The doors to the Great Throne Room weren’t built for humans. They were built for giants, or for gods too arrogant to bow. Ten meters of solid oak, plated with gold that shone so brightly in the afternoon sun that it hurt your eyes. Normally, I found them beautiful. Today, they looked like the jaws of a monster ready to snap shut.

  I stood in the center of the hall, alone.

  My boots of sturdy leather, not those ridiculous silk slippers the court ladies wore who had left a trail of mud on the pristine white marble. I watched the Lord Chamberlain stare at it with a twisted face, as if I had just dumped a corpse on his floor instead of a little earth from the royal gardens.

  "Valerie de Valois," the herald’s voice rang out. It echoed. Everything echoed here. It was as if the space itself was designed to make you feel small.

  I straightened my back. I was sixteen. I was the adopted daughter of the King. And I was scared. Not that I would ever show it to this nest of these vipers. I tossed my red hair over my shoulder like a flag of war in a sea of gray and gold and looked straight ahead.

  On the dais, far away, sat my parents.

  My father, King Arthus, sat on the Sun Throne. His hands gripped the armrests so tightly that his knuckles were white. He wouldn't look at me. He was staring at a point somewhere above my left shoulder.

  Beside him sat Mother... Queen Eleonora. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She had been crying. That was the first sign that this wouldn't be a standard reprimand for 'accidentally' setting fire to the hedge, or escaping the castle walls.

  This was different. The air in the hall was thick and syrupy with tension. On the sides, the nobles were lined up like vultures on a fence. Count Davelon with his ridiculous monocle, the Duchess of Vane with her fan moving like the wings of a nervous hummingbird. They didn't even whisper. They just watched. Hungrily.

  "Father," I said. My voice sounded determined, louder than I intended. "FATHER . If this is about that incident in the city this morning... that merchant asked for it. He called me a—"

  "SILENCE. Valerie," the King said.

  It wasn't a scream. It was a sigh. A tired, broken sigh that hit harder than a slap. King Arthus stood up slowly. He looked older today. The crown seemed to weigh heavier on his head.

  "The incident in the city is merely the final straw," he spoke. His voice carried far, practiced in years of ruling, but the tremor in it was unmistakable to me. "It is no longer safe. Not for us. And not for you."

  I took a step forward, my hands balling into fists. "Safe? I can take care of myself just fine! I fought off those bandits, didn't I?

  I have—"

  "You used magic, Valerie!"

  The voice didn't come from the King. It came from the shadows to the right of the throne. The Bishop stepped forward, his purple robes rustling over the floor. His face was, as always, a mask of pious disdain, but his eyes burned with fanaticism.

  "Black arts," the Bishop hissed, pointing with a bony finger. "In public. Before the eyes of the people. The rumors were bad enough, Your Majesty, but now? Now they have proof. They call her The Red Witch. They say her eyes glow green like the fires of hell itself."

  "My eyes are just green, you old bat," I blurted out before I could think.

  Shocked gasps filled the hall. A fan snapped shut.

  The King ignored my comment, or perhaps he couldn't even hear it over the pounding of his own heart. He finally looked at me. The pain in his gaze made my stomach turn.

  "The decision has been made," he said. The words fell like stones.

  I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. "What decision?"

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The King swallowed. He had to force the words. "You cannot stay here. They demand an inquiry.." He looked with brief disgust at the Bishop, who smiled contently. "And I will not allow that. I will not watch you end up on a pyre."

  "So?" I asked. My voice was small now. "So you're sending me away? To a convent? To a distant aunt in the North?"

  "No," the King said softly. "Further."

  He took a deep breath.

  "You leave today. For Aeridor."

  The silence that followed was deafening. It took a few seconds for the meaning of that word to sink in. Aeridor. The City of Mages. The realm behind the Great Wall. The place where they dump the 'monsters'. The place where humanity hides its mistakes and its fears.

  My pupils narrowed to pinpricks. The blood rushed in my ears.

