Demon From Heaven

Chapter 4

(Merida's P. O. V.)

I sat down on the cold floor of the small cell that I had been thrown in. My knees were drawn to my chest as much as they could, nearly as if I tried to shrink to the smallest size possible, if not totally disappear. The wall that I leaned my back on had a damp feel; it was so wet that I could feel it through the fabric of my dress. It most likely was growing with weeds.

The air of the dungeon was tinted with a very strong stench, threatening to make one throw up with each breath that they took. It was like something, or rather someone had died here not so long ago, and had started decomposing.

A small, humourless chuckle left my lips. I guess I should thank my stars and the goddess that I had nothing in my belly to remove.

I stared into the thick darkness that surrounded me, my mind so blank, yet racing with a million questions at once. Focus was far from my reach at this point, and that was only but the truth.

I was confused, curious, doubtful, terrified. A mixture of emotions swirled like a whirlpool in my belly, making it impossible for me to decipher what was dominant. How couldn't they see what I saw?

I didn't know whether the fact that no one else except me could see Eric on the bed, lying in sheets that were soaked in his blood terrified me, or confused me. I was very sure of what I had seen. The room hadn't been dark to say that my eyes had failed me, or that I was seeing wrongly, additionally I was a pure blood which made my sight ten times stronger than that of a regular werewolf.

What then could be the reason?

Another dry chuckle left my lips, this one laced with a slight tone of darkness. I didn't know whether I was scared, or just humoured by the whole situation.

Images formed before my eyes, all formulated by me in my head. They were rather memories, one could say, as I was sure as day that I had lived through each and every scene as they flowed before me like a play in a theater where I was the only audience.

Images of the time when the ex alpha and king was alive gained color, the scenes dancing within the vision of the eyes of my mind. Times had been way better when King Sven was alive. He was probably one of the kindest men that I had ever came across in my life, right next to my father who was the chief priest and a member of the Royal cabinet.

I still remembered how close my father and the king used to be. They had been childhood friends, and wanted their own children to grow side by side too. Luckily for the both of them, they had kids with opposing genders, which solidified their plans of such. So they sealed our fate by binding us together.

They betrothed us to each other at a very young age.

I had been just ten, but I remembered each and every detail of the ceremony like it was yesterday.

At first, the three of us had been very close; that is, Cecilia, Eric, and I. We were almost inseparable.

A sad and wistful smile crept up my face as I thought about the good times. Oh how far away they felt at this point. Where had we gone wrong?

Ignoring the ache in my heart, or perhaps as if to mock me, the images kept on flowing in, all in a chronological order as if it had been arranged by another.

The tone of my memories changed from that of a happy one, to something that tasted more bitter to the tongue.

The queen had never liked me. I didn't know why. Maybe it was because of the way the king favoured me, perhaps it was envy of the way he adored me. She had tried her best to stop her two children from relating with me, but it was to no avail. Maybe that was what added salt to her already bleeding injury.

But then one day, the tables turned. The King had suddenly gotten terribly sick, and she believed that I was the one responsible for it. No matter how much I had tried to convince her otherwise, she refused to believe me. Instead, she tried convincing her two kids to believe so too.

Eric, eventually, believed her, and that marked the end of our friendship. He started looking at me with contempt, just the way his mother did, and stopped talking to me.

Cecilia, on the other hand, refused to believe her adoptive mother. She believed that the sickness the king had was out of my control, and far from something that I'd do. She was the only one who showed me the love, care, and affection in the palace.

I shut my eyes close tightly, as tears threatened to spew from my eyes to my cheeks. I tried as much as I could to keep the memories of after the king's death out of my head. Thilose were things that I chose not to register, but unfortunately the brain had it's own way of working.

Maybe that was why her accusations had hurt so much. After every single person that I loved and loved me back had left me alone in the cruel world, she had been the only one to give me a shoulder to lean on. And now that my rock had turned against me, I was once more alone in the universe.

I buried my head in my arms. All sense of feeling was lost on me, I was as good as dead now. The queen had condemned me, there was no use of hope any longer.

If only I had been given the chance to speak.