The Red Lady

I was no longer the lady I used to see in the mirror as she was dressed by countless maids with only a quill and paper on her mind. 

"Hurry up Omelia." A whisper from one of the girls hurried me in an even whisper away from my reflection in the mirror to get ready and gather with the rest while I took the last glance at myself who looked as weary as the maids I once myself tormented with countless requests: My long braided hair hidden away by a day cap, the pale almost sickly complexion making my hazel eyes stormy and dull from what they used to be, they once were wandering and curious full of life and light which more resembled the calm lakes when reflecting the skies above them. There was only a vague memory left of those full of depth eyes which now were framed by darkening circles from lack of sleep and rest. Now I was the one who could never glimpse at the sun beyond the walls of the cold castle. Where only crimson rivers of sunlight seemed to flow promising another cold and windy day after the star-crossed night which was lulling the darkness with its soft lilac chime into a deep sleep as countless silent and hesitant footsteps walked through the empty corridors. 

Three of those same design figures carried large silverware bowls filled with icy water. Young fragile as fawns girls with roughly dried skin shivering from the freezing droplets of water running down their rosy hands, the feeling of thousands of red ants crawling under their skin slowly crept up from their palms and fingertips forcing them to lighten up their quick strides to a smoother step to make the trip through the endless maze more bearable. The girls who were called ladies-in-waiting followed the woman who strode a meter ahead of them with a head held high slightly lined with wrinkles from age at the corners of her lips yet still her calm expression held a youthful look in her narrowed and stern gaze directed at the heavy metal door ahead where the air seemed to get colder and colder. From which the young girls who were dressed in light summer maid gowns shivered as they kept themselves low making themselves smaller with an elegant arch of their necks resembling the bending willows in the grand duchess's gardens giving an elegant yet lonesome sight as its branches continued to sway at the smallest of winds.  

I was the fourth.  

Silently hurrying after the rest with unmatched steps who couldn't keep up. Only my steps echoed while my feet tangled with each other unlike the older girls in front of me who seemed to walk on silk, their heels never making a sound as it struck the stony underground flooring which I alone had to cross barefoot. We were only a couple of years apart but we differed from just a glance: their stance was light and confident, the way they carried themselves didn't show even a glimpse of restriction in their movement from the neatly tucked in petticoats hiding away the stays that seemed to only restrict my motion alone showing from my stiff back and shoulders. My breath hitched, the sudden air took me by surprise as it rushed through the gap of the heavy door which the two men with lances in their hands opened up for us. The lump of air stuck in my throat paining my lungs that seemed to freeze over with each though of needing to breathe unable to warm themselves up from the sudden dry frosty air one only encountered in the harshest winters. It was Martha who had yanked on the lacing at my back loosening my dress for a short second allowing me to swallow down the lump of frost that had wrapped around my lungs with a strain in my vocal cords. I wasn't sure what had come over me, was it the rush of sudden wind in the inside of the castle or the frozen in place air not letting me breath made me pick up my gaze from the ground and direct them forward to an empty dark hall only illuminated by a couple of candles. Their flames dancing along with the cold air not letting the melting wax drip. All this time I had been wandering through the endless maze and yet here I found myself not following the glimpse of the warmth I couldn't have but the darkness where shadows seemed to have danced around a woman in only her shift leisurely sitting on a large marble throne, lifeless as if she had been dead. My eyes widened at the sight, What I thought to be hidden away from eyes of the nobles and the lands, even the servants of the castle, was nothing but a woman, not the known treasures, not mountains of cold, not the priceless family heirlooms covered in diamonds and jewels but a simple woman was the one hidden and locked away behind countless of mazes in the dungeon under the king's throne. 

I had only heard stories, that long before the king's ruled the lands they were given a blessing, a vessel for luck, fortune, and power, an item that held all knowledge, the truths that were the key to all secrets of the world. Who could have known it was not some ancient artifacts that had told the prophecies and the far-off places beyond the silver rivers and mountains covered on silk was nothing but an ordinary woman who carried no traces of the unique traits one would expect to see? After all, the vessel had been told to be one of the god's own, it would be strange one did not expect to see golden hair or eyes filled with souls of the dead that had let the kings see into the far future. She had supposed to be a treasure that bestowed abilities upon the heirs beyond common blood's imagination and measured their worth before their passing, somehow I always imagined it was a book or an orb which spoke in foreign tongue bestowing messages upon our lands in letters of gold and voices that pierced through the heavens, the one that had brought fate through our lands just like the boiling lava from depths of the earth.

With a slow blink, she traced her eyes at me which was a shade of warm honey brown, those were the eyes the common folk had carried unlike the unique traits of royals of golden and silver or nobles with oceans and lakes locked away in their marble eyes, she hadn't even received the traces of the forests that had surrounded the lands. What it was, was a refined color of the soil just like the ground which had been a footing through the passing centuries for all humankind. She was the one that we called the god's blessing.

