The Girl in the Tower

Gerard knelt in the dim tower room, his terrified eyes fixed upon the stained, threadbare carpet. The quiet pressed down, all the more ominous for the small sounds which penetrated it: the ticking of a grandfather clock, the occasional muted caws of crows outside, and worst of all, the rhythmic tap...tap...tap of a blade against a palm.

He let it weigh upon him as long as he could bear, before finally risking a peek upward.

The girl before him smirked, the expression far too cunning for her twelve years. Those were the cold eyes of an ancient predator.

"This is the part that intrigues me," the child said, her voice making him flinch. "This vial has been tampered with. The cork was re-inserted after the seal was broken, and the poison contained therein is heavily diluted. I know the experts who gave you this vial did not do such a thing, which leaves…”

Gerard swallowed heavily, unable to tear his gaze from her pitiless black eyes. Kneeling here before her, he fully believed what everyone whispered: that the Black Princess was the child of a curse. Apart from her size, she did not seem like a child at all. The girl wasn’t normal.

Princess Morenna val Haarstein had her mother’s famous black hair and eyes, a rare coloration in the Empire considered an ill omen. She wore a black gown of the sort usually reserved for funerals. On the arm of her battered armchair sat the vial of poison she had effortlessly taken from him, and in her right hand she grasped the hilt of a smallsword, the daintier cousin of a rapier; a full-sized weapon would have been too long for her to handle. Slowly, continually, she tapped the flat of the blade against her opposite palm.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

“Well?” the Princess finally prompted in a colder tone.

After swallowing again, Gerard managed to answer her, hoarsely. “I…I tampered with it, your Highness. I poured out half and mixed it with water. I thought…”

“You thought… what?” Her voice was controlled menace—like silk draped over darkness itself. How was this girl only twelve?

“I thought…” Gerard gulped again. “…maybe it would…not be fatal, this way.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

Another hoarse caw from outside.

“How intriguing,” the Princess mused after a heavy pause. “Brazen enough to enter the chambers of the infamous cursed child of the Emperor, brave enough to administer poison to one of royal blood… And yet you balk at murder?”

“He threatened my wife!” Gerard burst out in desperation. “Please, your Highness, I had no choice! If I lost her… B-but, even if I saved her life, she would never look at me the same if I…if I murdered a child. I would not be able to live with myself. I…I know it was foolish, b-but it was all I could think of.”

“Ah, yes,” Morenna drawled. “Your wife—the other variable in this equation. Bring her,” she added in a louder voice.

The outer door opened, and a young woman was pushed none too gently through by the armored castle guard who maintained a grip on her upper arm.

“Annabel!” Gerard exclaimed, starting to rise.

“Gerard!” his wife cried.

“Quiet,” Morenna said in annoyance, causing everyone to freeze. She continued ominously tapping the sword against her palm. “Soldier, you may go.”

The burly man hesitated. “Your Highness, it’s not—”

All she moved was her eyes, shifting them to stare directly at him.

The guard broke off, going pale beneath his helmet. He saluted once, then backed all the way out into the stairs and pulled the door shut behind himself.

“You suffer from bouts of sickness,” Princess Morenna stated, now staring at Annabel. “Fainting fits, chronic weakness and fatigue, and periodic fevers. Small injuries are unusually prone to infection, your monthly courses are more painful than for most women, and you have been unable to conceive.”

“H-how…” Annabel had gone even paler than the guard; her husband dared to rise, wrapping his arms protectively around her, but both still cowered from the young Princess. “How could your Highness possibly—”

“You should always assume that I know more than you expect,” Morenna said with a cold little smile that did nothing to soften her features. “Healers have not been able to help you, because of the caliber of healers peasants can afford. What you have, Annabel, is a glandular deficiency.”

“Glan…du…” Annabel blinked, trying to repeat the unfamiliar word.

“It means that of the countless tiny organs in which produce tiny amounts of crucial fluids which our bodies require to function, some of yours do not work. This cannot be cured. As you are, your health will gradually continue to fail until the accumulated stress proves too much. Women with your condition seldom live past the age of thirty, untreated.”

“No,” Gerard whispered, clutching his wife even tighter.

“While it cannot be cured, treatment is possible.” Finally removing her left hand from beneath the blade, the child flicked her wrist and a second glass vial appeared in her palm. “An alchemist can make artificial substitutes for your missing hormones. Provided you take it regularly, your health will stabilize. This…” She held up the vial of medicine between finger and thumb. “…is beyond the means of a castle footman and his homemaker wife. For the allowance of a Princess, it is trivial.”

Gerard and Annabel held each other, staring at the cursed princess in an agony of fear and hope.

“This is what will happen,” the girl stated. “You will tell me everything about the one who threatened you. Then you will move your things into the servants’ quarters at the base of my tower. I have need of a footman and a lady’s maid whose discretion and loyalty are not in question; the castle servants refuse to set foot in here. They only feed me because it frightens them more when I visit the kitchens. You will be paid as befits the personal servants of a Princess…and your medicine will be provided free of charge.”

She closed her fist around the vial, clenching it so hard it trembled, and leaned toward them. The Black Princess bared her teeth in a snarl that held the rage of an entire lifetime.

“You will serve me faithfully and well, Annabel and Gerard, because as of this day, I. Own. You.”

Morenna glared at them, her snarl becoming a grin of savage triumph—the glare of a villain, victorious.

And then both of them surged forward, lunging to their knees at her feet. Morenna instinctively twitched back, barely managing not to cut either of them with her sword.

“Oh bless you, Princess, bless your mercy!” Babbling, Gerard bowed his head before her blade.

“Thank the Powers for your generosity, your Highness!” Annabel cried, actually seizing one of the girl’s feet and kissing her threadbare slipper. “Truly, you were sent by the Powers of Mercy!”

“We can never repay this kindness, your Highness, but we shall never forget it!”

“W-what are…hey! Let go!” All the ice and venom of her demeanor melted in the face of confusion and frustration. Morenna scuttled back into her chair as the grateful couple kept trying to kiss her feet and the hem of her dress, dropping her sword in the scuffle. “Get off me! What’s the matter with— Stop smiling! I am threatening you!”

“You are as fearsome as you are lovely, my Princess!”

“Your servants revere your kindness as well as the terror of—”

“All right, enough! I get it already. ENOUGH!”

Morenna had shuffled back all the way in her chair to escape the tearful peasants, and now huddled against its back with her slippers on the seat. At her shout, they finally seemed to remember their place, settling back expectantly. At some point the vial of poison had been knocked to the floor.

She breathed in, then out, regathering her poise.

“I…ahem. Well. As I was saying. Gerard, you will tell me everything about the one who ordered you to kill me.”

Gerard nodded. “I…will do my best, your Highness, but I’m afraid I will disappoint you. He wore a mask and cloak—obviously trying to hide his identity.”

“I expected as much, never fear.” Gingerly, she slipped back down into her seat, attempting to pretend she had never been discomfited despite the faint blush lingering on her pale cheeks. “Just tell me everything you remember— every detail, no matter how unimportant it may seem. I will do the rest. Where and when were you to meet?”