.
She gagged and turned away sharply as contents from dinner spilled onto the floor in wet thickening sounds. Mica bent over herself shuddering with hands braced on either knee, tasting bile as her cheeks watered and ropes of saliva threaded down her mouth corner.
… another…
"S-stop…" she gagged and vomited, tears pricking her eyes.
Another princess appeared and she was dazed while squinting at the area around her. There was an iridescent look upon her face, a glaze of unawareness that made Mica realize she could neither see the dead bodies nor smell the rotting stench of blood.
And it seemed she could not see Mica either.
"Stop." Her voice was hoarse. "Please stop."
… Do you believe you are my mate?...
The woman turned in a slow circle as though pirouetting her figure and dress. She was beautiful. Innocent.
Mica spun where she thought she felt Him. "Stop!" She yelled, reaching out and grasping nothing.
… what do you see…
"Nothing!" She was shouting now as her attention snagged on the princess in her dream-like state, "Say nothing! There's nothing here!"
The girl's face tilted in Mica's direction and her heart gave a sharp jolt. Can she see me?
… no…
She was staring not at her but through her. "I see you, my King. Sitting on your throne surrounded by fire and light… the shadows bow down to you… your enemies lay slain in their blood and feces… you are glorious—"
"Stop! There's nothing! There's nothing!" Mica was running now, her feet pounding desperately against the ground. She stepped on blood and slid, falling hard enough to rattle her teeth.
Terror was coursing through her veins and fear, something akin to a hand closing around her heart and squeezing it tight. "It's dark." She wept while bracing her hands on the floor and trying to rise.
It was too slick. She fell back.
"There's nothing! He's going to kill you–"
… she can't hear you…
"... your subjects bow before you in awe and reverence, they cannot help but smile upon your goodness–"
"Do you see yourself?"
There was movement and suddenly he appeared at her right hand side. The King, as though the darkness and parted and he manifested from it. He wore a different regalia from the dinner party, something simple– a navy blue tunic that was cut low at the neck revealing the edges of a scar.
Someone had branded him.
The sight of it made Mica's chest twinge in pain as she reached up and absent-mindedly touched the spot where her own flesh had marred over time.
His arms were scarred with a multitude of grotesque lines and pits as if cut a thousand times with hundred tiny knives. Despite the air of danger that clouded him, the sight of his body pointed to something tormenting.
His unseeing eyes were not on the princess but Mica, dark shadows pressed beneath and a perpetual wariness drifting from him. "Do you see yourself?" He repeated.
The princess blinked, a sheen of excitement glossing over. "I do!"
The King's gaze drifted like a glacial, slow and heavy, towards the woman. His voice was flat when he spoke, "Where?"
She began to speak but stopped. Her lips parted again then shut.
The fist around Mica's chest squeezed. No.
"Don't please don't… mercy… have mercy on her… spare her…"
"I don't–" her smile wobbled, "I don't see…" a stray tear trailed down her cheek. She looked like a small child now, as though whatever she was seeing had pulled on something deep and fragile from within.
"... why am I seeing that?" She finally said, her stare directed at the pile of bodies mounted in the dark. The woman sounded so small, so… unsure.
The King weaved around her like a thin tendril of smoke. His hand reached out and the surety of his movements provoked Mica to think that maybe his blindness was pretense, a false facade.
His hand moved quick as lightning– a flash of silver that cut across the tender pale of her neck. The princess blinked and reached a hand up as though to scratch at an itch… but then a line of red appeared horizontally. Thin at first then yawning wide as blood spilled bright and gushing.
She crumpled slowly.
Mica didn't realize that she had been trying to get up when her knees slammed against the stones over and over.
Blood drenched her tunic and legs, it ran across the obsidian floor in a carpet that sloshed as the King walked barefoot with one hand clasped around the ankle of the princess, dragging her body towards the mound that grew ever steadily.
She couldn't think of a word to describe him. Everything was hurting now, a pounding headache had begun behind her eyes as each thought raptured into the next.
She tried to shield her face with both hands covering her eyes, if she couldn't see it, if she couldn't hear it… maybe it wasn't real.
Maybe this was all a horrible nightmare.
Maybe –
… Mica…
So still and quiet it was, and she could not deny that it was His own. She hated the fact that she could discern it, him.
His steps made her cringe back and when he knelt before her, Mica turned on her hip ready to rise and bolt when his hand clamped around her wrist.
"Don't–" the adrenaline brought a snarl of fear out her throat. Her free hand rose, snapping and swinging wildly at his face but met air where his face was moments ago.
How can he see?!
She kicked up, blood whippig in a curve as she aimed for impact yet met only a stiff side.
"No!" She screamed, tugging and yanking with both her arms imprisoned in his own and her legs kicking at him until he moved– pushing her onto the ground hard enough for her head to bounce against stone.
Stars burst along her vision.
Her legs stiffened as his body descended on her own, sitting astride her hips and pressing down hard enough to keep her still.
His face came into view close enough for sweat to drip onto her cheek.
… be still… He commanded and she slackened.
Up close she could see the distinct hollows in his pupils and knew he could not see her, but his senses were sharp. The King's hand came to her cheek and gently cupped it. She tensed, began to struggle but his strength overwhelmed hers while turned her face to the side until the blood on the ground muffled her ear.
"What do you see?"
Her stomach rolled horribly.
She was staring at the piles of bodies, at the darkness all around.
Yet the sight of what had happened to the other women made her doubt everything before her. What if it was different?
… it's not…
Her mouth trembled. "Please…"
"What do you see, my little lamb."
"I don't– I– please–" When his nail dug into her cheek she cried out, "Bodies!" A sob wracked through her nervous frame, "... lots of them… and its dark everywhere. I don't know, there's blood and you killed them… please I don't want to die. I don't want to die–"
The weight lifted off her body in a flash as a burst of white light covered her.
One moment she was on the floor and the next she was stumbling forward hitting the pillar from where she stood atop the wall.
Mica gasped and looked around wildly. She was where she had always been. Her clothes were dry.
But the ground below… She looked down where the garden party had been, and grew still.
All the princesses were lying face down on the table, blood pooling from their throats.