The reflection of the Queen: Exile

Chapter 21

Seeing Loana's disgusted and frightened expression wasn't the worst thing that had happened to me that day, but that didn't make me any less enraged.

"L-Lady Persie! -What...?"

"Shut up and give me that."

She had been sent to my room with a tray of bandages, scissors and ointment. She must have already imagined what she would find, but that had not prepared her for the sight of my raw palms. All my skin was up where Scilla's rod had torn it, and had remained so when she tired of punishing me and made me spend the whole morning in chains while she paced the clearing cursing intelligibly. I had uncovered the mirrors to continue the training without letting go, but when I connected with my magic, ready to kill her with it, I had found that, when the crystal my hair grayed and my eyes turned metallic, my hands were still imprisoned in the chains. Perhaps feeding it with my anger I could have gotten it to loosen, but my teacher covered the mirrors again before I could do so and made the recruits leave. Apparently, my workouts kept being abruptly interrupted by Scilla's angry outbursts.

In all that time I could not stop feeling the sting of the open wounds and how my blood slid down my wrists and dripped on the floor, but she had no intention of healing me at any time. So I spent those hours staring at the floor, imagining a thousand different ways to end her life and trying to ignore the pain. My imagination would occasionally wander and I would end up fleetingly thinking I was in a valley of silver mist with the Man of Dreams, and I even felt Lokih's hand stroking my cheek. In the end, that only made it more hellish.

When I returned to the house, Fyodor simply glanced at my hands before ordering me to go to my room.

With an abruptness that, truth be told, I needed at that moment, I snatched the tray from Loana's hands and cut the bandage myself.

"B-But... what happened?"

"I'll tell you what happened: they wanted to train me with a damn crazy woman."

"But..."

"Go away."

"Lady Persie, I can't..."

"Get out of here!!!"

The white light my eyes gave off was so powerful that it reflected in the maid's eyes, who fled without replying again. When she closed the door, I opened the jar of ointment and applied some to my palms. It stung like acid, but the last thing I needed was for them to become more infected than they already were. Once I finished applying it, I wrapped the bandages around my hands. I had practice, it wasn't the first time I had to take care of my wounds by myself.

Blood soon soiled the white bandages, and I couldn't take it anymore. My vision turned silver and, with a scream, I grabbed the jar of flowers on my bedside table and threw it against the wall. Not content with seeing it shattered on the floor, I threw the nightstand as well. The same thing happened to the chair, the circular table, the stool. When I hit the stool, I hurt my hands. I groaned in pain and fell to my knees, looking helplessly at my bandaged hands, the red spreading on the cloth and, before I knew it, a tear had already slipped from my still silver eye.

I had enough. That may have been an island, a rebellion that symbolized good and freedom, but the people who led it did not. They were hypocrites, cruel, heartless, phonies. My hatred for them and everything they stood for was beyond conceivable. It was bigger than myself, a secret as heavy as a huge rock that had been tied to my back for years and I had been dragging it out over and over again all that time. That secret was coming to light, revealing itself as inordinate darkness.

A second tear fell on the bandages on my outstretched hands, then a third. The ointment had helped, but the pain refused to go away. The last time I had been so badly hurt, so broken, had been....