The Blood King's Love

One

My hands are weak.

My hands are weak as I rip the bottom of my white dress that I wear. This white dress that my mother gave me, which is now covered with blood. I feel bad, because my mother gave me this beautiful dress, and now I'm ripping it apart. I'm sure she'd understand. But I still wonder what she'd think.

I look around see the broken, shattered buildings on the ground, and the sea of lifeless bodies that lie all around the village, and I know my mother wouldn't think anything. How could a corpse think? She's dead. She must be. Once the Valon soldiers attack, there's no hope for anyone. Everyone's a goner.

Except for me. By some miracle, I survived.

There's a dead boy in front of me, struck to the ground by an arrow. He looks around eight or nine. Poor boy had his life stolen from him. With the white cloth I've ripped from my dress I wipe the blood from his face, arms and chest. I pluck the arrow out and throw it to the side. I fix his hair best I can. On my head lies a flower reef that my friend had given me this morning. She's probably gone too. I take out the flowers one by one and cover up the boy's wounds. 

Behind me I hear something approaching, but I have to finish my work. I ignore it.

In the next minute I'm done, and the boy looks like he's just sleeping, having a (hopefully) good dream he won't have to wake up from. I see his shoes are untied--I fix them. 

"Hey!"

I stop. It's completely silent. Someones behind me. Someone is behind me. Someone is alive.

"Woman! Turn around!"

I swallow. The voice is threatening. 

I turn my head to look for the voice, but what I see is way scarier than any voice could be.

White horses, almost ten of them, each one carrying a soldier. The two horses in front of the pack, one white and one black, carry two men that aren't dressed in any steel armor. Their clothes are rather extravagant. One man is blond with spectacles, and the other has long, black hair, a long dress coat and tons of heavy jewels around his neck. All the soldiers have raised their bows and readied their arrows, pointing them at me. 

It must be them. They did this.

The Valon army.

"You there! What are you doing?" The blond man shouts; his sword is drawn, pointed at me. 

I glare at him. You did this. It was you disgusting people.

"What a repulsive looking woman."

I turn back to my business. 

"Excuse me?" I hear him jump off his horse, but I don't look back. I button up the dead boy's shirt. He's looking better now.

Then a hand grabs my neck and raises me in the air. "Disrespectful peasant," the blond man mutters. He slams me to the ground, and the debris of the broken buildings throws me into a coughing fit.

The impact of the throw hurts terribly bad, but I refuse to show any pain in front of these people, these people who took my life away from me as well as the lives of so many others.

"How dare you ignore me, woman! What do you think you're doing!?"
I get up and say as steadily as I can: "Cleaning a corpse. I'd like to go back to my business now, if you don't mind." 

I take a few more steps towards the boy's body again, but the blond man, grabs me by my hair, takes his blade and stabs me in the thigh. I let out a painful scream. He pulls the sword out of my flesh and fall to the ground, grasping my thigh for dear life. Blood comes seething out and covers my palms. Seeing it makes me nauseous. It stings so bad, god, it hurts so bad.

The man's voice is full of frustration and anger. "I'm not typically the type of man to kill young women." He points the sword to my nose and grimaces."But a filthy peasant defying me, is something I cannot tolerate."

He's going to kill me. Fine. There's nothing really to live for.

He raises his sword and--

"Coin!" 

The man stops mid-strike, his face going from furious to terrified in an instant.

"Drop your weapon."

The blond man turns back, facing the men and their horses. "B-but sir--"

"Drop it! That's an order!" It's the black-haired man, the other man who's not dressed as a soldier.

He drops it, but starts again. "Your Majesty, she was--" 

He motions for the men behind him to drop their arrows as well. "And what of what she was doing? Look at her, she's an ignorant, dirty peasant girl. Who's simply in need of some taming." 

Your Majesty...

I look back at the man, squinting to get a better look at the speaker. He has a terrifying smile on his face. 

"See how her dress is covered in blood? Can't you see she wears it to honor her Majesty?" He laughs, then calls back to one of the soldiers. "Fetch the cage."

This man was the emperor of Valon.

The ruthless, merciless killer.

The Blood King.

One of the soldiers grabs my arm, and I try to shake him off. Another one comes and grabs my other side. I struggle as they manhandle me, but my leg wound stings too much and I can't break free. Nonetheless, I scream "Get off! Let go of me!" 

They throw me in a small cage and lock me in. There's almost no room to move. 

At this point I still have no idea what's really happening.

The blond man has gone back to his horse, and the soldiers carry me towards the carriage. They throw me inside. "Dirty peasant," one of them mutters.

I hear a voice outside shout "Back to the kingdom at once!"

I shiver. What's happening what's happening what's going on help help oh god no no what's happening...