LIRA
I've learned that blood doesn't wash out easily—especially when it isn't yours.
I've been washing these floors out since I was six. Not like I really had a choice but to learn.
It's disgusting.
The first two years I spent doing it were horrible. I'd puke all over the blood, then proceed to be lashed for not working efficiently. At some point, I'd gotten used to it. Not really sure when.
But it didn't make it any easier washing out the stain, wondering which poor person was subjected to the fate of death.
Brutal death… like it always had to be.
In the Iron palace that I'd grown to accept as my home, death didn't come easy to those who ended up on the wrong side of the law.
There was no such thing as a swift beheading.
But they gave choices I guess…
That should count for something. But it didn't, not really.
There was death by hanging. But they wouldn't rip the stool from under you. Every ten minutes, they'd tug the rope just a little lower, forcing you to get up on your toes to avoid death, deluding you into thinking you could survive. Until finally, after a little over an hour, you would be several inches off the stool, your hands pulling at the rope, struggling for air… and eventually, death would take you. For a reason I could not fathom, this was the most popular. Perhaps it was due to the crowd of people that could see the death take place.
There was death by lashing. But not the type I had received as a child. The punishers had special leather belts, metal spikes lining every single bit of space on it. And these belts were awfully long. This particular method seemed to be the cruelest of them all to me. They would let you run. Hide. The promise of freedom if you managed to escape them. But it was a facade, because they were fast and they knew exactly how to use that belt. It would curve around your body, pulling you back or to your knees, the pain of the spikes digging into your body and tearing at your muscles, would be enough to stop anyone I imagine. But some people kept fighting. Escape, barely a hairs breath away from their grasp. But they never reached it. Either bleeding out from too many lacerations or dying from the shock. Their bodies would be left to bleed out. Allowing the smell of the blood to reach all those who thought they could outsmart the crown. A foolish endeavor.
There was death by dogs. The king kept a dungeon of rabid and aggressive dogs and any unfortunate soul the king was unsatisfied with would 'enjoy being torn apart limb from limb' as he had once threatened a guest of his. So I heard.
There was death by poison. A concoction, specially made by the king's physician ten years ago. According to him, he accidentally stumbled upon the recipe while trying to find a cure for the stooge sickness that had plagued the people of the iron kingdom. The sickness had caused people to die in less than twenty four hours. While the cause was never explained to the public, he proffered a remedy while discovering a slow spreading poison, he came to call 'The water lily' as most of its elements were gotten from the flower. They would sit criminals to be killed in front of an audience. Then feed them the poison. First they would see things. Hallucinations. They would scream names, tell stories, sometimes these stories were the hell they endured as free people. Then black patches would begin to spread round their bodies, causing them to scream, they would shout that they were burning, in pain but what could anyone do? Frozen by fear, we simply watched. Until five hours later, they would be like coal and dead, their bodies and faces paralyzed from their last ever position.
And lastly, death by fire. The ones I could never bring myself to watch as they prepared the pyre.
It was not that the Iron kingdom was home to many criminals. It was that it was unforgiving, to even the homeless, taking a penny or a piece of bread. No sin was too small to be punished by death. That was their way of life.
And so here I was, once again scrubbing the palace floors, just short of the gate. Wondering what poor person was lashed to death.
I poured hot water from the metallic kettle beside me onto the floor, accidentally pouring it onto my hand holding onto the brush, I hissed out in pain, dropping the kettle and cradling my hand from the pain of the still scalding water.
That would leave blisters. I was sure of it.
I wasn't new to heat. I had it living under my skin but external heat hurt. It hurt like hell.
My hand began to throb but with a heat of a different kind. My heat. One I couldn't let anyone see.
Not here.
Not ever.
I forced my breathing calm as I blew onto my hand.
I felt it come out like a scared animal, licking at my fingers. Although it wasn't scared, it was gaging at the level of damage I had taken.
'Hurt. Hurt.'
'I know. Not now.'
