XI

When Clarisse woke, it was still dark. The barest hint of light was creeping up the surface of the horizon, just peeking over the treetops. The stars were still shining, and the moon was a thin curved line weary of the night and ready to recede into dawn. Even the birds were still in their nests, but Clarisse had woken because she had heard singing.

The words was in a language she did not understand, but the tune was a simple lullaby that had travelled through the desert lands of her homeland before the famine had turned living into survival, and culture was thrown away for a mouthful of food. But Clarisse remembered her mother singing it, and that's why she woke. And found herself weeping.

She hastily wiped away the tears the moment she realized that the warmth on her cheeks was not from the sun, and the singing was not an echo of her forgotten dreams. She wasn't alone. Clarisse was tense as she stood and brushed herself off, her senses prickling for any sign of possible danger. The singing voice was faint but solid, so she followed it through the maze of trees, until the sound of running water reached her ears.

Then when she peeked into the clearing from behind a tree, hidden in the shadows, she found the source of the singing: a young girl washing her clothes, her golden hair streaked with darker shades braided and woven with a royal blue ribbon. Her skin was the colour of milk and honey, smooth and unblemished, and when she opened her mouth to continue onto the next verse of the lullaby, Clarisse swore she heard a few birds stirring from their sleep, waking to the dawn, and chirping along with the tune.

Clarisse thought that she looked like she was from a scene in a fairy tale, a harmless, innocent child by the bank of the river, and she almost turned to leave when the singing halted abruptly and the girl called out, "And what is a killer doing in my forest?"

Clarisse's hand shot immediately to her weapons, but the child was already saying, "Now, there's no need to be so tense; I'm only wondering. I won't harm you, really." She had stood up, wiping her wet hands on her simple white dress. "Just-Just step out from behind that tree. I just want to talk. It gets awfully lonely here, you know."

Clarisse did not step out into the clearing. "Is there no one else with you?" she dared to ask, because that was what mattered.

"No, it's just me." There was a short pause. "You look rather road worn. You are from the desert lands, I presume?"

Could the girl see her? Clarisse wondered. She acted like she did, even though the assassin was still hidden behind the thick tree trunk, wary of the child. How ridiculous, she scoffed at herself. You're an assassin! If the girl does anything that could be hazardous to Clarisse's plans, all she needed to do was kill her, simple as that. So she stepped out from the safety of the shadows, her hair tucked inside her dark hood, her eyes narrowed harshly at the young girl. "And how do you know that?"

The girl clapped in delight, a smile breaking out on her lips. The colour of her eyes was forever changing, like the fluid mist that had been trapped in the Crown Prince's pendant. "You're in my forest; of course I'd know!"

"Your forest?" Clarisse challenged.

She laughed, spreading her arms wide. "Welcome to the forest, heartless killer."

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"So…" the young girl asked as she led the assassin down an invisible path through the forest, "What brings you here?"

Clarisse wasn't sure how to answer. "I don't know," she admitted.

"Let me guess," the girl tapped her chin thoughtfully. "To visit someone? To kill someone? Or," her smile turned mischievous, "are you on a mission?"

"I don't know," the older teenager repeated.

"Well, that's not a healthy way to live," commented the younger. "A person should always have some kind of goal in life. Ah, here we are." They emerged at a wide clearing, where a little dirt path lead to the mouth of an ivy-covered entrance of a cave dug in gray rock. The ground behind the mouth of the cave rose rapidly into a steep hill, and the rock was melded into the soil so that Clarisse was unable to guess the size of the inside of the cave.

"Do you live here?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Yes," the girl replied. "It's quite nice, actually: warm in the winter, cool in the summer. There are plenty of resources around as well. Come on in!" She pushed aside the curtain of vines and they entered. After placing her basket of laundry on the table, the girl split the vines into two halves, rolling the strands together and tying them tightly with a piece of rope to allow sunlight to filter into the space inside.

The cave was quite spacious with a hearth in the middle of the cave, a table nearby with three wooden chairs around it, and an old bed neatly made. Tools of every kind – for cooking, gardening, hunting – either hung from the walls or were piled in a corner.

"If you have nowhere to go for now, I don't mind if you stay with me for some time," the girl told her, beaming. "I don't get many visitors."

Clarisse was strangely taken aback by her suggestion, and for a moment, her cold demeanor stumbled as she stuttered lightly. "I-I… well…" Finally, she just settled with nodding.

"Brilliant!" the blonde hurried to the back of the cave, where a large wooden cabinet stood. "I'll pile a few blankets for you as a bed, if you don't mind. I'll prepare breakfast after that, would you like to help? Oh, please do put down your weapons and all that. Wouldn't it be inconvenient?"