"You have a beautiful mind..." I couldn't help but jump at her voice that had rung in my head, the prickling sensation had taken me by surprise not able to hold out my grip dropping silverware on the floor leaving it's rattling echoes to disturb the sudden silence while all I was left with was to hear my own leaping out of my chest heart from fear and humiliation as I looked over the maids who were kneeling in silence before the woman. I felt the looming air around me, the gazes the older girls had given me even Martha who had tried to help me before had given up, averted her gaze away...

"My lady?!"

I trembled in her presence at her main like looming waves of her which seemed to envelop me like shadows. Silence, it was the silence that had been the most important rule, and yet here I was walking on a thin line of my lady's patience who had surprisingly didn't seem to mind this behavior of mine. Even when our eyes locked I just saw the traces of the gaze I had held myself before when I still hadn't seen the terrors of the real world here a fallen bowl of spilled already freezing water was just there to be picked up not to get punished for or for holding my head high in front of the young woman who had now own me as her own looking at me with genuine curiosity in her large ollie eyes that resembled one's of a young child's despite the woman being in her twenties. It was as if she had never seen the world that was the outside, the harshness it followed with, and the mesmerizing beauty that had covered its pain. 

"You are new here, aren't you?" She spoke to me after a look at my feet, knowing she was correct yet still calming me with a silent conversation which escaped her small chapped lips as she slowly got up and walked closer to the group of maids that I had hidden behind and watched as they scattered at the presents of the treasure who had with no trace of sound greeted me with her presence, I couldn't hold her gaze making my eyes squeeze shut as my limbs now trembled more from fear than the freezing water slowly flowing under my feet. Burning my toes as if snake tongues with poison that ate at my skin all gone in the moment when a ghostly touch wrapping around my wrist. I was her that held my hand tracing over the slight scarring of a cut that still seemed to be rather fresh.

"This is...?" 

"I, I'm sorry my lady. I just wanted to see..." I couldn't finish the words that unexpectedly had died out in my mind before I could speak them to the treasures lady who had traced my sickly pale wrist with a familiar touch that I recalled belonging to my mother. Caring and loving as if telling me to care for myself more that I still struggled with not even knowing where to begin int he back of my mind not even letting myself think so as I had begun to give up on the thing that I had become. An empty shell that was nothing but an Echo if the life I once had before the fall of my family that had thrown me away to be sold to serve a treasure I knew nothing about, with no training or knowledge with only a day to prepare. Not even knowing the treasure was not an item but a living person like myself, much healthier, loved, and always remembered even if she had been locked away. Yet I saw, I saw in her eyes that glinted red from countless spilled tears she suffered just like I. 

"...If you could draw your own blood?" 

Her mellow voice was gentle. 

"Yes."  

It made me answer together with a slow nod filled with shame as I couldn't hold back my frozen expression of fear directed at her. A thundering shock that went through my blood swirled in my veins pulsing together with the beat in my chest while countless questions swirled in my head that I had been dying to ask of her yet I didn't dare to, turning my gaze away from her back onto the ground where the spilled water now had frosted beneath our feet. Without knowing I had already followed her with a light step, my mind still empty as the woman with the flowing like a river hair led me away from the large marble hall with the rest of the maids soon following and sound of a metallic blade being drawn from its hilt. A silver dagger which was meant to cut at my skin, dulled from the long years of service and left scarring on the older girl who too was once chosen just like I had been at the moment. Left in a small gold-covered room with mystic creatures carved in it foretelling legends from beyond the lands resembling the walls of ancient shrines and ancient ruins, a small room surrounded with burned amber lighting up the ruby eyes above a couple of steps leading to the marble bath infused in gold where the maiden had sat down averting her head and shifting her onto her small back letting the maids taken over and wash her throughout. Pouring the cold water through her dulled out color hair with shades that held tones of warm strawberries. The cold liquid damped the volumes hair as well as reaching to my sleeves and dress like a death's embrace, my clothing had stuck to my body stealing all the warmth even through all the layers I had worn. 

As the silent trace of metal rung at the splashing water. It's sound-reflecting at the falls dulling with an echo which seemed to carry through the golden carvings bringing the dancing lives to life just like the setting sun I had caught from the corner of my eye at which I slowly breathed in as the burning sensation overpowered the cold splitting my paper-thin skin letting the crimson liquid flow through the deepening wound. The blood that I thought would have been frozen escaping my trembling veins, slowly like rolling rivers it soaked the lady’s hair turning it into scarlet flaming locks fluttering with lifelike blooming flowers enveloping me in their embrace. Ruby-like the sun before the windy day blinding my vision of only the scarlet that kept filling my palms like the rivers of sunlight I had seemed to adore which I always described on paper as the fate beyond, just like that I saw in this woman, the stranger who reminded me of simplicity belonging to flowers before they had bloomed and the beauty they carried even if their life lasted for a short while. A day so to say, A day that had given me a chance to gaze at the God's vessel who had stood before me with deep crimson flowing flames dancing wildly like phoenixes that seem to come alive from the carvings on the walls and ceilings letting no darkness pass. 

She had enveloped me in warmth away from the frozen air which had once again tasted red.