The Poison Princess (36 page)

Luckily, the princess found that Astrid was
even more distracted than her with the oncoming beast. Reaching
back with the war hammer, she brought it at a harsh angle into the
untethered demon’s knee, cracking the bones out of place. Astrid
released a shrill scream as she collapsed to the ground. Ruby
tossed the glowing orb onto her fallen body, hoping it would draw
the attention of the beast away from her. She left the demon there
and set toward the door.

“Scarlett!” the princess called across the
room. “Time to go!”

Her horned demon was still on the ground, but
she managed to stand despite the shaking room and follow Ruby into
the tunnel they had come in through. The princess turned back and
saw the beast grab both the orb and Astrid’s body. The terrible
thing shoved the artifact into her mouth and down her throat before
attaching the tendril to the back of her head. Knowing that could
have been her made Ruby sick. She felt like vomiting but found
herself unable to perform the act. The beast didn’t seem satisfied
with controlling Astrid, and it continued to shamble forward.

“Can you collapse the tunnel?” Ruby asked her
horned demon, as they passed inside it.

She shook her head, catching her breath. “No
power left.”

The princess looked down to her war hammer.
“Back up,” she said, gently pushing Scarlett back with her other
hand.

Her demon servant complied, stepping back.
“What are you--”

The answer became transparent. With whatever
poisonous might she still had flowing through her, Ruby swung the
war hammer into one side of the cave’s wall. The ceiling overhead
rumbled. She ran to the other side and repeated the act. Rubble and
debris slipped down from the cavern ceiling. Satisfied with the
progress, Ruby ran back toward Scarlett, while the beast slithered
and pounded its body against the mountain, causing the rocks to
shift even more. The women began to run down the tunnel as fast as
they could, while the creature approached. By the time it smashed
against the tunnel entrance, the rocks collapsed between it and the
women, leaving them in the dark of the cave but safe from its wet
limbs.

They were in the dark of the long tunnel leading back to the cold
Rashtalg mountainside once more, and Scarlett was forced to be
their collective eyes. The horned demon had folded the scythe and
war hammer back inside the hidden vaults, where she kept all her
most important possessions, and she held Ruby’s hand and guided her
through the cave. They’d left their coats back in the monk’s
bedroom that they’d been staying in, so the demon pulled a couple
new ones through the void. Even in that cave, the cold of the
mountain pierced through. The darkness and relative moment of calm
finally gave them time to speak of what Scarlett had uncovered in
the nether realm.

“Tyran?” the princess asked.

“Best not to say it aloud for now, but yes.
That’s what I found. He’d protected it well.”

“Is that why it took so long?”

“How long was I gone?”

“Five days. I was worried you wouldn’t come
back at all. That I’d lost you forever.”

“Nonsense, my princess. I shall never abandon
you.”

Ruby had seen a myriad of reasons to trust
her demon, but there was always a curiosity rattling around in her
head of what would happen if Scarlett no longer needed the
princess. She was after all, essentially a slave to the princess’
desires. That concern had finally been tested by the untethered
demon. The assassin had offered Scarlett complete freedom with the
use of the bracelets, and she’d turned it down. They would be
bonded for life.

The princess now had the craggy hand demon’s
name, but she wasn’t sure how that would help her exactly. “How do
I use this true name against him?”

“Quite simple, really,” her demon servant
replied. “You just need to speak it in his presence.”

“What will it do exactly?”

“I suppose I’m not sure. I’ve never actually
seen that act before. It’s kind of a horror story to all demons
though, to keep your true name a secret, lest you be controlled by
mortals.”

“It won’t kill him will it?”

“It shouldn’t, no. From what I have heard, it
will only weaken a demon temporarily.”

“Enough time to get the bracelets on
him?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“And when the connection to my sister is
severed, I can kill him without harming Leina.” It wasn’t a
question.

“Right. I think the plan shows promise.”