' Hurt. I make it better.'
'Please, stay away. Not here.'
A spark flickered anyway. I could feel it. Like lightning coasting through me. My stomach clenched.
I had survived this long, I had come this far.
'I said NO.'
'You NO. I help.'
I could feel my anger rising in seconds.
Calm down, calm down, calm the hell down.
'I help. I come out.'
' STOP!'
"Are you alright?"
I felt it crawl back into the dark space under my skin and like someone had splashed a bucket of cold water all over me, I snapped out of it. Opening my eyes with a gasp to see a worried Old Marra standing over me, her brows drawn.
"Are you okay dear?" Old Marra shook me again.
"You look out of it." She continued.
I racked my brain for what to tell her.
"Oh, I…. hurt my hand. I forgot how hot the water was, I was trying to distract myself from the pain of the water pouring all over it." I…. Wasn't a good liar.
I know, makes no sense when I've been hiding my secret for decades but according to everyone who'd ever caught me in a lie, I had a tell.
My nose twitched.
I prayed to the gods that whatever ferret my nose came out of would let me lie once without getting caught.
And except for a faint crease in her brows, deepening the lines, I think she bought it.
"Silly girl, that's what gloves are for." She chastised me
"Yes Madam Marra." I know but I always seem to forget to be safe.
Old Marra tsk'ed once.
"Remember you've got laundry to wash. Join us quickly, don't spend all day scrubbing the floors."
Scrubbing the blood. The blood of a tortured person. That's what she should've said. Not the floors.
Old Marra briskly walked away, hurrying to her tasks. Ever the dutiful servant.
I silently thanked her for the distraction.
The fire underneath my skin was growing more temperamental, and it was getting torturous to just keep the damn thing at bay.
But how did I make a non living thing possibly understand the danger we're constantly living in? How did I make it understand that we'd die for simply existing should the iron palace I had called home for two decades catch wind of it?
I sighed and went back to scrubbing the floors clean. Just like Old Marra said, I had more work to do and bread wasn't going to put itself on my table if I didn't work for it.
----
Here I was, scrubbing again. At least it wasn't bloody floors this time. I scrubbed the skirt as hard as I could, leaning into the rhythm my body knew in its sleep. Soak, scrub, twist, rinse, twist. After all, it was all I ever did.
Scrub.
I threw the skirt into the basin for drying and sat up, straightening my posture and cracking my bones. The annoying throb in my neck whenever I sat to wash annoyed me to no end. It didn't help that I was sweating like a dog through my clothes because of the overheated air in the washroom, which wrapped around me like a sodden blanket.
"Dear gods" gasped Old Marra from her tub to the left, her sleeves shoved up to her elbows. "You're drenched."
"I know, I feel disgusting." I sighed out. The hot air slightly too heavy for appropriate breathing.
The old woman hurled another heap of uniforms into the water with a grunt. "Of course you do child. You need fresh air, it'll do you some good to take some minutes out."
No thank you.
The other girls working in the palace were under the belief Old Marra favored me.
In their defense, the woman was awfully kind to me.
Well….. as kind as she could be and better to me than others. I understood their ire. So I tried to stay out of situations that would draw Old Marra's attention. The woman was like a mother to me. Since I was brought here by guards from refugee villages, scared and alone in the world, she took me under her wing and taught me everything she knew.
I would never take her kindness for granted anymore than I would push the other girls into anger.
I'd only end up tempting the thing inside me to take center stage. And nothing— scares me more than that.
So I shook my head.
"I'm alright Madam Marra, I'll be done shortly and go about my way." I offered her a small smile to ease her concern and thankfully, it was enough, seeing as she went back to washing the clothes that required her attention.
And I went back to mine.
One of the younger girls suddenly piped up as she scrubbed, "My cousin said the Rift is spitting monsters every night now."
A chill raced through the room.
Magic.
I flinched instinctively.
The Rift.
The sole reason the Ember kingdom and its people were snuffed out and destroyed.
