The Darkness

The day arrived and she had to say goodbye finally. She stood behind Paul bearers and watched as they carried out Kai’s body, following after them. She kept her face vid of emotion because she felt that if she had let herself feel any emotion, she would break down in front of everyone.

The priest lit the torch and handed it to the queen. She took a deep breath and took it from him, turning back to the coffin to press it against the blue cloth lightly. Flames s reflected in her eyes and an involuntary tear fell down her cheek as she stared at the burning corpse. Everyone filed out in silence, leaving only Serafina to watch as the flames died out. The anger, denial, and sadness had already passed and she was only numb. She couldn’t-didn’t want to- feel anything anymore.

She told herself that if she went in, she couldn’t mourn any longer and would have to continue her royal duties as she silently suffered. The flames had turned into nothing more than glowing embers and the sun had turned into the moon as she stood looking at the skeleton that used to be her brother.

Lykos, who has left her alone after the burning, came back outside and set his hand on her shoulder, startling her, “Come inside Serafina, you’ll freeze to death if you stay out here.”

After a moment of silence, she nodded and let him lead her back into the castle.

“Can we train?” She stopped in the foyer and turned around to face him. His eyes softened and he shook his head with a sigh.

“You just lost your family, you need time to grieve.”

“I spent 3 weeks grieving, Lykos,” She spat, “I need to train- to do something other than sit in my room and cry.”

Serafina often coped with things by drowning herself in work and training because it made her feel like everything was okay. She would let herself feel for a while and then when that numb feeling set in and she got tired of crying she would busy herself.

He stared at her and reluctantly asked her, “What do you wish to practice?”

“Everything.” Was her prompt response.

He was taken aback by her quick response yet nodded anyways and motioned for her to direct him in the direction of her training room. When they entered the room Serafina closed all the blinds that outlined the glass walls, not leaving a sliver of light to be seen, as per Lykos’s request.

She tried to concentrate on letting her magic flow through her but that was hard to do when she was constantly being poked at different angels every two seconds. Her anger was fanned more each time she got poked and each time she would swing in that direction only to hit air.

“Will you fucking stop?” She shouted when he tapped her on the nose once more. She felt a surge of power flowing through her and she could see in the dark as clearly as she could in the light and she could feel everything in the room. She felt Lykos use the darkness to teleport around the room and Serafina used that burst of energy to control the shadows, hiding herself from Lykos’s sight. She smiled at the confused look on Lykos’s face when he could no longer see her. She manipulated the shadows around her to restrain Lykos and watched as he tried to over-power them.

She walked around him so that she was facing his back and whispered in his ear, “The shadows no longer obey you, little brother. They belong to me.”

She could sense the fear radiating off of him as she made the shadows tighten around him, restricting his airways and giggled. The air turned cold around them and a sense of evil could be felt within Serafina. It was infinitesimal yet it was enough to take hold of her vulnerable state.

She let go and watched him fall to his knees, coughing as air returned to his lungs. Seeing Lykos like that, snapped her out of her possessed state and she bent down to help him up.

“I think training is over, you did well.” He congratulated her.

“What? Why?” She asked.

“Because this is unhealthy, Serafina. You can’t just bury yourself in training because you don’t want to feel loss. No one is going to judge you.”

Serafina rolled her eyes. She knew the real reason as to why he didn’t want to continue was because he could sense the marks control of her but she managed to pull the reins back. And the whole judging thing was complete bullshit; she was always going to be judged for everything she did. People were always going to be watching her, waiting for her to make a mistake so that they could challenge her for the crown. That’s what it was like a ruler of Hel, you can never mess up.

You had to choose when it came to ruling really, be so kind that people who wished to challenge you were so miniscule or be so feared that no one would dare think about it. Serafina chose the latter. She was loved by most of her kingdom and they loved her as queen but she was also feared so much that no one would dare touch her.

Of course, Serafina would never voice these thoughts and instead she retreated to her office. Just because Lykos cancelled their training session didn’t mean that she would hole back up in her room not doing anything. She acknowledged that Lykos was right when he said that what she was doing was unhealthy yet she didn’t listen. This method had worked for the last twenty years and she wasn’t going to change something that suited her so perfectly.

During the time that she had locked herself in her room, a pile of papers made a mountain on her desk. She looked at the work load and sighed before sitting down at her desk. She flipped through the papers and organized them so she could focus on a section at a time.