Ruby mostly agreed. She had already seen the
bracelets in practice. When Scarlett had worn them, their
connection had been completely severed. Nothing that the princess
felt was transferred to her companion, and more importantly,
whatever was inflicted upon the demon was not given back to the
master. The craggy hand demon could be killed without sacrificing
Leina if she could get the stony metal bracelets on his wrists.
That part of the plan seemed unwieldy, however. It would require a
weakened demon, and that meant using this true name, Tyran, against
him. Even Scarlett had never seen this in practice, and she wasn’t
about to rely on something that important without first testing
it.

“But this true name,” Ruby began. “I need to
be certain it works.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any way of
reassuring you, my princess.”

“There is one way.”

“How do you mean?”

“I could speak yours… and we could see what
happens.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Is that a problem, Scarlett?”

“Well, I can’t actually say it.”

“You don’t trust me with it?”

“No. I mean that literally. I can’t speak the
name. No demon can utter their own true name to anyone, bond or
otherwise.”

“Oh,” Ruby said with a tone of disappointment
in her voice. “Never mind then.”

Scarlett was not eager to spread the word of
her true name, but she absolutely did trust Ruby with such
information. She knew that her princess would be just as
susceptible to attacks should her true name find its way to someone
else’s ears. They had both proven that their bond meant something
to each other time and time again, so the horned demon decided that
Ruby should have access to this last piece.

“Well, that’s not to say we couldn’t do it,”
the horned demon eventually replied.

“Then there’s a way?” The hope returned to
the princess’ voice.

“I’m still able to write it down. We would
just have to be careful with the parchment I wrote it on. Neither
of us would want anyone else to learn the name. They would have
power over us both.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait until we make it
out of this tunnel then.”

“Yes, my princess.”

The pair of women continued on in the dark in
relative silence for some time with Scarlett guiding her master
through the cave tunnel. As they moved back toward the snowy peak,
the temperature started to drop again, and they could hear the wind
howling in the distance. Ruby still couldn’t see anything, but she
knew the light couldn’t be much farther. After another half hour or
so of listening to the wind screech past the tunnel entrance, she
finally started to see the light veering down the cave. Traveling a
bit further, she saw the light itself. The snow outside was too
bright to look at after the dim monastery and the long hallway of
total darkness. She shielded the entrance from her view, but she
was otherwise now able to walk on her own.

“Finally,” Ruby said, rushing ahead and
staring at the ground, too wary to look up at the white snow
outside.

“Yes. Finally.” Scarlett was less excited to
see the path open ahead of them. She knew that her princess would
now want to learn and speak the demon’s true name. The experience
of being brought to her knees in pain by a single word was not one
she looked forward to, but Scarlett was willing to sacrifice nearly
anything and everything for Ruby.

“Can we try it now?” The princess wasted no
time once there was light enough for them to see clearly.

Scarlett nodded. “If that is what you wish,
my princess.”

Ruby saw the hesitance and fear in her horned
demon’s red eyes. They looked the same as when she’d asked Scarlett
to wear the bracelets and go into the nether realm. She walked back
to her demon, throwing her arms over her shoulders and locking them
behind Scarlett’s neck. She smiled and asked, “Do I need to give
you a little more encouragement?”

Scarlett smiled, her eyes rising to her
princess’. “There will be time for that later. I know you’re in a
hurry to return to your sister now.”

“Yes…” Ruby replied, staring off into the
distance. “Leina.” She realized that she had almost forgotten why
she had gone all that way. How is that possible, she asked herself.
She shook off the thought and took a step back. “You’re right.
Let’s do this, so we can get back to the castle. Leina needs
me…”

Scarlett flipped her hand over and retrieved
a parchment of paper from her divide between realities along with a
quill dripping little ink droplets to the rocky tunnel floor.
Placing the paper in the flat of her palm, she wrote a single word
in signature fashion, scribbling it as fast as she could. Seeing it
on paper was an odd sensation, but it had no ill effect on her like
hearing it would. With a heavy sigh, the horned demon handed the
scrap of paper to Ruby and threw the quill back to where she’d
found it.

