When my skin is not my own and the heart is tainted, there is still one thing that will always belong to me. My soul! No more shall it weep in the darkest of nights but it shall become a beacon of light for all those who cannot see. I am a warrior...
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*BANG BANG BANG.* The incessant knocking jarred Lalzari awake, her heart racing as she sat up, disoriented. She quickly touched her body, half-expecting to find herself stripped, but her clothes were still intact.
"No one came to my room in the middle of the night?" she muttered, confused. "That’s not how it usually goes..."
“Lalzari! The king is asking for you!” A voice squawked from the other side of the door, loud and shrill like a yapping parrot.
The king? Asking for me? Lalzari's thoughts swirled. Maybe he had mercy last night... But her momentary hope quickly faded. Don’t be a fool, child. A monster will always remain a monster.
Lost in the ocean of her thoughts, Lalzari barely noticed the door bursting open behind her. A servant barged in, glaring at her.
“Are you deaf?” he snapped. The servants had gossiped endlessly about the new girl the king had bought, and without even knowing her, they already despised her. Lalzari, however, remained silent, as Melaniee had once warned her: “Every word you say will come back to you. Keep your mouth shut, or you’ll end up with your tongue cut off, bleeding on the sidewalk, unable to scream as you choke on your own blood.” Melaniee’s words haunted her, and Lalzari took them to heart. So, she stayed quiet.
“Bought by the king, and now you think you’re royalty, huh?” The servant sneered, growing more agitated by her silence. “Just go to the king!”
Lalzari only nodded, pulling her thin blanket tighter around herself, waiting for him to leave. But he didn’t. He stood there, staring at her like she was some caged animal in a zoo. Lalzari met his gaze with her own subdued expression, unwilling to let him see any emotion.
“She’s so strange,” the servant muttered, shaking his head before finally leaving the room.
Once he was gone, Lalzari let out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. “I should probably brush my hair and wash my face,” she said softly to herself, standing up to inspect the new dress laid out for her. “The king seems like the type who likes his women presentable.”
She slipped into the dress, the fabric soft but suffocating. As she gazed into the mirror, she couldn’t help but feel a growing emptiness behind her reflection. The royal gown, with its ornate embroidery and sleeves that barely reached her elbows, felt foreign on her skin. The hollow look in her eyes startled her. There, in the glass, she saw not a girl, but a ghost of someone who once had a will of her own.
“What have I become?” Lalzari whispered in her thoughts, the void inside her growing darker, threatening to consume her.
The castle loomed above her, an overwhelming fortress of wealth and decadence. Massive doors lined the walls, each draped in a shimmering cascade of golden glitter and studded with rubies that gleamed like drops of blood in the candlelight.
