The Blood Witch

The Princess

"Bullshit," I say, staring him down like my gaze can force the words back into his mouth. "Bull-fucking-shit, Ash."

He's got the same knack for pulling wide, pleading eyes that Paige had, but I'm too pissed off for the similarity to sting. I could cross the room to him in two easy strides and crush his throat in my hand, but I settle for slamming the glass door behind me. Wood and glass rattle, threatening to shatter. I don't know why I'm so angry even after he's freed me but after the pain and sheer torment of the last week I can't bear the disrespect of being strung along by a skinny highborn.

"Don't waste my fucking time, Maleric."

"Sasha, wait-" Ash lurches towards me, a hand outstretched to stay me, when movement in the corner of the room stops us both in our tracks. A candle flairs to life and instinctively I brush my hands against razor-woven gauntlets that aren't there, trying to summon my blood. Someone is watching us.

"So this is your brilliant plan then, Aly?"

A young woman sits cross-legged on the enormous silk-encased bed in the corner of the room, a lit pillar candle in one hand an a greatsword across her lap. Her pale green eyes are narrowed, fixed only on me. Clad in heavy leather armour the colour of night, she fondles a bandolier of iron throwing knifes strapped to her belt. She's as heavyset as a fucking ox and Ash's sword is just out of my reach.

To his credit, Ash seems little more than vaguely disappointed at the sight of his intruder. "Emity..."

"Look at her, Aly. Mother's Mercy where did you find her, a prison?"

I glance at Ash for answers and my eyes get caught on a short stiletto letter opener, resting atop the desk beside me. I try to subtly slide my hand towards it. "Want to explain who the fuck this is?"

He sighs, lips pressed tightly together and gaze cast downwards. Whoever this stranger is, her appearance has knocked something out of him. "I should probably introduce myself first, Sasha. I'm not Ash Maleric. Not yet."

I bend down and pick up one of the gowns on the floor. In a stroke of genius deception that impresses even my self, I stand back up and shake the silken dress at him and use the fluttering fabric to hide my hand as I snatch up the letter opener. My fingers wrap around the blade, pain flaring across my palm as the metal bites into my skin. I pray the gloom is too dark for the reddening in my irises to give me away. I can taste the tang of my blood magic in the air.

"No shit. I can see the dresses everywhere. What I want to know is who the fuck is she?"

The girl on the bed rises gracefully, keeping a hold of her blade as she approaches us. My muscles tense with readiness to spell cast. Oblivious to the threat,  Ash shoots a frown at me. "If you'd keep from cursing for just one second, I was about to say that my name is Alysha Aeya Avamere and this is my personal guard, Emity of the Queensworn."

That gives me pause. I scour his face for any trace of a lie, for any defining features that could mark him as a princess under his shoddily chopped short hair. His skin is smooth as a rose petal, not a scar nor freckle nor sign of a pox to mark any form of existing outside castle walls. He truly is a beauty born of good breeding, I have to admit, impossible as it sounds.

Emity, I can easily believe to be a guard. Broad forearms poke out from beneath her armour, thick veins crisscrossing along their length. I've spent the last ten years toning a strong  and lean fighter's body, but she manages to make me look positively thin in comparison. Dark witches are the only females that may be drafted as soldiers in Pyrthia and I've never seen a mercenary that young or free of scars. The haloed sun of the Avamere crest is stamped across the breastplate of her grey armour.