Was it common for girls of her age to act like this? Clarisse wondered. She thought the girl was a little annoying, the way she chattered so constantly. But it was comforting to see someone so at ease, not hiding behind white powder and layers of dresses or savage ways while struggling just to survive through the day. If this was the life of a little girl living by herself in the middle of the forest, Clarisse could hardly imagine the luxury of the royalty and nobles.

"There you go!" the girl clapped her hands off. She had pulled out the thickest, heaviest blankets and piled them to form a makeshift mattress situated beside the wardrobe. There were a pillow and neatly folded blanket perched on top. "It's pretty warm these days," she explained, "but the nights can get chilly sometimes. If you get cold, there're always more blankets in the wardrobe."

"I see."

"Well then, breakfast!"

Clarisse abandoned her cloak and unstrapped most of her weapons, leaving them on the 'bed'. And then when the girl admired her perfect cuts, each slice of potato clean and identically thick, Clarisse couldn't help but notice that her cuts were equally beautiful; and she felt that there were malicious eyes glaring from invisible places, bloodthirsty in purpose, and the young girl was laughing in its face.

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If Clarisse didn't know better, she would've thought that the forest was magical. Time seemed to pass quicker, and when she looked back to the past two days she had been here, she found her memories hazy, her worries overridden by luxury in the plainest form and a peaceful, undisturbed life. On the third afternoon, when the young girl went out into the forest to fetch some edible plants for supper, Clarisse found all her problems suddenly rushing back into her mind, barreling into her like a boar and almost knocking her away. And it was so terrible, so burdening that she had almost pushed it away again if she hadn't suddenly hear someone ask, "Do you hate me?"

"No," she had told Chris that time, because it really was her own fault that she was too weak, too useless. She had told him that she'll kill him one day, and now that it was happening, she suddenly wanted to take everything back. She had never hated him, or wanted him dead. His presence had been comforting, entertaining, and it reminded Clarisse of the part of her that was vulnerably human. Killing Chris would be like murdering the final piece of her that still mourned, that still regretted, that still felt, except she did it. She had smashed the pendant, and Chris was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Clarisse swallowed hard. Breathing was suddenly difficult, and she found herself yearning to feel the sun on her face, the rocks hard and unyielding and stable under her boots, and the harsh desert wind whipping at her face as she ran. But there were only trees around here, the breezes gently rustling through the leaves, and the grass was soft, a beautiful shade of natural green, lovely like everything else in the kingdom.

For the first time since she got here, she hated it.

Clarisse strode towards the entrance of the cave, slightly panicked, heart pounding in her chest, when her foot kicked against something soft but tangling, and she stumbled over her own feet. The thing she kicked turned out to be a sack of some sort, tied clumsily shut, and peeking out from under the girl's bed. Curious, Clarisse untied the knot, and found it filled with clothes.

Men's clothes.

The cloth was thin and worn, old, but not ancient. When she pulled out a brown shirt, the folds were obvious, and some of the colour had faded. There was also a small hunting knife, rusted and blunt, hidden at the bottom of the sack, along with-

A journal.

A piece of paper, yellow with age, fluttered to the ground when she took out the book. It was a poster, possibly torn from a wall, announcing a hearty award for the head of a golden-eyed witch dwelling in a cave hidden in the forest. When Clarisse opened the journal, she found many words faded, the ropes binding the book nearly disintegrating when she opened the book too wide.

Despite the vague, fading words, Clarisse found what she read quite similar to the stories she had listened to her mother read to her when she still had most of her health. The journal began less than ten years ago, and it spoke of a soldier who entered the forest, determined to bring fame, money, and power onto his name. His journey was long, but not difficult, and there had been a young girl who had appeared to him with the foulest of beasts, claiming to be the Queen of the forest. He described her as goddess-like, with hair woven from gold and copper, skin whiter and smoother than a princess's, and eyes like an entire being of their own, never settling on one colour. The soldier spoke of how the 'Queen of the forest' had helped him, and when he found the witch, he discovered that she wasn't some wicked being, but a lonely girl. He fell in love with her, except a bargain with the Queen of the forest prevented him from saving her, and he was planning to escape with the witch. That was where the journal ended, a small, sweet story, in Clarisse's opinion, but terrifying when she flipped back a few pages and reread the soldier's encounter with the blonde girl with restless eyes.

"Interesting story?"

Clarisse jumped, head snapping up, her wide eyes pinpointing the source of the honey-coated voice. She stared at the golden blonde curls, streaks of many shades of red flashing like metal under the setting sun; the white skin, dusted gold by the falling light, the gently curved mouth and delicate features; the deep, wide eyes like a fire blazing through stained glass windows. Clarisse found her mouth forming words before her mind could come up with them. "What are you?"

And for reasons Clarisse could not fathom, the young girl threw back her head and laughed.


This chapter should not have taken such a long time, but for some reasons, I found it extremely hard to get out. Please review, however. There is only one more chapter to the story, not counting an epilogue, so I'll try to get it over as soon as I could. Thank you all for reading, and please review!