The Devil's Warrior Queen-Chapter 395: The Phoenix

{In East Ravka}

Falka squinted her eyes open as she scrambled out of the princess sized bed, stretching her limbs as she placed her feet upon the wooden floor. She gazed out through the tiny window in her average sized room.

It was the only window placed in her chamber, Falka’s only access to seeing the world outside, it was right in front of her eyes, but she had no freedom to go out into the world and explore it.

Falka sighed softly as she watched the sun rise peeking through the horizon as red and orange hues seeped into the clouds.

It would have been prettier from up close but the farthest she had gone was the periphery of the stairs, she had never even descended it, talk less, leave the tower in the Council house.

While she stood facing the window, the door suddenly swung open to reveal two maids strutting inside the room. They bowed their heads as they greeted her good morning.

Falka replied with a low mutter. Like every other day in her seventeen years of living, they gave her a bath. The maids led her to the bathroom where they started stripping off her nightdress for her and then she emerged into the round tub filled to the brim with warm, scented water.

Silence engulfed the place as the maids scrubbed her porcelain skin ever so delicately. She wasn’t expecting either of them to say a word, they were too frightened of her to speak, everyone was, even her own mother.

No wonder she was locked in the tower like a damsel in distress, but in all reality, she was a prisoner locked away from the world because of how dangerous her forbidden powers were and worse, she couldn’t control them. Or maybe she couldn’t control her anger for being locked all her life, but she had every right to be angry.

As much as she wanted to escape and leave East Ravka for good, she couldn’t. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she still couldn’t control her powers at her own free will. It was rather a painful hassle to conjure them.

Despite being aware of the powers she possessed and the fact that they lived in a magical kingdom, possessing the secrets of magic, the mages and councils, including her mother, thought it was the best idea to refrain from teaching her how to use her powers, obviously to prevent her from escaping the kingdom and causing chaos.

That was all they saw her existence as. Chaos.

After washing up, the maids dressed her up in a beige gown with a light pink embroidery, one that neither matched her hair or eye color. She had always hated the colours of the dresses she was given to wear, it was always a boring or plain color as if wearing a bright or dark color would attract the knowledge of the world about her existence.

The maids sat her down in front of the dressing mirror as they proceeded to style her hair. She stared at her reflection in the mirror as they brushed her fiery red hair that cascaded down her back in lengthy, deep silky waves.

Her golden eyes, intimidating yet soft, burned like the sun under the light. For a split second, she could understand why they were all terrified of her but still, she couldn’t understand. She had distinct features, but so did almost everyone else in East Ravka.

She was different, but also so was almost everyone else in East Ravka, so she couldn’t understand why they were fearful of her as though she was the reincarnation of the devil himself.

Falka had heard of her powers being forbidden and capable of inducing chaos beyond their wildest imagination, but it didn’t justify the treatment she was getting from them.

They had locked her up for most of her life, she never had the privilege of a normal childhood or the tender love from a parent. The days of her childhood, till she became a young adult revolved around being locked inside her chamber like a prisoner.

Falka had never hurt anyone, never misused her powers even though she was incapable of wielding it, still yet, they feared her like the plague. But despite it all, they were afraid of her because of what she could do.

Falka always believed that It wasn’t her fault she was born different from everyone else, it was her mother’s fault for wanting her to live by going through the extreme mile just to save her. It was best to have let her die if she was going to live just to be treated this way.

Falka, despite being locked up had heard of her mother gaining access to an elixir imbued with the heart of a Phoenix, to save her when she was a baby.

"We are done, your Holiness. May we be excused?" The maid’s voice snapped her back to reality and she nodded.

Looking at herself in the mirror, they had styled her hair beautifully as always. The upper part of the hair was styled in a bun with a silver pin pushed into it, while the lower part fell in beautiful waves with a few tendrils falling at the side of her face.

Falka wondered what the point of dressing her up was for when no one would ever get a glimpse of her shadow except for the maids and her mother.

She had tried to escape countless of times, but it was all futile. The window was too tiny for her body to pass through and outside of her chambers, guards guarded the vicinity every beating second of the day.

The security was too tight for her to sneak out without getting caught. She had lied once or twice about being terribly ill, but unfortunately, her mother always brought the best physician to her doorstep. There was no way out, but she refused to spend the rest of her life, miserable and locked in her chambers forever.

She yearned so badly to explore the world and get rid of the suffocating feeling of being locked, but as the days and months rolled by, it seemed like an impossible dream to reach.

As Falka grew older, she tried to learn how to train herself and wield her powers in other to escape, but it seemed harder than she thought, it was even harder to conjure it up.

At her best effort, a ball of flaming tendrils manifested in her hand, but she had no idea how to control it and in the next moment, it went dim until it evaporated into thin air. She couldn’t understand why they locked her in since she could barely conjure up something efficient. She was utterly useless and harmless.

Of course, Falka had tried to talk to her mother, she had tried to show her just how useless and harmless she was. Falka had even vowed never to wield her powers just to change her mother’s mind for her freedom, but her mother was unyielding and cold. Sometimes, she had wondered if she was truly her mother, but the uncanny resemblance was there despite the difference in their hair and eye color.

It was extremely depressing for Falka to have to live all those years in solitary, without company or friends, always alone, not being able to share her feelings with anyone else but herself and within the confines of her room.

It pushed Falka to go to the extreme and when she couldn’t take it any longer, she decided to give herself the freedom she deserved. She resorted to embracing the cold hands of death which she willingly bestowed on herself.

At fifteen, hit by the constant misery and solitude, after realizing that she was never going to get her freedom, she decided to end her young life, but unfortunately, the universe had a different fate in store for her.

Falka had tried multiple times to end her life, but still, she kept reviving back. Even death itself seemed to reject her as everyone had. She was broken, in and out, but no one seemed to take notice of the cracks because they never looked clearly enough, rather they only saw what they wanted to see.

Her mother, on the other hand, was not helpful in any way, she was rather unfeeling and she lacked the tenderness of a mother in every aspect.

Hate was an understatement of a word for her to use on what she felt for her mother and everyone else in East Ravka. The bitterness and resentment that had been building up inside of her very slowly from her childhood till she grew up filled her insides with an irrevocable rage, but she was already used to suppressing her feelings.

No one was ever able to discern what her true emotions were, she never let them in, never let them see, the malice and bitterness that filled her heart.

Falka always tried her best to conceal the brewing storm within her, because she believed that hopefully, one day, they would no longer see her as a threat and finally grant her the freedom she deserved. She was willing to do anything to achieve her freedom.

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