Page 53 of Demonic Cage
The black-haired woman stares at me from the end of the room. I know I shouldn’t, but my gaze immediately falls on her golden tiara’s red eye. The woman’s hair turns into snakes, staring straight at me. And then both my body and soul freezes.
The red light of her eyes shatters my consciousness. It tears apart the wounds carefully plastered over the years. My brother’s face appears before me.
It breaks me into tiny pieces. He abandoned me. He didn’t take care of me. Or himself. Why wasn’t I angry with him until now? Bengt floats before me with angelic wings. In the background are my parents, watching only him. With them is Maya. I scorn her. My sister’s angelic face. Ridiculous. There is a sublime halo above her head. I would tear it down. I would shatter it. Just so everyone could see she’s faking it.
My hatred for my siblings turns into tar, like the black poison cloud created by Darya – the syneffo. I no longer see the room. I stand in a black bubble with my blessed sister and my brother and their white swan wings. Hate gnaws and burns inside me. It consumes my skin, peeling the flesh from me, burying me in the soil under hell. I swim in this cocoon for years, in the darkness. My hatred breaks me apart.
A human lifetime later, I hear a familiar voice in the distance. A demon’s. His voice makes me feel like I’m waking up from a thousand-year-old dream. I open my eyes.
I am in the same room where the tree stands – where Darya bit me just now. I collapse to the ground and put my hands on my ears. I rock back and forth as the anger dissipates within me, replaced with guilt. Nárs said that Sylla can bring out the deepest horrors from the soul, and I’ve experienced the same thing twice already in the form of the anger towards my siblings. My relationship with Maya has always been complicated, but Bengt… No! I refuse to believe that I hate my brother. I simply cannot.
“Enough, Sylla.” The Demon King’s determined voice fills the room, devoid of any other particular emotion.
“It’s not me doing it anymore,” the woman’s whispering, melodic voice rings out. “She’s doing it on her own now.”
I don’t really understand what she means. I just rock back and forth, crying inside without tears. Bengt, Bengt, Bengt…
“Lotte…” Darya speaks softly and squats beside me.
“No!” I whisper. “I didn’t…”
I have no idea what I want to say, I just see my brother’s face before me. I no longer see Darya or Sylla. Someone wraps their arms around me. I scream.
“No! It’s not true!”
I struggle. I only see my brother’s face as he smiles at me one last time. Then life leaves him.
Something changes.
A blanket, but not mine. Black, heavy covers. A silver-haired man wraps me. He looks at me with probing eyes. He strokes my shoulder. I almost feel like he cares about me.
The blood in the corner of his mouth sobers me up. At the age of twenty-two, I should learn that a snake can only bite.
“I hate you…” I would scream at the Kraldem, but all I can do is hiss. Just like him.
“You don’t hate me, Lotte,” the Demon King whispers as he gently strokes my face. “You hate yourself.”
I don’t remember closing my eyes. Nor do I remember dreaming. But as I blink, it feels as though I’m escaping one nightmare’s grasp. Only to enter another. Moreover, I have no idea where I am.
The dark blankets still bury me beneath them, but the oval room is filled with natural light, with no trace of the crimson glow. The scent of anise caresses my nose; so sweet, I can taste it in my mouth. Gray bricks surround me, coated in a dark silver sludge. Some are breaking apart, forming hexagons that stretch up to the egg-shaped domed ceiling, as if I’m confined to a hive. This is not the cave system, and the voices don’t resemble those found underground. From afar, I hear the flapping of wings and birdsong. I rise.
The room is filled with books and scrolls – some neatly arranged, others in disarray. A massive, black-polished, square stone table stands in the middle of the room. The other bookshelves and cabinets sink into the walls, just like in my cell. Could this be my new prison?
I cast off the heavy blanket and step towards one of the large windows. My eyes widen. This is perhaps the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. A multitude of sharply pointed mountains sprawl in the distance, as far as the human eye can perceive. Their peaks have a blanket of snow heavier than the one thatcovered me moments ago. Wispy clouds cling to the graceful summits.
I see houses in the distance, in the valley and on the mountainside. The building I am viewing from is surrounded by huge, slender peaks. As if they were columns. Below, I see only mist at the base of the fortress. I am in a tower.
I look up at the sky, its blue reflected on the dome’s emerald green covering. If this is truly my new prison, I have become a princess trapped in a tower.
“My empire.”
I curse due to a sudden noise.
Suddenly, my lips start to throb. Memories rush in as if I had indeed fallen.
I glare sharply at Darya, but my words get stuck. The Demon King stands before me in leather trousers, shirtless. He runs his fingers through his silver hair, from which sparkling droplets fall, slowly streaming down his sculpted chest. Tattoos cover his pale, glowing skin, as if it were a text written in an unknown language. Only the snake on the right side and the tree on the left are recognizable to me. The two motifs gracefully intertwine, accentuating his pleasantly bulging muscles.
His magnificent wings tower behind him, the sunlight streaming through the window sparkling on the sunset-colored membrane.
