A Blessing in Disguise

She saw Princess Evangeline for the first time today.

Arren had been training with some of the knights in the courtyard when news spread of the princess's capture, but Asher had pulled her inside when he found out. He had told her not to look, to stay away from the windows while they brought her in. But unable to resist, Arren peeked out from behind the curtains to watch. They were going to kill her tomorrow, and she needed to see her at least once before she died.

A line of silver-armored soldiers marched her down the cobblestone path to the dungeons. A large crowd had gathered, but Evangeline was a burning beacon. Even hurt and covered in dirt and grime, she held herself with a regal air, head held high, nose turned up, and her mane of god-touched red hair billowing around her. People screamed obscenities and threw rocks at her, but she did not flinch.

Arren felt like she was looking at a strange, distorted mirror. From a distance, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. They had the same round facial structure and upturned eyes, the same thin wrists, and long, skinny fingers.

But the princess had unmarked skin and no slave mark on her wrist. She had a kindness to her shoulders and a softness to her step like she was walking on different ground. Her clothes, though dirty and covered in blood, were made of a rich silk one could only dream of. And every finger and wrist was covered in shining gold worth more than this palace.

Meanwhile, Arren’s hands were only stained with blood.

Only once they had brought Evangeline out of sight did Arren release the breath she had been holding, did her fingers loosen from their death grip on the curtains. Asher had been right; she shouldn’t have looked.

Later, after they had retired to bed when the sun had long gone down, Arren found herself wide awake, unable to sleep. Her hands fisted her blankets, and anger simmered in her chest. Evangeline’s face was burned into her memory. She had seen her sister, but she needed her sister to see her.

So once she was sure Asher was fast asleep in the neighboring room, she crept out of her bed and crossed the palace grounds to the dungeons. She had long mastered the ability to slink through the shadows unnoticed. It was a path she could have made with her eyes closed. She knew every stone, every guard, and every blind spot. When she came upon the guard watching over the cell, she used her Blessing to put him to sleep.

Outside the cell, she froze. She wanted to scream at herself for her foolishness. If she was caught, she would find herself hanging beside her in the morning. What was she doing? What could this shell of a girl, a prisoner, offer her?

Arren’s hands shook as she slowly raised them to unlock the door. She knew the answer. She needed someone to understand the anger that lived in her, that simmered every moment, and that had buried itself so deep into her skin that she was sure if someone touched her, they’d feel its heat. It was anger that burned her alive and that, some days, she wished would turn her to ash.

It was almost like Evangeline had been waiting for her. Her eyes caught hers the moment she walked inside, a dark storm of gray threatening to sweep her away. The sudden eye contact made Arren inhale through her nose, startled like a ghost in the night. She felt Evangelin’s emotions wash over her like a wave: awe, confusion, expectation, uncertainty, and hesitance. She looked away, breathing heavily.

“It’s you,” her mirror said, her voice raspy and dry. Evangeline sat curled in the top right corner, propped up against one of the walls. She had been stripped of her expensive robes and jewelry, left only in a thin shift, and had a wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Even in the dim light, her hair glowed like embers that curled around her face. “My sister.”

Arren groped for the door, already turning away. She had been wrong to come. What had she been thinking? There was nothing this girl, this princess of another world, could understand about her life. They may have shared blood, but they were nothing alike.

“Don’t go, please,” Evangeline pleaded softly. “You’re Aryadne, aren’t you?”

The name was bile on her tongue. They had named Evangeline after the goddess of spring flowers. They had named Arren after the god of endless despair.

Arren’s fingers closed around the iron handle of the door, but the cold metal only made her skin burn hotter. She felt like her heart was boiling in her chest, and if she didn’t speak, she would burn from the inside. "Yes, sister, it’s me.”

When she turned around, Evangeline had shifted closer, as if to get a better look at her. Arren kept a close eye on the distance between them. She knew the secret behind her abilities and that her Blessing only affected those she touched. 

“You’re angry,” Evangeline said after a moment, her voice soft and unnaturally soothing.

It did nothing to quell the anger in her chest; it only made her heart beat louder in her ears, like the sound of pounding drums. “Of course I’m angry,” Arren hissed, and her usually well-controlled voice dripped venom. “Do you know what they call you? The Touch of Vikarus. The Red Angel. Saviour. Saint. The people kneel at your feet and pray for your health and happiness, and they go to war and die every day for you.” 

Arren laughed, though there wasn’t any humor in her tone. “And do you know what they call me? The Barren Heart. An assassin in the night. They call me that because I take, and I take, and I take until there’s nothing left.”

“I am who I am.” There was no malice in her voice, only an unending ocean of sadness

“You are who you are because our dear uncle picked you,” Arren snarled, clenching her fists so hard she felt her nails draw blood. “They wanted the god-touched girl they could raise into a saint. And they got one at the cost of me. They left me behind at the mercy of the same people who killed our parents. Everything you have, everything you are, is because of me!”

“Are you not who you are because of what you have been through?” Evangeline asked. Without touching her, Arren knew she could not sense her emotions, but it still seemed as if her sister could see right through her. “Have you not been shaped just as I was into the girl you are right now?”

Arren’s voice was taught like a bowstring. “You don’t know the atrocities I have experienced. The training. The torture. The scars were healed, so no one would know. The hundreds of times they broke me just to mend me to what they wanted. I walked a path of despair so you could wake in satin sheets.” Every ounce of her control left her body in the face of this girl, and she hated herself for it. “You never would have survived what I went through.”

Evangeline didn’t even try to argue. She, in contrast, was the picture of calm. “I wouldn’t have.”

Her honesty seemed to break something within Arren because her knees buckled, and she slowly slid down the wall, falling onto her hands and exhaling all the air in her lungs until her head felt light.

“Why did you protect that boy?” Arren asked, staring at the ceiling. It was the only reason Evangeline had been caught. She had sacrificed her life for another.

“I love him,” Evangeline said simply.

Silence lapsed between them, but the emptiness wasn’t all-consuming; it allowed Arren’s heart to calm until the fire in her chest was warm rather than burning. She wasn’t sure she could understand the love Evangeline spoke of, but she hoped maybe one day she would.

“They took my ability to have children,” Arren finally said, her throat scratchy and raw, like she had been screaming for hours. “They know what I could become, and they don’t want another.” It felt like a weight was lifted off of her at her admission. She had grown used to being distrusted and hated, but the understanding that she was feared calmed her.

A hand slowly reached forward but stopped short, a polite distance away. Arren looked up, and when their eyes met, tears were streaking down her sister's face, and anguish in her eyes. “They did the same to me,” she whispered as if the words physically hurt her.

The last of her anger left her body, and in that moment, there was a shared moment of understanding and grief that neither of them could quite understand but that they appreciated. They basked in the feeling that maybe they weren't alone. Arren had never thought walking a golden path could be just as awful. 

“We can’t let them crush us,” Evangeline said with vehemence. Her eyes burned.

Arren let her gaze drift to the slave mark on her left wrist, carved into her skin. “I think they already have.”