"Be gone, vermin like you are the reason why the world is not a better place." One of the soldiers dragging her along shoved her out of the door.
"Sacrificing your child to satisfy your own hunger, what a monster. I've been betrothed to a wonderful young woman for nearly two years, yet I've not been able to father a child. Do you understand what I'm saying, you ungrateful witch." The other solder slammed his boots directly into Aeloria's stomach as he shut the door in her face.
She stumbled backwards and fell on her back. She stood almost immediately with a dismissive expression.
Dusting herself, she walked away.
Moments later, she stood before the place she once called home. The house and the entire surroundings were burnt to the ground.
Suddenly, something hit her spine, sending sharp pain up her body. She turned and froze at the sight before her.
"Anlara?" Aeloria called in a trembling voice. Yes, the stone hurt, but it didn't hurt more than the disgusted look on the face of the person she called her friend.
"If I knew behind your beautiful smile was a monster, I wouldn't have introduced you to the trade." Anlara said with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"You too, Anlara? It's because I knew you were here that I came back. If the world turned its back on me, at least my friend would be there. She would at least here me out. Anlara, you... hurt me." Aeloria clutched her chest, unfamiliar pain tearing through her heart. With no relatives alive, Anlara was her only anchor. Now, she had only herself.
"What is there to hear, taking the life of a child, your child. What more is left to be said. I... regret that I ever befriended you, cannibal." Anlara spat as she threw another rock.
It hit her shoulder hard, forcing her body to jerk backward slightly. Tears ram down her face, but not from the pain caused by stone, but from the words of Anlara.
"Be gone, you monster. With you around, how can we protect our children. We'll always have to sleep with our eyes open. If there's some humanity left in you, you would leave this place immediately." A middle aged man cursed angrily, though the voice sounded distant to Aeloria.
She turned around after locking gaze with Anlara for a heartbeat.
She wandered around, unsure of where she was going. She was rejected everywhere she went, Runevale seemed to have no place for the cannibal.
A week flew by and she stood before the palace entrance once more. This time, she didn't force her way in.
'Joining the royal army? That seems to be my only option now.' She thought as she strode through the gates.
She stood once more beneath the vaulted ceiling of Runevale's great hall.
No blood this time. Only hunger and defeat.
Her dress was patched a dozen times over, a desperate attempt to change her bloodied wear. Her cheeks were hollow. Her pride had been starved out of her.
Nyxelene sat on the platinum-and-gold throne exactly as she always had with her hands resting lightly on the armrests. Her eyes were the same crimson, untouched by warmth or pity.
Aeloria lowered herself to her knees. Slowly. No invisible force pushed her down this time; she simply had nowhere lower to fall.
"Have you finally decided to join my army?" the queen asked.
Aeloria laughed, a cracked, humourless sound. "What choice do I have left? Villages bolt their doors when they smell me coming. They call me cannibal, witch, monster. They throw stones. They refuse me bread, water, even the scraps they give their dogs. I am already dead out there. So yes. Here I am."
Nyxelene leaned forward a fraction.
"That's to be expected. I offered you a chance earlier on that very night you burst in covered in blood to avoid this exact outcome. Yet you called me an exploiter. You screamed it in my face. Now that you have nowhere left to go, that every door is slammed shut and every village spits at your shadow, should I also turn my back on you? Tell me, Aeloria… should I abandon you the same way you once abandoned every shred of sense and gratitude?"
"Does it mean you no longer want me in your army?" Aeloria asked, the last scrap of pride clinging to the words.
Nyxelene did not answer at once. She simply watched the kneeling woman with those empty crimson eyes until the silence itself seemed to stretch on forever.
Then, finally, she spoke.
"At first light tomorrow, go to the royal army's training field on the western side of Ohlm. Find a man named Orin. Tell him exactly this:
'Worms of the earth should not gaze above; the filth of the soil is where their sight belongs.'
He will know what to do with you."
Nyxelene turned her gaze toward the great steel doors of the throne room, as though Aeloria had already ceased to exist.
Aeloria lifted her head. "I have one question, my queen. Why do you want me in your army? I am not of noble blood. I was never blessed with extraordinary talent. I am sorry, but I fail to see the reason behind your offer."
Nyxelene rose from the throne in one fluid motion and began walking toward the exit.
"Be it from a wealthy family or a poor family, every child comes into this world owning nothing," she said without looking back.
"Some grow up doing things others their age cannot hope to imitate. Trying to walk the same straight path as everyone else will most certainly end in failure. Not all roads run forward; some twist backward, loop and crawl through mud, before they ever reach the summit. Wealth, fame, talent: none of them have a single person's name written on them from birth. In the end, only those who pursue them without pause will ever possess them."
She reached the towering steel doors.
The guards pulled them open without a word.
"Nothing in this world will be handed to you because you need it or because you deserve it," she continued, pausing on the threshold.
"What some achieve through opportunity and natural gifts, others seize through sheer will and relentless effort. And some take through corruption and deceit. It has always been this way, and it will remain so long after we are gone and new generations arise. In conclusion: it is never about how deserving you are. It is always about what you are willing to do."
She stepped through the doorway, then stopped one last time.
"Your first trial, before you meet Orin tomorrow," she spoke over her shoulder.
"Walk down this hallway to the royal kitchens. Make them cook for you. Without killing a single person."
With that, Nyxelene was gone, the doors closed behind her with a final slam.
