Crimson and Gold

A nauseating pain splitting her skull in half was the first thing that punched through the dark void that surrounded her.

The back of her head was throbbing, her neck was so stiff she could hardly move.

Saria groaned, then slowly opened her eyes.

She was no longer submerged in dark nothingness, but her vision was too blurry to tell her where she was.

Then, everything started coming back to her.

The breakfast, the Princess, and the blow to the head delivered by someone unknown.

The image of Lysandra’s limp body in her arms flashed before Saria’s eyes, kick-starting her senses.

She looked around in panic. She found her slightly further away, tied to a wooden post.

“Lysandra! Lys!” she called out to her, but the Princess didn’t react.

The chamber they were in was dark, illuminated only by the faint light of a couple of torches attached to the support beams, so Saria couldn’t see Lysandra clearly. However, she didn’t appear to be hurt.

“You’re alive. Good. I was afraid that a bat to the head might have killed you.” A voice came from behind her.

Saria recognized it immediately. “Rosa? What is this? What is going on? What have you done to Lysandra?”

“She’s taking a nap after my special drink. She’s unharmed… for now.” Rosa slowly walked in front of Saria, playing with a dagger in her hand.

She looked… different.

The servant’s clothes were gone, replaced by dark leather armor. Her dark brown eyes, once coyly cast down, were now staring at her prey, filled with hatred.

“You drugged us?” Saria asked, still fighting the fog enveloping her mind.

“Yes. Or well, I was trying to,” Rosa shrugged. “For some reason, even after you drained the entire cup, there was no reaction, so I had to improvise. Fortunately, the Princess went down quite easily.”

“If something happened to her—”

Rosa crossed the remaining space between them in two long steps and pressed the dagger to Saria’s neck. “Then what? You’re going to kill me? Look around you. You’re in no position to make threats.”

Saria clenched her teeth to keep herself silent. Though she didn’t want to admit it, her situation didn’t leave her many options.

She was tied to a wooden beam in the cellar of the villa. Lysandra was unconscious and at the very heart of the storm.

If it were just Saria alone, she wouldn’t mind doing something rash, to put her life at risk and take a gamble. But it wasn’t her reality, and right now she had to assure Lysandra’s safety. That was the most important part. She didn’t care about anything else.

The cogs in her mind kept turning fast as she started looking for a way out.

The villa was understaffed on purpose, but there was a full regiment of soldiers guarding the area. If the Princess suddenly disappeared, someone must have noticed.

Perhaps Saria could find a way to notify them.

She focused her mind and used her abilities to scan the area.

What she discovered left her speechless.

“What have you done?” Saria blurted in shock.

She couldn’t detect even a single heartbeat that she would recognize. Not the servants, not the soldiers. Nobody.

But their blood whispered to her. It was a faint trace, but it all led to one spot in the courtyard. There, the weak resonance converged into one sorrowful cry.

Rosa moved the blade away. “You’ll have to be more precise than that. I did a lot of things,” she said, crouching in front of Saria.

“What did you do with the people in the villa?”

“How did you know they were dead?” Rosa tilted her head in puzzlement. “You were unconscious when I brought you here.”

“Those were innocent people!” Saria lashed out. The weight of the lives lost just because someone was trying to get her nearly crushed her.

Rosa’s expression darkened. A violent glint flashed in her eyes as she drove the dagger into Saria’s side. “How ironic that you are the one to say it,” she growled, twisting the blade.

Saria sucked the air in through her teeth, under the wave of excruciating pain.

“Acting as if you cared about any of these people. As if you didn’t do worse yourself,” Rosa continued. “A sick monster acting as if she actually has a heart.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Saria grimaced, feeling the metallic taste of blood in her mouth.

“See? Now you’re asking the important questions.” Rosa sheathed the dagger and took out a small bottle from a pouch by her belt. “But first, we need to wake the Sleeping Beauty over here,” she said and knelt before Lysandra. “We wouldn’t want her to miss any of this, would we?”

She opened the bottle and waved it by the Princess’ nose.

“Lysandra has nothing to do with this. Let her go,” Saria pleaded.

“On the contrary. She decided to become involved with you. She has everything to do with this.”

Lysandra groaned and sluggishly opened her eyes. “Saria?”

“I’m here. It’s going to be alright,” Saria comforted. “I’ll get you out of this.”

Rosa clicked her tongue and walked over to her. “Now, now… You shouldn’t make promises you won’t be able to keep,” she sneered, pressing the wound on Saria’s side with her boot.

Despite her best effort to keep it in, Saria cried out in pain.

“What are you doing!? Let her go!” Lysandra yelled. She couldn’t understand what was happening, her mind was still hazy, sluggish. She had trouble forming even a single coherent thought, but the sight of Saria being hurt was enough to wake her up.

“Don’t worry, Your Highness. I made sure the bitch won’t die too fast.” Rosa grinned, but gave up on her torture. “Anyway, now that everyone is awake, we can finally move to the important matters.”

She dragged a chair to the middle and sat down. “Eleven years ago, there was a community living deep in the mountains,” Rosa began her tale. “It was a small village, separated from the nearest settlement by a full day of walking.

“Some people there were farmers, others raised cattle. There was a blacksmith and even a temple. The villagers kept mostly to themselves, with only a traveling merchant visiting them every once in a while. It was a peaceful place, a happy place.”

The dagger in Rosa’s hand abruptly stopped. Her eyes locked on Saria. “Until one day you showed up. Slaughtered everyone in the village without batting an eye. Even the priestess,” she said. Her voice was like a blizzard—cold and threatening.

