"Her Highness is ready to see you now, My Queen." The nurse at the front desk addressed Channary with a respectful dip of her head.
"Thank you," the queen responded. "Which room is she in?"
"Number twenty-three."
Channary stood from her chair in the waiting room and floated down the halls, the flowy skirt of her mint green dress billowing around her like a sail. Once she arrived at the metal door engraved with a '23', she pushed it open and stepped through, closing it softly behind her.
Her gaze wandered around the bland, sterile room, with its white walls and steel furniture. She turned to look at the bed, where Levana sat propped up against a couple pillows, wearing nothing but a paper-thin hospital gown and a white tag around her wrist, stamped with her name and other important credentials. Her auburn hair was tied back into a sloppy ponytail, and she looked sickly—pale, clammy and doped up on drugs. She was plucking at a foam cup that she held in her shaking hands, staring at it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
"Hello, Levana," Channary called out to her sister, who only continued to pick off pieces of styrofoam, blinking once. The queen grit her teeth, her nostrils flared. "Levana, I'm talking to you."
Levana rolled her eyes before looking up. "Whatever do you need, my illustrious, beautiful, most generous Queen?" she said sarcastically, holding her hands out in mock adoration. She then looked down at the sheets, oblivious to her approaching sister, who stopped before her with her hand raised, palm flat.
A sharp crack resounded through the room as Channary slapped her across the face, hard. Levana's head snapped back, and she winced, holding a hand to her cheek branded with a red handprint. The cup fell from her grip and dropped to the floor, rolling away. "I have no patience for your insolent games," Channary spat, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her roughly. "You will speak to me with proper respect. Do I make myself clear?" She let go and pulled away, her lips twisted into a sneer.
"Transparently," Levana grumbled, rubbing her sore cheek.
Channary shook her head, pulling a chair up against the bed and perching herself delicately upon it, crossing her legs so that a slit in her silk dress revealed her pale skin. "I am not happy with you," she spoke after a moment, her voice syrupy with an edge of steel. "Acting so foolishly, being so rash—this is what I mean when I call you a disgrace."
"If you just came here to judge and mock me, you can leave. I've had enough of that already," Levana grumbled, bunching the white sheets in her fists. Channary's eyes narrowed, and Levana tensed up, knowing exactly what that meant: be careful of what you say.
"Why did you jump?"
It took Levana a moment to snap out of her daze. "What?"
"Why did you jump from the rooftop? Why did you try to kill yourself?"
Levana stared at her in disbelief. "You seriously don't know? I could've sworn you were much more observant than that, Channary. Wrong assessment of your capabilities on my part, I guess." She shrugged, hugging her chest.
"I will ignore the rudeness of that statement." The queen sighed. "So. It appears that you're pregnant." Channary spat out the last word with contempt, crossing her arms over her chest. "Would you care to tell me how that happened?"
"You had me raped," Levana spat. She looked at her in a 'duh' kind of way, as if Channary were mentally retarded.
"Hmmm..." Channary put a finger to her lips, her gaze wandering around the room, as if she were searching for the memory deep within the recesses of her mind. "Ah yes, now I remember!" she exclaimed, a grin spreading across her face. She said it like she had just remembered what she had for dinner the night before, not how she had her own sister sexually assaulted. Levana knew that she was playing dumb just to annoy her—and it worked.
"I hope you didn't use too many of your precious brain cells to remember that far back," Levana said, her voice at its snarky best. "God knows there aren't too many up there."
Channary grabbed Levana's chin, her fingernails digging into her skin. She raised her hand as if to strike her again, and Levana flinched back. "Do you want another one?" the queen threatened, her eyes blazing.
"No! No, I don't!" Levana squeaked, shaking her head, trying to loosen Channary's grip.
Channary sighed and released her, rolling her eyes. "You really are a piece of work." She turned back to look at her sister. "Is there something else that you require? Water, or painkillers, perhaps?"
Levana stared down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. "I want an abortion," she said after a moment.
Channary's eyes widened at this, and her expression clouded with darkness. "No," she said assertively, jutting a finger to Levana's chest. "What's growing within you is human life and you must respect it—I will not allow you to terminate it."
Levana's mouth bobbed open like that of a fish. "It's my body!" she exclaimed after a moment, her knuckles turning white from how tightly she was gripping the sheets. "And it's not like you have much respect for human life yourself, big sister."
A flash of contempt set Channary's jaw, and her lips curled into a sneer. "You got yourself pregnant, you have to stick it through to the end. It's not my fault that you're such a slut, Levana."
The princess' blood boiled, and heat flooded her face. Even though Channary's insult was low and far-fetched, it still hurt just as much as one of her slaps. She took a moment to breathe, trying to calm the thumping in her ears.
"You…" Levana quivered. "How could you say that?"
