A Bullet Or Two

Chapter 5.1: The Unworthy of East City

To be the ruling class was to be powerful. To hold a tiny egg in your hand, picked up from a nest, and have the power to nurture or crush it. To treat those beneath you as dispensable or irreplaceable.

It was to be someone that sat upon thrones made of coins while her people suffered in tiny hovels packed into tiny streets. While they killed and grovelled to survive another day.

To be the ruling class was to bow to nobody but her step-father and the divine.

The weight of the entire East Quarter, of all that resided in Farhilm would officially pass on to Delilah in a four days time, yet she could barely stand for a rehearsal ceremony.

Her entire calf was still red, patched with grey around the stitches that pulled together the flesh of her wounds. Pressing down onto her foot for mere seconds was enough to reignite flares of pain, stings as violent as when she received the marks. It was disgusting to look at, so much so her ceremony dress was altered to completely cover her legs from waist to heel.

Delilah stood before the High Priestess and an altar boy. Both draped in robes that only revealed their dark eyes - the woman in white, the boy in black. Human vessels of Life in white, Death in black. Worshippers of Saol and Bas.

In her hand, Delilah held onto a makeshift stick - a flimsy piece of plastic that shook within her grip - as she practised for her coronation.

She managed to stumble down the long marble aisle against the will of the golden silk dress that grazed the tips of her toes, and the black robe that pressed down on her shoulders. She barely kneeled at the feet of the priestess as the latter placed a ring of bronze leaves atop her crown.

Tempted to readjust it, the cold metal grazed too far down along Delilah's brow and squeezed too tight to her head. But her balance was precarious, and any sudden movements would send her falling. Lavender scented drops followed. Three drops upon her head as the woman recited her prayer.

"Lead us." Her voice was warm, calm. A sweet lullaby lulling a scared child to sleep.

"Aid us.

Guide us.

Protect us."

The words were bullets of their own. Echoes of what Douglas and Keith had asked her. They plead for her help - to give them jobs, money...safety. And she provided some of that - a job and good pay. Yet safety was something she should not have promised. A promise impossible.

Waking days later from when dawn broke though the massacre of rodents at Peter's farm, Delilah discovered she had lived.

Although her body experienced deep-rooted shivers and her muscles spasmed at any movement, she was alive. Her bandaged leg, seeping black ooze around the clock, was a reminder of how close she had tempted her God.

And as all stories of Death's keeper had told, that temptation came with a price. One her newest companion revealed not long after she could finally move.

Delilah had survived. Douglas had survived. Keith had not.

Douglas found him after he had carried her unconscious body to the farmhouse. Awakening days after the funeral, it was Douglas that informed her of her underling's demise when he visited the townhouse.

Bawling, he had told her the exact state of Keith's body. Unrecognisable - skinned by the rodents she had tasked Keith to kill - while his liver sprawled along the earth trailing from his body. His fingers were severed in clean slices from his hands and half-buried in mounds beside the festering corpses of the Nightwigs.

All Delilah did was nod. Let Douglas ball and vent and grief.

What else could she do?

His best friend was dead. Mutilated as he still breathed. All because she seeked praise. Her lungs challenged her not to breathe in front of the boy. Not to worsen his loss by reminding him the bastard that drew Keith to his death lay there recovering in her luxury bed.

When his sobs finally sobered, she shared her condolences - meaningless words that could not bring the boy back - and ordered in a cheque. Signed and sealed by the Baron himself.

The Priestess bellowed over her to empty pews. "Aid them. Guide them. Protect them."

How could she rule an entire Quarter when she could not rule over two boys?