“But you were sloppy,” Rosa continued, leaning towards Saria. “You didn’t finish the job as you should have. There was one person left. Hidden behind the altar was a six-year-old girl who saw everything that happened.”

Silence filled the cellar, disrupted only by Saria’s ragged breath and rhythmic tapping of the blade against an armrest.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Silence.

Rosa narrowed her eyes. The muscles in her jaw tensed and relaxed, showing a glimpse of the storm raging within her.

“I was the girl,” she forced through her teeth. “And the priestess whose throat you slit on that altar? She was my sister. My only family.”

Lysandra watched Saria lower her head without saying anything.

Rosa stood up and kicked the chair away. “It took me so long to find you, but I never gave up. One day God smiled upon me, and I saw you in the arena. I knew it was you. I would recognize those cold, red, soulless eyes everywhere.”

“Do whatever you want to me. Torture me. Kill me. I don’t care.” Saria said, slowly raising her head. She looked unexpectedly calm. “But let Lysandra go. She has nothing to do with this.”

“No! Don’t say that! I’m not leaving without you!” Lysandra protested.

Rosa’s gaze jumped between them. The crooked smile on her face turned even more sour.

She crouched in front of Lysandra and raised her chin with the dagger. “You know, when I first realized what was between you two, I was furious,” she said, scrutinizing her.

“I couldn’t understand how a monster like her could experience something so beautiful as love. It felt like the universe was mocking me,” Rosa continued. “A heartless, mindless beast loving and being loved. Isn’t it absurd? Ridiculous,” she scoffed. “But then it struck me… I finally understood that it wasn’t a joke. It was another gift given to me by God.”

Rosa pressed the blade to Lysandra’s throat, drawing a small pearl of blood. She tilted her head and met the raging fury in Saria’s eyes with her own madness.

“This way, I could make you feel what I felt watching my sister choke on her own blood. I could make you feel the same pain right before I take your life. The most wonderful gift I could be given.”

“Let. Her. Go,” Saria growled.

Rosa burst out laughing. “Even in this situation, you still don’t understand that you’re not calling the shots here.”

“It’s you who doesn’t understand how far I’m willing to go…”

“I wish I could tell you that I’m sorry that you have to be a part of this,” Rosa turned back to Lysandra, ignoring Saria’s threats. “But I’m not. You knew what kind of monster she was, and yet you chose to love her, share a bed with her. You’re just as disgusting as her.”

The Princess glared at her, gritting her teeth. “I don’t care what you think of me,” she spat. “You come here talking about monsters and cold-blooded killers as if you were any different.”

“Oh, I am very different. I kill monsters, not innocent people.”

Saria cursed. “Were the people in the villa not innocent?”

“Of course not,” Rosa replied without hesitation. “They were serving and protecting you. They were as guilty as you are.”

“You’re insane.” Lysandra looked at her with disgust. She wanted to believe there was still some semblance of humanity left in Rosa, but the more she heard, the clearer it was that it wasn’t the case.

“What is it, Your Highness? Giving up so easily?” the woman asked, flashing a crooked smile to Lysandra. “Not trying to talk me out of it? No telling me that revenge won’t give me peace?”

“No. Not at all,” Lysandra scoffed. “In fact, I would do the same if I were you. I would hunt you down even if I had to spend the rest of my life chasing you. The only difference is that I wouldn’t lie to myself that I have some high moral ground in doing so. I wouldn’t be afraid to admit that I’m a monster killing another monster.”

“You have some of my respect for that. I’ll try making your death a little bit less painful. We talked enough. Say goodbye to your lover. Tch,” Rosa clicked her tongue. “Looks like she’s not willing to even spare you the last glance,” she said, pointing at Saria.

Her eyes were closed and her head was lowered. Her chest was rising and falling with a steady rhythm, making her look serene, almost at peace.

“Remember this moment well. This is the person you died for.” Rosa grabbed Lysandra’s hair and pulled her head back, revealing her throat.

She pressed the dagger to the pulse point, drumming erratically under her skin.

Lysandra pressed her eyes shut. Every cell in her body screaming in panic to run, to save herself.

Time slowed down to an agonizing crawl.

The heartbeats passed, one after another, but neither the pain nor death ever came.

Lysandra slowly opened her eyes.

Rosa was kneeling before her, completely frozen. Her bulging eyes and veins under her skin showed a great strain she was under, and yet, physically, nothing was holding her back.

Suddenly, the grip on Lysandra’s hair relaxed, and Rosa stood up. Her expression of shock and panic remained on her face as she turned around and slowly walked over to Saria.

There, she knelt next to her, still clutching the dagger in her hand.

“I told you, there are no lengths I wouldn’t go for the one I love, but you didn’t listen,” Saria said calmly and leaned closer to Rosa’s ear. “But you were right about one thing,” she whispered. “I am a monster.”

Saria opened her eyes.

The crimson iris in her right eye swirled with ancient power, her pupil narrowed and stretched into a cat-like slit.

Finally, a single bloodied tear rolled down her cheek.

Like a puppet controlled by the strings, Rosa raised the dagger and sank the blade deep in her own throat.

A wave of unbearable pain erupted from the wound, her lungs spasmed, deprived of air, but it wasn’t over yet.

Her hand moved against her will, slowly slicing through her skin, her muscles, and veins. Rosa saw her own blood bursting from her neck, painting the wall in front of her red.

Red like the eyes that took everything from her.

Red like the eyes that brought her death.

This was the last thought in Rosa’s life.