The Red Lady (short story)

I was no longer the lady I used to see in the mirror as she was dressed by countless maids with only a quill and paper on her mind.

"Hurry up Omelia." A whisper from one of the girls hurried me away from my reflection in the mirror to get ready and gather with the rest while I had taken the last glance at myself as I stepped away. The shift of my movement mirroring my own proving it was my reflection I was looking at which now just seemed like a stranger with a mask of my face, I was a maid: with the same worn-out, dulled from washing clothing, my appearance as weary as the maids I once myself tormented with countless requests. My long braided hair was hidden away by a day cap, the pale almost sickly complexion making my hazel eyes stormy and dull from what they used to be. And they once were wandering and curious full of life and light which more resembled the calm lakes as if reflecting the skies above them. Now, there was only a vague memory left of those full of depth eyes which now were framed by darkening circles from lack of sleep and rest. Now I was the one who could never glimpse at the sun beyond the walls of the cold castle where only crimson rivers of sunlight seemed to flow through the gaps of the small windows I had walked by. But even then, I could only see it slowly descending on the floor. Keeping my head down while trying to glimpse at the red rays of the setting sun which promised another cold and windy day after the star-crossed night. which was lulling the darkness with its soft lilac chime into a deep sleep as countless silent and hesitant footsteps walked through the empty corridors.

Three of those same design figures carried large silverware bowls filled with icy water. Young fragile as fawns girls with roughly dried skin shivering from the freezing droplets of water running down their rosy hands giving the feeling of thousand red ants crawling under their skin, slowly creeping up from their palms and fingertips forcing them to lighten up their quick strides to a smoother step to make the trip through the endless maze more bearable. The girls who were called ladies-in-waiting followed the woman who strode a meter ahead of them with a head held high and a face slightly lined with wrinkles from age at the corners of her lips yet still her calm expression held a youthful look in her narrowed and stern gaze directed at the heavy metal door ahead where the air seemed to get colder and colder. From which the young girls who were dressed in light summer maid gowns shivered as they kept themselves low making themselves smaller with an elegant arch of their necks resembling the bending willows in the grand duchess's gardens from far off memories of my past, giving an elegant yet lonesome sight as its branches continued to sway at the smallest of winds.

I was the fourth.

Silently hurrying after the rest with unmatched steps who couldn't keep up. Only my steps echoed while my feet tangled with each other, unlike the older girls in front of me who seemed to walk on silk. Their heels never making a sound as they struck the stony underground flooring which I alone had to cross barefoot. We were only a couple of years apart but we differed from just a glance: their stance was light and confident, the way they carried themselves didn't show even a glimpse of restriction in their movement from the neatly tucked in petticoats hiding away the stays that seemed to only restrict my motion alone showing from my stiff back and shoulders.

My breath hitched, the sudden air took me by surprise as it rushed through the gap of the heavy door which the two men with lances in their hands opened up for us. The lump of air got stuck in my throat paining my lungs that seemed to freeze over with each though of needing to breathe, unable to warm themselves up from the sudden dry frosty air one only encountered in the harshest winters. It was Martha who had yanked on the lacing at my back loosening my dress for a short second allowing me to swallow down the lump of frost that had wrapped around my lungs while straining my vocal cords. I wasn't sure what had come over me, was it the rush of sudden wind in the inside of the castle or the frozen in place air not letting me breath made me pick up my gaze from the ground and direct it forwards an empty dark hall only illuminated by a couple of candles, their flames dancing along with the cold air not letting the melting wax drip.

All this time I had been wandering through the endless maze and yet, here I found myself not following the glimpse of the warmth I couldn't have but the darkness, where shadows seemed to have danced around a woman in only her shift leisurely sitting on a large marble throne, lifeless as if she had been dead. My eyes widened at the sight, what I thought to be hidden away from the eyes of the nobles and the lands, even the servants of the castle, was nothing but a woman, not the known treasures, not mountains of cold, not the priceless family heirlooms covered in diamonds and jewels but a simple woman was the one hidden and locked away behind countless of mazes in the dungeon under the king's throne.

