The Flame Queen: Book One of The Legends of Peradon Series (Ages 14+)

Chapter 12

Violetta

Violetta stirred in her sleep. The nightmares were never far away. Like monsters with sharp talons, they crept into the space between thoughts and clawed through her subconscious mind. They were coming for her; coming for all she had left to give. The traitor.

Sunlight burst into the room, waking the young princess from her oppressive dreams. Violetta groped for the curtain cord. When her fingers slipped round it, the sun granted her peace.

'That's better.' She blinked a few times, clearing her vision when a figure to her left made her bolt upright. Violetta scrabbled to the back of her bed. She stared back across her chambers and found herself at the mercy of laughter. The figure stared back from her dresser mirror and continued with its fit of giggles. She observed her mirrored twin from afar, where it appeared as a bedraggled and bloodshot mess, with hair sticking out at all sorts of odd angles.

Violetta was reminded of those awful dreams and could already feel herself being pulled back into their dark abyss.

Remains littered the surface below her. Violetta could smell the blood that smeared the high stone walls of an ancient cell and the melted wax which welded her to a chair. She'd struggled at first, making several attempts to break free, yet when her bonds broke, more appeared.

Vicious chains sprang up around her and bit into her tender flesh. Violetta had to stifle her tears as footsteps approached. Several figures circled round her before ripping a musty sheet off of an ornate mirror. The golden lense glared back, its clawed feet digging into the stonework.

'Look!' snarled a cruel voice. 'Look at what you've done to yourself!'

Violetta refused her captor's orders, only for an unsightly creature to stalk forward, its breath like the rottenest of eggs.

'Go on,' the figures chanted. The demonic creature seized her hair, tilting her head for a better view. 'Look at what you've become.'

Violetta longed to resist them. She felt her eyes moving in the mirror's direction and was unable to do a thing about it. A scream of anguish split her lips. Her reflection showed the true extent of her captor's brutality. Hair had been ripped from her now bleeding scalp, her face cut and bruised beyond recognition.

The creature behind held her still while the circle of figures began to swarm, beating her with their sizeable fists. Violetta howled in pain. She was a princess no longer. Now she was but another bloodied creature, her gentle spirit broken by a room full of traitors. Her life was drained from her once more, stored all too conveniently in that damned gift of Lord Jork's.

Shrill laughter gave way to darkness. It leaked into the last of Violetta's thoughts as all feeling dissipated from her limbs. And there in the darkness came a familiar whisper,

'Violetta.'

Violetta left the memory in a daze. Her startled eyes reflected back at her, peering through a mess of hair.

'It was only a dream,' she assured herself. 'Dreams can't hurt you.'

Yet Violetta wished she knew what they meant. She had heard that mirrors related to truth, but she had yet to connect Jork's ball to the sensation of life being drained from her body. Perhaps Ryore's mention of a traitor at the ball had played some mysterious part in this. One day she would figure it out.