And the sole reason the Iron kingdom was still on the prowl for Emberborn who narrowly escaped the destruction of our kingdom.
Because as far as we lived, the rift stayed open. According to them.
Old Marra answered first, her voice low and grim. "Your cousin's not wrong. Something hungry is waking in that tear. Pesky Ember magic, don't know why those cretins haven't all died out yet."
Ouch.
That one stung Old Marra. It's not like we could help what we are.
The rift affected us too. Always has.
But no one really cared. Because our end meant peace and safety for the realm.
But I don't want to die.
Am I really living though?
This….. cruel servant life. Was this life?
Another girl scoffed. "Atleast those creatures won't come near the capital. Prince Kael keeps them back."
The name hung in the air like a blade.
Prince Kael Ironhart. Monster hunter. The crown's war dog. Slayer of Emberborn—my kind. His reputation preceded him, unbending and merciless. As if killing came to him the way most men exhaled.
I'd glimpsed him once, from the shadow of a cart when I first arrived. He was younger too. I saw him train, and I caught his steel blue eyes in a dance, right before he spat on the ground and went back to training. I remember being taken aback. He had resounded my new life when I got here.
Scum, peasant and he didn't even know who I truly was yet. I reckon I would've died that day if he did. A known cold killer from the day he could wield a sword, I'd heard.
When there was information, gossip traveled fast within us servants, and most times it served me to have that kind of access.
Prince Kael was meant to be a hero.
To me, he was the end of the road.
"They're planning a parade to welcome him back from his hunt tomorrow." One of the girls spoke.
"And where did you hear that?" I could hear the tease in the others voice.
"Her boyfriend guarding the prisons of course." Another spoke and the enter room cackled.
"He's not my boyfriend!" The girl defended.
The room went up in laughter. I could imagine the girl would be pouting right about now.
This was nice.
It was easy. Laughter and teasing, especially when the receiver was usually always complicit.
I knew that voice, Lilac I think. She always made jokes and was almost always being teased too but never the butt of a joke.
The girls seemed to be careful not to cross that line.
"They say the Emberborn tried to stop the Rift once," whispered a girl.
And…. we're back here again. Unfortunately.
"They say a lot of things," someone snapped back. "They were mad. Power drunk. They destroyed themselves and tried to take us with them by opening the stupid rift."
NO.
That's not true!
I almost ripped the cloth in my hands.
Mad?
Power drunk?
I remember my mother, bloodied and hungry, running to hide me in any refugee camp for the homeless that could take in another orphan. Holding back her own burning to soothe me through fevered nights.
She wasn't mad.
I bent lower over the shirt so they wouldn't see the fury lighting behind my eyes.
I needed air or I'd suffocate.
"Bucket run," I muttered to Old Marra, already up and walking towards the door.
She waved me off. "Don't dawdle."
I slipped out of the steamy room and into the underground corridor, carrying the wooden bucket carelessly.
I kept my head down, eyes on the floor as I walked, as I'd become accustomed to. The walls here were all black stone veined with silver—it would have been beautiful, had this prison not become my unwanted home.
My footsteps echoed as I reached the courtyard door. I hip-checked it open and gulped air like someone had been drowning me.
As I walked to the pump where we fetched water, a scream split through the air from the outer wall.
"Rift creature—breach on the east side!"
The shout became a roar, then bells began clanging, guards were sprinting, their rushed footsteps were deafening. Panic erupted like a fuse lit at both ends inside me.
No, no, not this close.
My heart slammed in my ribs.
They'll find me.
The ember inside me exploded awake.
'Protect.'
Heat tore through my chest, blooming through my veins. The wildfire tasting open air.
I felt it.
The creature's presence.
The hunger in the air.
I dropped the bucket. And I—gods help me—let the ember rise for a breath.
Just one.
I needed it out. I could feel myself burning from the inside out.
I couldn't—
Heat licked up my spine, behind my eyes, along my palms. My blood sang.
'Alive.'