Black Storm - Red Queen Fan Fiction

Chapter 8 - The Mirror part I

Mare POV

The cold white light of the winter sun burned in my eyes, in painful resonance with the drumming of the sounder device. I had screamed, maybe for hours or just for minutes, after I'd been confined to this cage, and thus forced my gaolers to settle to torturing machine to a level that made my survival endurable. They had set it better than they had wanted to. The device numbed my sense for currents and the power of lightning, but I realized I'd left the white hell I had been thrown in before; the place where a demon reigned, with eyes of frozen seas and fiery hate.

But I remembered again. He was just human, a mere boy who played at being a tyrant, without a tether to his throne but brutality. Like that he wreaked on me. I tore at the collar he'd put on me, a perverse adornment chained to the silent stone manacles on my wrists. I tried to grap its links, to get rid off the symbol of my humiliation. I could do it, and this awareness prickled in my skin, even when I hesitated to pull it free for real.

I had surrendered to Maven to save my comrades, to protect them instead of sending them into doom. But after I had felt Maven's touches and tugs, after he had brought me low, my resolve rose up again. I would avenge, and the blood he'd shed would justify my reasons. I wasn't leaving this place unless I left behind his corpse - or mine.

The cell wasn't lavish. It was just a room, very functional, more like a servant's dwelling. A narrow bed, a small window high up, a table and a chair were its only furniture. I could not see where the sounder device was installed, only its effects were continuing to haunt me. A bathroom was attached, but its door was locked; apparently it offered privacy from cameras I couldn't locate, but I wasn't supposed to be unsupervised at any moment. I had to ask the watchwomen when I needed the restroom. Well, thanks.

A massive glass wall seperated my cage from an anteroom where three watchwomen stayed to keep an eye over me. I stared back at them.

They - Maven - wouldn't get to see a girl made of shards.

Even if that was what I felt like, I maintained the image of the insurgent Lightning Girl they should be scared of.

Yet I didn't provoke them. I showed no resistance when they searched my prison, my clothes, my body. I didn't talk back.

I offered them nothing of myself because the only way to protect myself in this cage was to build a cage on my own, to lock my soul away.

Witnessing the broken glass of my heart was all that Maven craved, I understood now. I thought he wanted to put me back together he in the shape he desired to possess and control. So I gave him a heartless girl made of unbreakable diamondglass instead.

But the tyrant didn't appear in front of me. Not until Samson Merandus left the anteroom and walked into my dwelling, the only one to enter it for days, besides during mealtimes or those embarrassing visits when I needed the bathroom.

Merandus leaned over me as I sat on my bed. He grinned like I was a intoxicating drink for him. Damned whisper. I couldn't not be afraid as I remembered Queen Elara's intrusions well enough. Samson Merandus was able to see through my defenses and drag out precious information about the Scarlet Guard. Farley had warned me about this before, not only because of the Witch Queen who had decepted us before and whom I'd killed. Even the whispers unable to control others physically could scan your mind. I was about to become prey again.

"Are you frightened, little lightning girl?" he droned. "You're no longer the fierce killer. You gave up. You came back to Maven and you knew this was going to happen sooner or later ..."

I flinched, shutting my eyes to fight tears I'd hoped to have dried up long ago. Because this demon was in my head, and what he said was true, so true and it hurt -

Suddenly, my panic was stopped by a commotion in the cell that I heard before I dared to open my eyes again. I saw Merandus stagger back, holding his hands as if he was in pain. He faced a female sentinel standing in front of me.

The woman tsked. "Have you been ordered to interrogate Barrow, Samson? Unless you can show me your authorization, you get out of here right now."

Her arm moved up with a flourish, throwing back her cape gracefully, and Merandus fell against the glass wall as if he was pushed. Was the sentinel like him? Or was she a telkie?

Merandus stared at her, brushing his arms and regaining his condescending posture. "Hot for another duel, Queen of Limbs?" he asked.

"Always," the sentinel purred. "But don't forget that I'm in the lead in our statistics. Now. Have you been commanded to visit Barrow? Because I am, from now on." Out of nothing, a paper took flight and unfolded in front of her. So she was a telkie.

"Lieutenant Griffey," Merandus read from the sheet, apparently. "You've been promoted to become a gaoler, Cassandra?"

"Seems like I have the right connections, Samson. Those that say 'get the fuck out of here.' " She motioned her head to the anteroom and the door unlocked without a touch. Merandus turned and beheld the same sight as I: King Maven looked at the scene playing out in the cage he'd created. He stood 5 m in front of me, with his arms crossed in his disgustingly haughty manner. I freezed. For a second time this day, my resolve started to fall apart. He'd come to torture me, he would tell me how my comrades had died, how Cal had died because, of cause, he had betrayed me again. He would boast of the other Newbloods he'd captured since I had become his prisoner and how children were sent to death at the choke -

Despite my heart accelerating to a painful throb, I fought the urge to cave or beg or scream at him.

I am diamondglass.

Maven stared at me for long seconds dragging by. Then he turned and left, followed by Merandus and a retinue I couldn't identify. The sentinel stayed. She took off her helmet and pulled her cape loose. She threw both into the air where the cape folded itself and sank onto the table, with the helmet on top.

She went to me and lowered herself to my eye level, looking at me closely. I gasped at her face that had the most stunning eyes I'd ever seen. Her left eye was as black as tar and the right one as silver as the moon. I tried to take in the rest of her appearance, searching for the colours of her house. There were none. Her uniform was Nortan black, as colourless as the rest of her, wavy hair in the tones of mud and a pale skin devoid of the slightest reddish hue, making it impossible to mistake her for anything but a Silver. Her hands were ungloved and a claw was engraved with ink on her right hand.

"Merandus didn't read your mind, if you haven't noticed. He's only expressed his guesses," she said to break the pregnant silence. How did she dare to make assumptions about the invasion of my mind? How could she know this? She was a deceiver, like all of Maven's minions.

" 'Griffey', " I said in response, "is not the name of a High House."

She laughed at this. "O gracious queen, you are truly a smart woman, Mare Barrow! You know me for less than five minutes and you've already summed up my whole existence."

I frowned. She was way too erratic.

She smiled on. "I'm looking forward to work with you, Lightning Girl."

I spat in her face, but her damned ability diverted the spit away from her.

"Indeed," she said. "Indeed."

Commentary

Finally Mare POV! (besides the one-shot story) Do you like it? I gave Mare the Scarlet Guard designation mirror, but I wonder if it fits perfectly. Though they don't have to, as the point of codenames is to veil someone's identity.