Chapter 4: The Red Baptism

A few days later…

The dagger struck the air where her heart had been half a second earlier.

It clattered against stone, and Aeryn turned; slowly, as if the motion were part of a ritual older than time. Her red-streaked hair caught the torchlight like fire unfurling.

Behind her, the would-be assassin writhed in pain like a slippery snail sprinkled with salt.

He had no face anymore. No breath. Just blood that looked as if its leaking from his ears like tears from a statue. His limbs trembled violently, like pulled taut by invisible strings.

Aeryn had not lifted a hand was evident. The Court whole court was watching her and the assassin. They watched in horrified silence from their positions, frozen in place. They had all come for the Tribunal of Houses; an event of order and old ceremony. They had not come expecting to witness a blood rite.

And yet here it was.

Few hours ago…

Hours earlier, it had seemed like a normal court day. Normal in a sense that after aeryn had questioned her royal court the days before and had struck them silence, since then the court though presumably normal was more of a tense and taut battleground, battling a cold war.

That day, Aeryn had entered the Jaw of Judgment in a gown of raven black, ringlets of crimson gold wound in her hair. Her eyes, pale brown as honey over cooled steel, scanned the gathered Houses and seated royals and nobles in positions.

As soon as she entered the court doors, she heard that there was an assassin among the people present. It was one of her own guards. She hadn't known which one; only that one of them had been paid. She'd heard the whispers in the bones.

Yes, the bones. They spoke to her now. She didn't understand how. Maybe they always had, and only now did she actually understood it in the silent chaos.

As she walked toward the throne she listened, not the songs of the minstrels or the shuffle of boots; but to the marrow-hushed voices beneath the palace stones.

And they whispered: One among them comes to spill your crown.

As she sat on her throne she smiled and sent her maid sakina away in guise of a task and let whatever was supposed to come, come.

She let him lunge. And the moment his blade swung, Aeryn turned with unnatural calm, like a prepared knight.

And in that instant; something inside her broke. No … break is for the weak, something opened inside her.

It was like a well bursting open after centuries of drought. A howl of red fury. A roar in her ears that wasn't sound at all, but blood calling to blood.

The guard's veins lit up beneath his skin, glowing red-hot like molten metal in a forge. He dropped his weapon, shrieking, and clawed at his own flesh. His blood did not spurt; it rose, spiraling from his wounds in ribbons of scarlet, caught in the invisible grasp of a girl who had once dug graves with her hands.

When the body dropped, Aeryn said nothing. She only looked up at the court. As if its saying,

"what is this? Are you playing with me? This all you have got?"

No tears. No screams. Only the silence of someone who had just remembered what she was made of. His eyes as he laid on the floor were stuck on aeryn, as she gave the order, with waving hand and disgusted look, turning her sight away, "clean this up!"

Red hair. Amber eyes. And something older than either. She continued, "if you ever want to play games likes this, either atleast choose good players or play me directly and clean after your mess! Don't spoil my court with the foul blood!"

She turned to sit back and they bowed at her in affirmation to her command. Not all at once, and absolutely not in a show of unity.

It began with Lady Marrion, her lips pale and trembling, her knees creaking as she sank to the floor, her maids trying to hold her stout body.

Then came Lord Innos, hand to heart, expression blank.

Even Vael bowed; though his neck twitched like it resisted the weight of it.

They bent low, not in loyalty but in terror. A child queen had survived an attempt on her life and responded with a display of power so absolute, even the ghosts in the walls held their breath. Now it was confirmed to them, she was not simple like her parents, it won't be easy to get rid of her.

That night, the Jaw of Judgment closed early. And Aeryn locked herself in her chamber. She stared into the mirror for what felt like hours. Her hair had changed. The red that had once only kissed the tips now bled and ran upward, strand by strand, like her roots were catching flame from the inside out.

She touched her scalp. It didn't hurt. But it didn't feel like hers anymore, either.

Her light brown eyes glimmered faintly; more gold than ever before. Something deep in her blood was waking. She felt hot and flushed. Heat escaping her body. She threw herself on her bed trying to sleep and forget what she did in the morning, but the mere memory of her committing murder kept her up.

At midnight, she went to the mirror again. This time, she whispered.

"What are you?"

But the girl staring back said nothing.

......

She had long stopped trying to please them but after the murder all possibilities of standing with them at same page were lost. She was tired of pretending to be what she was not. She made commitment herself in the mirror.

No more flattery.

No more performances.

No more Council tea rituals or fake smiles over honeyed bread.

Then when she went to the court she gave a single command:

"All Houses will bind blood to me. Publicly. No more ancestral oaths on parchment. I want blood. I want bone."

All of them gasped and resisted this. Of course they did. Some said, " your highness you are too young!"

Your highness, you wont be able to carry the weight of the blood!"

Your highness… blood demand blood, it will retaliate!"

Your highness… this

Your highness… that…"

All of them were saying everything to stop her from binding them down to her. Binding blood meant, they had to protect each other on the verge of blood and death.

But their resistance lasted exactly two days, they knew her powers now, though little but enough to make them even dread her in their dreams. One by one, the Great Houses stood before her in the Tower of Names, where the ancestral records were etched into silver stone. Aeryn stood at the heart of the ritual circle, barefoot, her red hair unbound, the palace storming behind her with thunder not born from clouds.

She watched them prick their thumbs and drip their noble blood into the flame. Watched the sigils blaze red across the silver. Watched their magic, their power, their lineages; all bind to her.

She was no longer just their queen. She was their anchor. Their leash. And their curse.

But not all Houses complied in truth. One; used false blood, drawn from a stable beast. They mimicked the ritual. Lied to her face.

She didn't notice at first, not for some time But Sahirra remembered.

...

That week, her advisors mostly her teachers and mentors begged her to soften.

"The court fears you, your highness" one whispered. "Fear is not the same as loyalty. My queen!"

She dismissed him with a flick of her fingers; and he bled from the nose for three days. No physician could stop it. And words spread.

Aeryn, the Witch Queen.

Aeryn, the Redborn.

Aeryn, the Blood Heiress of Hama.

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