The peeling oil corpses stare with glassy, brushstroke eyes. Dust seethes from the velvet curtains that drag on the stone floor. Cracks creep up the pillars lining the room next to bone carvings. The barred windows throw dusk light into the room, the kingdom's chatter dampened by the clouds silhouetting the castle.
The sovereign leans back against the ivory throne, her face shadowed. The silver crown, pale skin and pairs of bone-white wings are etched against the inching shade. Sovereign's robes hide her haggard collection of scars. A spear wound in the back, arrow to the shoulder. The Sovereign's fingers trace the edges of a parchment letter, diamond rings glistening.
A muffled footstep. The gleam of a familiar blade. A pressure at her throat. The wet warmth of blood.
The sovereign inhales shakily, and her brown eyes come level with the tattooed face of her assassin.
"Ivonne."
Ivonne's brows crease as her stare finds the Sovereigns'. Her jaw is clenched, but her eyes shine with tears
"I didn't think this would be how it ended, Anselma."
Anselma pauses. "Sovereign Anselma," she corrects, her raspy voice breaking. A reminder of all that's changed.
The only sound in the echoing chamber is the wet, pulsing noise of crimson blood leaking from Anselma's neck. A tear slips from Ivonne's face, tracing her freckled chin. The image claws at the long-ago memories that always linger in the gilded corners of the Sovereign's mind.
The walls of the granite prison were cold and hard, and she could see the freckle-faced, shivering 12-year-old girl watching her, staring at her white wings. The girl's whispered voice was quiet and low, like the rush of the wind when she asked if she could touch the ivory feathers, and of course, a younger Anselma nodded. She'd thought Ivonne was gorgeous, the prettiest girl she'd ever seen. They'd been so young, so new to each other. So much lighter, without the weight of crowns and blades.
In the prison break they ran through the oppressive gates that have cracked open like an eggshell, metal clanking against the rain-pattered ground. Ivonne laughed like a maniac, hair tangled and beautiful. So full of hope and life and charm. She hadn't known it yet, but that had been one of the last times she'd ever hear Ivonne laugh like that.
Stolen novel; please report.
"You were mine once, Ivonne. We were going to build something together, remember? We were going to change the world." Her voice is wet with blood.
"We were. But you- you were the one that changed. You became something else." The dark steel dagger shakes in Ivonne's hands.
Anselma breath catches in her throat, as she gasps from red-soaked lips "I didn't have a choice. Ivonne. You got to keep your innocence, stuck in your gilded world, thinking everything was right. You didn't have to see the blood-soaked fields that you planned out. You believed in something- While I- I had to give up my beliefs in order to survive. To conquer."
She had plucked gore and body parts from her bloodied wings when she entered the map room. Ivonne's pencil-drawn maps had covered the table. The captain spoke instructions rough and fast. Anselma marvelled at the quiet, the lack of bombs and the sickly smell of corpses and rotting friends. "Ivonne tells me you make weapons." Anselma nodded, chin high. "Our rebels are dying to Aachen fire. If you can create improved bombs, and fly over their cities to deploy them, you'll be saving many lives." Ivonne, eyes still bright with the light that smoke and gas smothered on the battlefield, had smiled at her. And Anselma smiled back, because she still loved her.
The scent of rust leaks from the Sovereign's neck. Her body feels the weight of layers of tingling flesh. Spots wink in her vision. The white light that reflects off the dagger is like needles to her iris. The engraving on the dagger burns itself into her failing eyes.
"I don't want to use this, Ansel." Ivonne had whispered underneath the dark branches of the woods near camp. The dagger Anselma had forged was gripped in her pale, artist's hand. "I know, Ivonne. You have a strategist's mind. I know you don't like combat. And I don't doubt your stealth." Anselma chuckles. Ivonne painted herself into the world, her limbs blending in with the shadows. A true artist. "But please, love, keep it for me. I don't want us to be separated." Ivonne had traced the engraving with her fingers. "Alright, Ansel." She muttered, and kissed Anselma on the forehead.
The dagger is still clutched in Ivonne's trembling hands, as she watches the Sovereign's blood bubble and leak, staining her elegant, white robes with an ever-growing trail of deep scarlet. Anselma's eyelids slip half over unseeing pupils, and her head leans to the left. The gurgle of blood is sickly and Ivonne finds bile in her throat.
Oh god, Ansel, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The weight of the dagger, finally used as she'd abhorred all those years back, for a purpose so at odds with what Anselma had wished - a gift to keep them together, used only to tear them apart – held her horrified attention for a fleeting moment before Anselma's blood stained lips parted, forming the words she'd inscribed on the dagger so long ago.
"Samaz Allere" Together, Always.