The queen lowered her head, fisting the material of her dress, her entire body quivering with rage. Levana felt a pang of fear—it was never a good thing, when Channary was angry—but the damage was done. She could only sit taller and wait for her punishment, and she would do so with at least a little dignity.
"Oh, so you want to play that game, do you?" the queen sneered, her voice dark and low. "You are on extremely thin ice right now, Levana—but if it's a fight that you want, then game on." Channary grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and stared down at her. "Just remember that like every game we've ever played," a shiver shook down Levana's spine at her glare, "you will lose."
Channary let go and stood, pushing the chair back, her skirt billowing around her ankles as she turned and began to saunter towards the door. "Another thing," she called out, her back facing Levana as she put one finger in the air. "You shouldn't go mouthing off to your superiors like that—not everyone will let you off as easy as I do. Not everyone would be willing to put up with such a miserable, ugly, useless—"
Levana cut her off. "I know I'm ugly, and I know I'm useless. I know I'm pathetic, disgusting, unimportant. You don't have to remind me," she said, her voice full of spite.
"Just making sure that you know your place, little sister," Channary said with false sweetness before leaving, slamming the door behind her.
She stood outside the room for a moment, the sterile hallway deserted, and she clenched her fists, seething at Levana's words. Why did her parents have to leave her behind with such a disrespectful, disobedient brat? As if she didn't have enough on her plate already—being queen was not easy.
For years, her parents had been extremely strict with her education, urging her, raising her to be like them, or more specifically, her father. The king was a stern man, and never once had she seen him smile, other than with malice. She always knew to stay in line, completing every assignment perfectly and on time, adopting the proper conduct of a lunar sovereign. The long, boring lessons and the hours of etiquette practice were way better than the punishment she knew that she would receive if she defied either of her parents—'big chops', they were called. Once, she hadn't studied and failed her test on Luna's landmarks. For her big chop, she had to stand on her head and recite the name and location of every Lunar city, and if she made a mistake, she had to start over from the beginning. That day, she learned the consequences of being upside down for an hour, with blood rushing to your head, and that humans should always stay right-side up.
And then there was the dreaded closet. It was located right beside her parents' room, on the third floor. It was a tall, narrow space, filled with spikes and nails. Channary was seven when she had been first locked in there, after she had played dress-up with her mother's clothes and tore her favourite gown. It had been one of the few times that she had ever seen the queen so angry, and one of the few times that she had ever felt truly afraid. Jannali had taken her by the hand and locked her in the closet for the better part of the day, and Channary had come out hours later, her skin scraped and bruised.
She had always been told that it was for her own good, and more often than not, she believed them. She didn't really know any better, so when Levana came along, she expected her parents to be just as strict with her as they were with their eldest daughter.
They were strict, but not in the same way. Levana was never punished as harshly, over such trivial things. If she failed a test or missed a lesson, her parents would just shrug it off. At first, Channary thought it was because they liked her more—but before long, she came to realize that it was because they simply didn't care about her. They wouldn't have even noticed if Levana crawled through the palace with a broken leg.
Channary loved being the favourite, admired by everyone, known as Luna's darling princess. It was a position that she was more than willing to fight for. She would always put her sister down so that she never became a threat—to her popularity or her throne. But as they got older, Levana had started to become a threat. She was a sweet girl, Channary knew, and it wouldn't take long before she earned the peoples' love and respect. After all, you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
She kept everyone on Luna wrapped around her finger, defending her territory like a feline. She was used to getting her way; so much so that when she didn't, there were usually casualties. As queen, she had all the power over Luna that she wanted, and everyone knew to stay on their toes, especially since the murder of her parents, which hadn't been taken lightly. The death of the shell assassin was not nearly enough to tame her anger, and there was only one thing that Channary liked more than power.
Revenge.
All her life, she had been taught to hate the non-gifted, that they were and always would be lesser creatures, vermin of the worst kind. They couldn't be controlled, therefore they were a threat, and any threat had to be eliminated. After a shell had killed the king and queen, this only rooted her beliefs further, and only deepened her hatred. She wanted to avenge her parents, to wipe out the ungifted, to destroy their disgusting race once and for all.
So, as her first act as the new queen, she passed out laws saying that all living shells were to be imprisoned in an underground base, where they would be put to work as slaves. Any shells that were born would be taken from the hospitals and executed—to 'protect the sanctity of their society', Channary would say. Naturally, it caused a bit of protest, not only amongst the shells, but the gifted, too. Any uprising was quickly stamped out, the perpetrators arrested and the populace once again brainwashed into compliance.
Yes, Channary almost always got her way, and she ruled with an iron fist. She took what she wanted, and if she couldn't have it, she destroyed it, like she did with Saito. The thought of Levana—the failure in everything—marrying him and becoming empress nearly drove her mad. If she couldn't have him, then no one would, so she killed him. She took great pleasure in doing so, too, for his insolence and defiance were very infuriating.
And if there's one thing anyone should know, it's that you should never defy Queen Channary.