Aeloria remained on her knees a moment longer, staring at the empty space the queen had left.
"She really is as dangerous as they say," she whispered to the silent hall, rising slowly to her feet.
"Even more so. She carries every evil record in the kingdom, yet she wears them like spotless white. It's as if she is clean, as if every decision she makes is flawless and just. That is one of the most terrifying things about her. Even if you wanted to hate her with every fibre of your being, you would find no single piece of undeniable evidence to stand on."
She walked toward the doors. "The way she sugar-coats absolute cruelty makes her a deadly force in negotiations."
The guards at the threshold ignored her completely. Aeloria pushed the heavy door open herself and stepped into the corridor.
She asked three separate servants for directions to the royal kitchens. All three pretended not to hear her and hurried away.
So she walked alone for several heartbeats until she finally stood before a pair of massive oak doors from which drifted the smells of roasting meat, fresh bread, and spiced wine.
She pushed them open.
The vast kitchen fell silent.
Dozens of chefs, scullery maids, and servants froze mid-motion. Knives hovered over vegetables. Ladles stopped stirring. Every eye turned to the intruder.
"Hey… isn't that the rumored cannibal?" one burly chef muttered, wiping flour from his hands.
His friend with his sleeves rolled high and his arms dusted with seasoning, gave a nervous laugh. "Hell, I've got rosemary and butter all over me. Reckon I'll be the first one she eats; I probably smell delicious right now."
Laughter rippled through the kitchen, fake and forced, the kind meant to hide fear.
Aeloria stood still in the doorway with a blank look. She ignored their insults, she had heard it a couple of times.
"I want food, please. Anything with meat is fine. Chicken would be better. I'm hungry, and the queen said—"
A heavy iron pan, still sizzling with fat, flew straight at her head.
It struck her temple with a sickening clang. Her head snapped back as hot oil and blood streamed down the side of her face.
"You demon! Using chicken as an excuse to eat us!" the thrower snarled.
"Get out of here, you heartless monster!How can you even live after eating your own child? Another shouted.
The words dealt a deeper damage than the pan ever could. Each insult landed like a fresh wound on her heart.
'The pain in my chest just became unbearable,' Aeloria thought.
'It hurts so much. But if a cannibal is what they'll call me… then a cannibal I shall be.'
"Yes. I ate my child," she said with tears rolling down her blood-streaked cheeks while her lips twisted into a broken, terrible smile.
She took one slow step forward, then another, until she stood in the only doorway leading out. Every hand that had reached for something to throw froze mid-motion.
"What makes you think you are special enough for me not to eat you?" Her voice turned cold as she spoke.
The kitchen went dead silent. A pot boiled over unnoticed. Meat charred black on the spit, but no one moved. The cannibal admitted her crimes, what does that mean for them.
"I'm hungry. I haven't had anything decent in days. The first person to throw something at me will be the first person I eat," she continued with tears and rage.
Fear rippled through the room like wind across water.
"I'll bow to the devil himself before I cook for vermin like you!" a young sous-chef screamed, hurling a long carving knife.
It whistled past her head and buried itself in the doorframe.
Aeloria moved.
She crossed the floor in three strides, seized the man by the collar, and bit down on his ear. Cartilage tore.
He shrieked, watching the cannibal chew his ear and swallow, after which she kicked him away.
"For a chef, your meat tastes terrible."
The man collapsed, clutching the bleeding ruin of his head with scream that clawed up the soul.
"The queen said I shouldn't kill any of you. That's all she said," she announced, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Blood smeared across her cheek like war paint.
She looked around the terrified room.
"So tell me, honourable chefs and maids of Runevale… are you going to give me my chicken?
Or are you going to be the chicken?"
Pots clattered and knives fell from shaking hands.
Within seconds every burner blazed, every spit turned, and every set of hands flew to obey. No one wanted a part of their flesh in another person's mouth.
Aeloria walked slowly to the nearest preparation table, picked up a similar hot pan that had struck her, and cradled it against her chest as tears still poured down her face.
She had listened to her daughter cry for two entire weeks after birth.
Two weeks of hunger, of weakness, of a tiny voice growing fainter every day.
Her newborn had been so strong, clinging to life with impossible will.
In the end she had ended the suffering herself, because she could not bear another hour of those cries.
So now, she had to survive. How else could she atone for the sin of killing her own child?
She ate the flesh of her child and drunk her blood to silence the hunger and thirst. By some dark miracle, every wound from the ambush had closed overnight. Strength beyond any woman's had flooded her body. It was as if her child was keeping her strong from within.
She had walked back to Runevale carrying that unbearable truth, ready to be punished, ready to die if that was the price.
Even when the people threw stones and filth, she had accepted it.
She deserved it.
"But the sin is not mine alone to bear. It belonged also to the noble father who had ordered the ambush, who had wanted both me and his unborn child erased so no inconvenient bastard could ever claim his name." She whispered.
Aeloria sank to the cold stone floor, still clutching the burning pan. The heat seared her palms, however, she welcomed the pain.
"For every minute this food is not ready, I will hit this floor fifty times with the pan… and then I will have to eat something else. Someone else," she threatened.
Everyone was so terrified they refused to make a mistake.
'Look at how she's holding the pan we used multiple layered wolf gloves just to touch it like it's nothing. She really is a monster.' A chef thought as he hurried to stir a mixture of garlic, ginger and a few herbs.
She lifted the pan high and brought it down with all her strength.
Clang.
One.