II

II–Ashes of Innocence

‘Poisoned by my greedy stepmother,’ the Princess thinks miserable and wistful in her last waking moments in this cruel, cruel world that allows little princesses to look at Death in the face before they could have lived just a bit longer.

She feels the poison's after-effects beginning to burn painfully inside her mouth almost instantly, ‘…what a wretched way to go. But I suppose it cannot be helped now,’

The Princess shall be graceful with this loss.

In pain, she closed her eyes, resigned.

‘Let me die.’

Her dying wish was that death will be as easy as sleeping.

* * * * *

(‘I do not... run.... I cannot run…’)

This is the story thus far; the cursed Princess had been given a poisoned apple by a greedy witch playing queen.

But let me be clear:

It allowed her to swallow the poison.

It was suicide and murder all at once.

(‘...from my... enemies…’)

* * * * *

A second after–and no more than that–the little Princess suddenly let out a pained, choking gasp as soon as the artificial sweetness wore off, unveiling nothing but bitterness; one that tasted like ashes and filth on the tongue as the poison began to worm its way through her too-small throat, burning everything in its path, its venom spreading through her veins.

It… it was running rampant inside her like a starving wildfire, a million parasites intending to consume her whole inside and out.

‘Ah,’ she swallows, ‘…how cruel.’

Nothing in her life comes easy.

So, it stands to reason that her death wasn’t going to be easy too. It wasn’t quick nor was it painless as she had wished, had desperately wanted to be–even her dying wish went unheeded because a monster’s death was purgatory and hell and everything in between that one moment of searing, white-hot pain that stretched into infinity because sometimes… sometimes a single second could last on to forever.

Like a puppet suddenly cut off of its strings, for a puppeteer (the devil) has no use for broken things, the little Princess instantly fell off of her chair with a muted cry escaping past her lips wherein she lands painfully to the floor with a dull thud, writhing like a worm on a hook, a useless discarded ragdoll… whilst her greedy stepmother watch these evil events unfold before her eyes with malicious glee as she victoriously stood up from her seat and eyed the fallen child on the floor.

There was not a hint of sympathy or regret in the Queen, not even when the girl’s movements turned sluggish and slowly, ever so slowly settled into stillness that only the dead could achieve.

Then, Queen Ysabel rang the bell right next to her to call for her servant, lips still curved with a wolf’s smile, her eyes wide and gleaming with mad triumph as she stared down at her stepchild, completely blind for greed at the evil she had caused–

(And unknowingly unleashed to the world…)

Meanwhile, the young Princess' red eyes seemed to be glassy and very wide and unseeing as her stepmother deliberately stepped on her small body to pass over, her little mouth a bit slack–had the child been able to speak, she would have cried like any other child when in pain father, help me–and accursed pale features were forever contorted in pain from the poison's effects. Even in death, the young Princess remained in a never-ending cycle of misery and pain.

“Finally, finally!” the Queen chanted to herself over and over again in triumph as she waited for her servant to arrive so that she may proceed this heinous scheme of her's just as planned:

Poison the accursed heiress, poison the foolish King and name herself as Queen of the land! Oh, how lovely it would be! Her dreams finally coming true at last! The Queen can practically imagine it all becoming a reality before her now that the cursed little brat is out of the picture!

A cackle slipped from her lips:

‘Victory is mine, indeed!’

Surely no one would care if the cursed child would live or die in the end–no one would even take the strange Princess as their next Queen seriously, after all. Who would even dream of serving a rumored demon's spawn as their sovereign?

“Y- Your Majesty?” a timid voice suddenly called behind the Queen, she turned around and perked up immediately at the sight of the young servant, a boy who was merely fourteen years of age cowering by the doorway at the sight of her too-wide smile, too frightened to open the door much wider, “Y-You... you called?”

“Of course, come in! Come in! Do hurry up, close the door and wait here for I shall fetch some rope and we will have this spectacle,” the Queen gestured carelessly to her stepchild still lying lifelessly on the floor, no better than a discarded ragdoll, “...arranged so that it may appear that the wretched brat has taken her life.”

‘Like the girl’s mother,’ flashed in the boy’s mind.

Because Queen Eleanor’s name passes and goes unspoken, even in the minds of those she had left behind.

The boy gulped fearfully as he took in the scene quickly but obediently bowed and stepped out of the way as the Queen led herself out, happily.

And all was silent.

The servant boy and the dead princess remained in the room, and he cringed as he allowed his eyes to meet her's, looking away just as quickly.

Something like shame curls low in his gut.