The princess looked at it, cocking her head
to the side. If she had seen that combination of letters together
for any other reason, she would have discarded it as nonsense or
some unknown language. Given the context, however, she knew how
important they were.

Ruby looked back up to her loyal demon,
offering a wincing expression of an apology and asked, “Nyxia?”

Scarlett felt as though the wind had been
knocked out of her, and she collapsed to her knees, gasping for
air. An electric pain shot from her ears throughout her head,
bouncing and ricocheting off the walls of her skull like it was
trying to find a way out past the bone. Her finger and toenails
felt as though they were being ripped backward, peeling skin as
they went. Tearing its way down her gut was the sensation of a
blade being drug through her organs. Her legs and arms went limp,
and she fell forward, hitting her forehead on the rocky cave floor.
That part, even the princess was able to feel because of the
bond.

“Scarlett?” Ruby asked, rushing forward and
joining her demon on her knees. “I’m so sorry! Is it too much?”

The demon twisted her head and looked up at
her princess, blood dripping from her forehead. “Let’s not do that
again.”

Ruby’s eyes were full of worry and concern
for Scarlett. “What was it like? Will it work against the craggy
hand demon?”

“I can’t imagine that not working on
anyone.”

The princess helped Scarlett sit up, pouring
her demon’s body into her own lap, where she brushed the hair from
her face. “I’m sorry. I just had to know.”

Scarlett looked up and smiled, genuinely
happy to have helped despite the pain. “Anything for my
princess.”

Holding the paper with the name on it up to
Scarlett, she asked. “What about the parchment?”

“Destroy it and tell no one of the name. They
would only use it to hurt us both.”

The princess nodded and held the paper up to
her chin. She spit a special blend of her poison onto the parchment
and watched the sludge cover and devour the note. Its work done,
she flung her hand to the side, tossing the poison away, and she
wiped her hand clean on her clothes.

The pair of women sat there together for some
time, while Ruby attended to her demon. Scarlett was too weak to
stand for more than ten minutes, and even after that, both women
thought it would be a mistake to try to go down the mountainside in
her fragile state. They waited another half hour with the princess
occasionally looking out to the bright snow in an attempt to
encourage her eyes to adjust to the light they would be traveling
into. In part because of Scarlett’s weakness and partially out of
fear of snow blindness, they ultimately decided to wait until the
light grew dimmer before leaving the cave. They would stop
somewhere along the way before the sunlight faded too much to see
their path.

The journey down Rashtalg’s mountainside was
easier than the way up. The storm had died down since the last time
they were outside, and it made finding the blue marker flags a much
easier task. They had to stop only a few nights due to lack of
visibility, making better time than they did when they traveled up
the mountain path.

Ruby was now eager to make it back to
Lavidia. She had to kind of fight herself to feel that urgency
though. Memories of Leina were beginning to slip from her, being
replaced and rewritten by the dark ooze inside her. During much of
her adventure over the prior eleven years, Ruby had followed the
thought that the ends would justify the means, but she was now
finding that the end didn’t appeal to her like it once had. She
pushed herself to focus on saving Leina, saving that innocent
little girl that was tricked into being corrupted by the craggy
hand demon.

If her desire to save her sister had faded,
her wrath toward Leina’s demon had only grown. Vengeance, she
found, was the real reason for her eagerness to make it back to the
castle. Thoughts of his death flooded her mind. Ruby fantasized
about witnessing his last gasping breaths, as she forced poison
down his throat. She smiled, thinking about breaking his bones and
slicing him open. By the time they arrived at Rashtalg’s base and
passed the final blue flag, she had catalogued no less than seven
different murder fantasies for the craggy hand demon. None of them,
she neglected to realize, even brought her sister into them. That
element just slipped away in favor of satisfying her wrath.