I had only heard stories, that long before the king's ruled the lands they were given a blessing, a vessel for luck, fortune, and power, an item that held all knowledge, the truths that were the key to all secrets of the world. Who could have known it was not some ancient artifacts that had told the prophecies and the far-off places beyond the silver rivers and mountains covered in silk? Who would have imagined it was nothing but an ordinary woman who carried no traces of the unique traits one would expect to see? After all, the vessel had been told to be one of the god's own, it would have been strange if one did not expect to see golden hair or eyes filled with souls of the dead that had let the kings see into the far future. She had supposed to be a treasure that bestowed abilities upon the heirs beyond common blood's imagination and measured their worth before their passing. Somehow I always imagined it was a book or an orb which spoke in a foreign tongue bestowing messages upon our lands in letters of gold and voices that pierced through the heavens, the one that had brought fate through our lands just like the boiling lava from the depths of the earth. Yet, here it was, just her.

With a slow blink, she traced her eyes at me which was a shade of warm honey brown, those were the eyes the common folk had carried unlike the unique traits of royals of golden and silver or nobles with oceans and lakes locked away in their marble eyes. She hadn't even received the traces of the forests that had surrounded the lands. What it was, was a refined color of the soil reflecting the ground which had been our footing through the passing centuries for all humankind, that we all without knowing called the god's blessing.

"You have a beautiful mind..." I couldn't help but jump at her voice that had rung in my head. Her voice, it's prickling sensation had taken me by surprise from which I wasn't able to hold out my grip, dropping the silverware on the floor leaving it's rattling echoes to disturb the sudden silence leaving me with only but a thundering sound of my own leaping out heart from fear and humiliation as I looked over the maids who were kneeling in silence before the woman. I felt the looming air around me, the gazes the older girls had given me, even Martha who had tried to help me before had given upon me, she too now had averted her gaze away...

"My lady?!"

I trembled in her presence, at her mane like locks of hair as if wild waves descending on the marble flooring which seemed to envelop me like shadows making my limbs tremble from the eerie pressure.

Silence, it was the silence that had been the most important rule, and yet, here I was walking on a thin line of my lady's patience who surprisingly didn't seem to mind this behavior of mine. Even when our eyes met what I saw was the reflection of myself. The me who still had no idea about the truths behind my room's walls, books, and letters where many lies were still hidden and the truth exaggerated. Back then when my eyes which that I long had lost still hadn't seen the terrors of the real world far away from a frozen in darkness, a place like this one which reminded me of its presence with a flicker of a candle's flame which seemed like it could turn to smoke in seconds as the spilled water under my feet began to freeze. My skin stuck to the marble flooring, rooting into the ground as if in search of a way out yet not letting me run. Making me stand there until I would receive my punishment for holding my head high in front of the young woman who had now owned me as her own. Yet the words to take me away never seemed to come, all that came towards me was her gaze which was flooding me with warmth and genuine curiosity in her large ollie eyes that resembled one's of a young child's despite the woman being in her twenties. It was as if she had never seen the world that was the outside, the harshness it followed with, and the mesmerizing beauty that had covered its pain.

"You are new here, aren't you?" She spoke to me after glancing softly at my bare feet, knowing she was correct yet still calming me with a silent conversation which escaped her small chapped lips as she slowly got up and walked closer to the group of maids that I had hidden behind and watched as they scattered at the presents of the treasure who had with no trace of sound greeted me with her presence. I couldn't hold her gaze making my eyes squeeze shut as my limbs now trembled more from fear than the water which was slowly freezing over my feet, burning my toes as if snake tongues with poison that ate at my skin. All gone in the moment with only numbness left behind when a ghostly touch wrapping around my wrist. It was her that held my hand tracing over the slight scarring of a cut that still seemed to be rather fresh.

"This is...?"

"I, I'm sorry my lady. I just wanted to see..." I couldn't finish the words that unexpectedly had died out in my mind before I could speak them to the treasured lady who had traced my sickly pale wrist with a familiar touch that I recalled only belonging to my mother. Caring and loving as if telling me to care for myself more while in the back of my mind I denied it all.