In all honesty, there was a part of him that felt truly sorry for the young Princess; a pretty little thing that was too quiet and too sad inside a large castle that was supposedly to be her's to rule one day… a day that will never come now for sure.

Every single time he gets to catch a glimpse of their kingdom’s supposedly future queen, the Princess was surrounded by her maids and guards but the child appeared all the more lonely in the company of adults that obviously wanted nothing to do with her–where are her servants now? Where are the knights?

Did they know of this evil scheme, too? That their cursed little mistress, a child who had barely begun to live just yet, had been poisoned in cold blood by the girl’s stepmother, the Queen?

Or are they in it, too?

‘Does it even matter?’ the servant boy dared to ask himself, squirming from foot to foot as he tried to justify his own actions before the guilt completely consumes him whole because is murdering a child, the princess, really worth it... for a few bags of gold?

But he needed it.

His family needed it…

‘No one cares for the Princess anyways,’ he thought, trying harder to justify himself–certainly not him, not her father, the King or Queen–no one would care.

Not even the priests of their church dared to come near or baptizes the girl and have her officially named as the only heir to throne if it weren’t for the King’s wrath befalling them for they had claimed that the girl was supposedly a spawn of the devil–the young Princess' unusual red eyes were proof enough that she was anything but human.

The King might be secretly glad to be rid of her too.

And as though agreeing with his thoughts, the boy servant flinched for he could have sworn that those eyes of red wavered for a very brief moment in sorrow, as though they were about to burst into tears any second now… as though she had heard his thoughts but… but it couldn't be!

That was impossible!

He dared his trembling legs to come closer to get a better look. Yes, the dead princess remained unmoving, her young features still contorted in pain. He sighed to himself in relief, thinking of how silly he was being!

How could he be afraid of a child's corpse?

So, the young servant moved closer until he found himself kneeling right next to the girl that should have been his queen one day, if only just to have the decency to at least close the little girl's eyes so that she may have her eternal rest in–

(She has never known peace.

Not in life, especially not in death.)

A cold, pale hand suddenly clamped on his bony wrist hard and tugged him forward, violently sending him to crash face first on the floor, the terrible sound that was his nose cracking against the polished, hard floor echoing distantly in his ears, the pain muted for but a second and when it came, it was instant and all consuming, almost making him see white as he tried to automatically push himself off of the ground, a sobbing scream readying to bubble past his lips.

However, a foot dug on the back of his neck, the heel pressing in on him sharply, choking him and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe–!

Before he could even think to open his mouth to release another attempt to call, to cry for help that will never come (because no one came for the princess so why would anyone come to help a mere servant?), to scream–whether in surprise or pain, the boy servant will never know because he found himself lying flat on his back with a bread knife embedded in his jugular.

It took a moment before it dawned to him.

He’s dying.

Choking in his own blood and breath, the boy servant can only stare in transfixed horror as the supposedly dead Princess hovered over his body like a fallen angel rising from the very depths of hell itself, red eyes gleaming hungrily with something so evil and something so ancient to be even called simply as fury–a paradoxical sight to behold on such a young child’s face–as they met his own, wide, and very much unblinking.

Blood trickled down her chin.

Was it his?

Was it her’s?

She licked it away, eyes never leaving his.

In his fright, the servant boy instantly breathed his last, his body ceasing its movements just as the door suddenly opened and the smiling Queen entered with a rope in her hands.

But the Queen could not take another step, no more as she took in the sight of the scene, of her supposedly dead step-daughter towering over a now dead servant, looking no better than the dead haunting the living.

(Is that what she is now?)

Queen Ysabel was frozen.

Pale as a ghost, she can only stare with a gaping mouth as the Princess turned slowly towards her direction, most likely at hearing the noise and… smiled.

And it’s been such a long time since the girl smiled a proper child’s smile–pure and angelic in ways an innocent can be although her image had been eternally tarnished by diabolical red eyes glowing with dark laughter while the servant's blood pooled around her little feet and stained her gown with sin.

“Why, my dearest mother…” the Princess all but purred those words out, never mind how painful her throat felt, her voice still sounded raspy, raw from the visible throes of a death rattle and the poison that burned her inside out.

But the words were a travesty of the Queen’s sickly-sweet tone from earlier blending in a voice that should never be heard, should never have spoken again.

Red eyes alight with a life never see in her before though tainted with darkness and blood as the Princess all but pushed herself away from the servant’s corpse and took a step forward towards the older woman, making a grand show of spreading her arms as though expecting a hug.

The smile widened into a diabolical grin.

“Are you not glad to see your sweet little girl?” 

In her fright, the Queen screamed and passed out just as quickly.