Bleeding Stones

The door of the cell opens, letting in, the bright, burning light of the sun. Is it dawn? Is it in the middle of the morning ? The afternoon? Mare doesn't know. It's been a long time since she has lost track of time. It seems that she's been in this cell since days, weeks but it could already have been months, or even worse, years.

She manages to open, slightly, her left eye. The right one, won't open for days because of the dry blood on her eyelashes. A man enters the cage, a set of keys in his hands. Long ago, she would have try to elaborate a strategy to get a grip on these keys and get away from the hellish place. Now, she doesn't. And so she flinches and makes herself as little as she can. The less she's exposed to fists, the better.

But the man isn't alone. He's followed by another guard, himself followed by another man. Less muscular this time. White skin. Black hair. Blue eyes. Grinning. Maven.

Mare doesn't even have the time to blink that both guards take her arms and makes her stand in front of the prince. No. The king.

"Hello Mare! Long time no see!"

Mare shivers at the memory of their last encounter. Her body was put on display. She's been tortured in front of all the court. In front of all the people of Norta. In front of all the kingdom. And then she had been sent here, in this immaculate cell. Immediately stained by her red blood, dripping from her gashes.

Slowly, Maven approaches, and takes her face into one of his hands.

"You see Mare, I've been thinking lately." His fingers caress her jawline and her cheek. "About these." His long fingers are now on her ear. Touching her earrings. "They represent your loved ones, am I correct?"

Mare's terrified glance is enough answer for him.

"One for each of your brothers. Bree. Tramy. Shade." His voice lingers on the last name, insisting on it, rubbing salt on the wound. "And this green one must represent the fisher boy, right? Your best friend, Kilorn Warren. Oh!" He smiles devilishly. "Am I to understand that your beloved Cal doesn't have an earring to stand for him? Interesting." He pauses. "But I'm changing the subject am I not ?" His hand falls back against his hips.

"You see, the all point of bringing you here, in this cell, is to make you feel the horrible, unbearable, excruciating pain that bring solitude and grief. I want you to suffer as I am suffering because of what you've done to me, to my mother, to my citizens.

"Your earrings represent your loved ones. Your family. Your friends. So you aren't truly alone, are you? And so, making you my prisoner and putting you alone in this cell isn't efficient enough. That's why we are going to remove them. Your earrings."

Mare screams, struggles, hitting, kicking with her legs her captors. Useless.

Fear in her eyes, she sees Maven, pliers in hand, coming to her. Aiming for her earrings. Her last treasures. Her pride. She can't let this happen. She won't. She once said that she would go to her tomb with them, so she does her best to keep them, to not let Maven do as he wants for once. Her best isn't enough.

The guards pins her to the wall and let Maven snatch the stones one by one. Mare is screaming with all her might. Tears falling from her eyes.

Kilorn's stone, now stained with red blood, is the last one to fall on the floor. The four of them, shine under the sunlight.

Maven picks them up between his fingers and wraps them in a scrap of black silk. Red and gold flowers decorate the fabric. Mare gasps. It's hers. Gisa's last gift to her before she left with the others for the rescue mission.

An other token for Maven. An other one representing his victory over her.

"You recognize this don't you? Good."

And without further notice, he sets the little bundle on fire.

Mare falls on the ground, no longer hold by the strongarms. She doesn't care about them anymore. She doesn't care of the tears streaming down her face. She doesn't care about Maven and his victorious grin. She doesn't care of the pain that brings the sounder. She doesn't care of the silent stone manacles that cut the skin of her wrists. She doesn't care of the blood dripping from her newly opened wounds. She doesn't care about the fire burning her hands as she desperately tries to save something from the flames.

But Maven must have done something, after a minute, only ashes remain. The stones were gone. The last, precious, gift her sister gave to her was gone. The last reminder of her now deceased brother was gone.

And so Mare cries and screams her heart out for hours, not feeling the pain of the holes that her earrings have left into her ear, but the one their disappearance have created into her heart, her soul.

After some time, voiceless, tearless, she falls unconscious on the freezing ground of the cell, oblivious to the fact that Maven didn't miss the occasion to show her miserable. They weren't only four witnesses of the scene but, thanks to the cameras hidden in her cell, hundreds, thousands, millions. And among these witnesses, Ruth, Daniel, Bree, Tramy, Gisa, Kilorn and Tiberias.