Blood on the Rose Petals
Fiona Bayer was always fond of blood.
Blood...it seemed...personal. It pulsed through one's body, brought emotions, betrayed feelings, characterized someone.
Sometimes Fiona needed emotions.
Blood trickled down her arm and pooled against the white marble, painting it a bright scarlet. The cut stung, but Fiona felt no emotion as she ran a fine-boned finger down her bloodied limb.
Fiona had never been happy about being a Bayer. She was the odd one out, a square-cut diamond attempted to be fitted in a round setting.
Her father prized Micah. With his dark, daring looks and way with women, Micah was obviously the heir to the Bayer fortune. He flirted with princesses, danced with death, and had almost married a queen.
Fiona was no good. With her cold, detached personality, sharp-edged, dangerous looks, and powerful spellcasting, few men wanted to marry her-not that she was willing, anyways.
She picked up the dagger again and fondled the blade, testing the sharpness, running a fingertip over the silver roses and jeweled falcons adorning the handle.
Micah...he wore the insignia of the stooping falcon with pride. He enjoyed being in charge, relished in the fear that radiated from the streets as he rode through, cloak streaming out from behind him.
Fiona...she hated it. Hated being feared. She would trot slowly through the streets, feeding her magic to her amulet and hiding the falcon.
To no avail.
People saw her, and the saw her for who she was. They would draw their children close and twitch the blinds shut and bow, murmuring prayers under their breath.
Fiona would try to be liberal- she would nod to the groveling peasants and try not to show her disgust-but they always saw past the mask.
She was a Bayer, so she would have to be feared.
Fiona struggled to swallow the bitter emotions rising in her. She set her teeth, then brought the dagger to her forearm-and dragged. A burst of pain exploded down her arm, followed by a new trickle of blood. The starburst of physical pain forced the emotional pain to retreat, and Fiona shuddered as all the feeling drained from her heart.
It was often like this- Micah going on dangerous, daring missions, playing the bad guy, flaring in like the Demon King himself, black cape aflutter.
And then Fiona was seen in tow, a slender, wiry woman with pale blonde hair and glittering, ice-blue eyes. She would have her hand on her amulet, practically glowing with power, and people would fall to their knees and stammer excuses, because she was a Bayer, and all Bayers had to be feared.
Fiona fingered the diamond eye of one of the silver falcons, ignoring the stinging in her arm as she ran the flat of the blade down her cuts.
Fiona was good at hiding minor emotions-she had grown up where you had to smile at your enemy's back before killing them- but when it came down to strong, heart-surging feelings, she lost control. Most times, it was at the center of high social or emotional tension- say, a battle or somewhat. Sometimes, though, the thoughts would overwhelm her iron-bound heart and drown her until she was gasping and trembling under the sheer pain of bearing them.
Then, she'd turn to her most coveted weapon; her dagger, both beautiful and deadly. She'd trace ruby-red lines on her arms, and the pain on the surface would drive away the pain below the surface...if only for a while.
And then there was Hanson Alister.
Her grip tightened on the handle of the knife as unbidden thoughts surfaced. Fair hair. Fine-boned face. Glittering blue eyes, full of pain and curiosity and rebellion.
She shuddered and folded her arms tightly across her stomach as feelings surged through her.
The way she felt a tingle rush all over her when he looked at her. The way she felt jealous as other girls, prettier girls, talked to him. How her soul ached when he was close to her.
Fiona was no stranger to romance. She'd grown up where flirting was commonplace and marriage was a political asset, provided the person had the right advantages.
What she was a stranger to was love.
She'd tried to win him, too.
She remembered the wry twist to his mouth as he told her, humorlessly, of all the attempts on his life-most done by her brother, against her will. The way his glittering sapphire eyes pinned her in place, tearing down the ice around her heart, leaving her feeling raw and vulnerable. The offers of power she spoke to him, because where she grew up, you never really loved someone unless that someone gained you wealth and a higher spot on the social ladder.
She remembered kissing him.
She remembered the burn of his mouth against hers, the way her lithe body felt, pressed against his strong frame, the way her heart beat unsteadily, giddily, as it never had done before.
She remembered him pulling away.
Her breath hitched in her throat and her wrist spasmed, drawing three quick, burning lines across her skin. She remembered the surprise and confusion and disgust flickering across his face, because she was a Bayer, and a Bayer had killed his family and ruined his life, even though she had no part in it.
She was no stranger to this; she would flirt with noble boys, all handsome and dressy and utterly terrified of her, because her father was the High Wizard and she was the Ice Queen, who could bring money and power through marrage yet kill you with a twitch of her fingers.
Han wasn't like that. He was never like that.
He wasn't interested in power, and he spoke what he thought in plain street slang while the noble boys talked with gilded tongues that spoke double meanings. He was bold and ruggedly handsome, and would charge down a bully to, no matter what rank, to protect a stranger while a blueblood would advert their gaze and pretend nothing happened. He played with and broke Fiona's heart without meaning to, and he hated her, because she was a Bayer, and that meant she was cold, snakehearted sorceress that preffered money over love and lusted for power, who played with the lives of commoners like toys, to be discarded when broken. She was a Bayer, so she spoke doule meanings and undermined the queendom and killed without flinching.
She was a Bayer, so she had no heart, no soul.
She cut franticly now, fighting the tide of rising emotions, ruby-red blood streaming down her porcelain arms. She chose physical pain over emotional pain, and with every slash of her silver dagger, another band of ice wrapped around her heart. She fingered her amulet, the falcon ensnaring the songbird, and laughed, a high, cold, mirthless laugh, because she was the hawk, and she was digging her silver claws inter her soul and ripping it to nothingnes. She looked in the mirror and saw Bayer features; high cheekbones, haughty eyebrows and cold, haughty eyes. Beautiful, but a cold, deadly beautiful, like a lynx. She ran a finger over her scars and laughed again, because they formed the pattern of a stooping falcon, marking her for who she was.
A Bayer. A bad guy.
She set down the bloody knife and wrapped her arms in gauze, her feelings dead again. Her pale, icy-blue eyes raked over the bandages, then studied her arms carefully as a glamor shimmered into place.
Fiona bayer buckled her cloak and tugged black gloves into place. She adjusted the glamor with the cool detatchment of a person righting their sleeves, then left, cape billowing out behind her.
I really should stop, she thought dismissively. Glamours are so over-rated.