She seemed to tug stronger at my hand as if she knew the moment the thought had crossed my mind, in which I only struggled to keep the emptiness without even knowing why. As if it was instinct to hide beneath the void of emptiness from this piercing gaze of hers before me that she had pinned me down with that had seemed to show me bare. It was instinct that seemed to know, how dangerous my thoughts had become in the focus of this woman for whom my family had abandoned me. Now all I was, was an empty shell that was nothing but an echo of the life I once had, the life before the fall of my family that had thrown me away to be sold to serve a treasure I knew nothing about, with no training or knowledge with only a day to prepare. Not even knowing the treasure was not an item but a living person like myself, much healthier, loved, and always remembered even if she had been locked away. For a split second, I was filled with boiling jealousy in the pit of my stomach. Yet I saw, I saw in her eyes the glint of red from countless spilled tears. It made me sick as I realized she suffered just like I.

"...If you could draw your own blood?"

Her mellow voice was gentle. Like the wind soaring through the golden fields of grain, she brushed my thoughts to sway and open up a path for her to walk through, soon all my thoughts were meant for her.

"Yes..."

It made me answer together with a slow nod filled with shame as I couldn't hold back my frozen expression directed at her. A stuck gaze that I myself wouldn't be able to describe. Was it fear? Admiration, sympathy, or pain shown in the depths of my eyes that she saw as her soft and gentle features seemed to reflect it all. It struck me, like a thundering shock that went through my blood swirling in my veins pulsing together with the beat in my chest while countless questions repeated in my head that I had been dying to ask of her. And with calmness beyond a human mind she seemed to answer them all with a press of a touch and a curl of her lips, a smile one would be stuck gazing at. Yet I didn't dare to, I turned my eyes away from her back onto the ground where the spilled water now had frosted beneath both of our feet becoming now yet another layer to cover and shine over the cold marble flooring.

Without knowing I had already followed her with a light step while my mind still felt like it was in the clouds. In a trance, beyond the cold and pain and all the thoughts that had been eating me from the inside out. Only leaving our merging steps to echo in the emptiness of the colliders as my lady with the flowing river-like hair led me away from the large marble hall, with the rest of the maids soon following as well as the sound of a metallic blade being drawn from its hilt, a silver dagger which was meant to cut at my skin. Dulled from the long years of service and left scarrings on the older girls who too were once chosen just like I had been at this moment. Left in this small gold-covered room with mystic creatures carved in the large walls surrounding me, like a mesmerizing cage foretelling legends from beyond the lands, resembling the ones of ancient shrines and ruins.

The sight was breathtaking, almost making me forget that this place was buried underneath the horrid tyrant's throne we all had called the king. Who hid these gold-covered rooms away from any living eyes, where only just a handful could enter for the price of never being able to leave. Stuck in these small rooms surrounded with burning ambers which light up the ruby eyes above the small steps leading to the marble bath infused in gold and jewels where the treasured maiden had sat down slowly leaning her head on the edge of the bath. Her hair shifting with the movement that had made the young girls swiftly jump up and finally continue with their duties to wash their lady throughoutlly, pouring the cold water through her dulled out color hair with shades that held warm strawberry-like tones. The cold liquid damped the locks of her hair slowly seeping through each strand and flowing onto me. Reaching my dress and sleeves making the wet fabric stuck to my skin, a feeling which was described between the poet words to be something like the cold of the death's embrace which stole all my warmth away even through all the layers I had worn.

The silent trace of metal rung like a warning resembling a lulling song together with the softly splashing water. It's sound-reflecting at the walls and dulling with an echo which seemed to carry through the golden carvings bringing the dancing lights to life just like the setting sun I had caught from the corner of my eye at the start of this new life I had been thrown in. To stay amongst these walls with a hitched breath, as the burning sensation of the blade which overpowered the cold and the pain as it sunk into my paper-thin skin letting the crimson liquid flow through the deepening wound. The blood that I thought would have been frozen escaping my trembling veins.

Slowly like rolling rivers, it soaked the lady's hair turning it into scarlet flaming strands of hair, fluttering with lifelike blooming flowers enveloping me in their embrace. Ruby-colored like the sun before the windy day blinding my vision of only the scarlet that kept filling my palms like the rivers of sunlight I had seemed to adore which I always described on paper as the fate beyond. Just like what I saw in this woman, the stranger who reminded me of simplicity belonging to flowers before they had bloomed and the beauty they carried even if their life lasted for only a short while. A day so to say, a day that had given me a chance to gaze at the God's vessel who had stood before me with deep crimson flowing flames dancing wildly like a phoenix that seemed to come alive from the carvings on the walls and ceilings letting no darkness pass.

She had enveloped me in warmth away from the frozen air which had once again tasted red.