  I took a step forward, aggressive, forgetting he was the King. Forgetting I had to play a princess. The street rat I was until my fourth year took over.

  "TO AERIDOR?!" I shouted.

  My voice shattered the solemn atmosphere like a hammer through glass. Outside, birds flew up from the window sills, startled by the volume.

  "Are you completely out of your minds?!" I continued, my hands waving wildly. "That's a prison! That's where you put the Orcs and the Demons and the... the freaks! I am your daughter!"

  "Valerie," my mother tried gently.

  "No!" I stomped on the ground. The magic, which always itched just under my skin when I was angry, sparked briefly. I felt the heat in my fingertips. "You're dumping me! You're just throwing me to the wolves!"

  The Bishop took a step forward, his face flushed red. "You see! The aggression! The unnatural rage! This is proof of her cursed blood!"

  I spun around to face him. Veins throbbed on my forehead. I was so angry, so intensely, white-hot furious that the words that left my mouth didn't even seem of this world.

  "WHAT THE FUCK!?" I roared.

  The effect was magnificent.

  It was as if I had detonated a bomb.

  On the right, Count Davelon's monocle finally fell out of his eye socket. Tick. It bounced against his medals. An old baroness nearly fainted and had to be caught by her page. Whispers erupted like a dam breaking.

  "What did she say?"

  "Was that Elvish?"

  "I think it was a curse in the Old Tongue!" a young nobleman whispered with wide eyes.

  "Blasphemy!" screeched the Bishop. "Do you hear that, Arthus? She speaks in tongues! The demon in her speaks!"

  "Valerie!" The King now stood at his full height, towering above the camera and the hall. His voice was thunderous, meant to restore order, but his eyes... his eyes were pleading. "Watch your language!"

  I crossed my arms, chin up, defiant. I was trembling, but I wouldn't cry. Not here. Not for them.

  "My language is the least of your problems," I snapped at him. "You are sending me to hell."

  "We are sending you to a place where you can live," the King said, and suddenly his voice cracked. He slumped a little, the royal fa?ade crumbling. "The fact that we kept you hidden this long is already a miracle, Val."

  A short silence fell. A flash of memory shot through my head.

  A little girl with fire-red hair, dirty and starving, being smuggled into the palace under a cloak. The warm hands of the Queen wiping her face clean. The promise: "No one will ever hurt you."

  "You know the law," the King continued, softer now, gesturing to the Bishop who stood panting with indignation. "Any creature with active magic must go to Aeridor. Or submit to them." He looked at me intently. "And you know what the they does to... people like you."

  I looked at the Bishop. He grinned. A filthy, sadistic grin that promised that if I stayed, I would beg for death. He called me 'Devil's Child' in the corridors, I knew that. He would skin me alive to see where the magic sat.

  The choice was no choice. It was Aeridor or the torture chamber.

  The reality settled in like a lead weight. My life here... the soft beds, the library with thousands of books, the mornings in the garden with her... it was over. In one stroke of the legal pen.

  I took a deep breath. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I wouldn't give them the pleasure of seeing me break...

  I turned around abruptly. My red hair swung like a cape behind me.

  "Fine," I said coldly.

  I started walking. Away from the throne. Away from the parents who couldn't save me.

  "Sure! Of course!" I called out, and my voice cracked, half-laughing, half-crying.

  My boots stomped harder than necessary on the marble. BONK. BONK. BONK. Each step was a goodbye.

  Halfway through the hall, I threw my hands in the air, even without looking back.

  "Everything for the beloved motherland!"

  I shouted sarcastically at the ceiling, at the gods, at anyone listening.

  "Screw you all! I'll go to the monsters! They're probably better company than you lot!"

  The great doors swung open by the guards. Bright outdoor light streamed in, blindingly white. I stepped over the threshold and disappeared from their world.

  Behind me, in the sudden silence of the throne room, King Arthus slowly sank back into his throne. He looked as if he had aged ten years in ten minutes.

  The Queen's hand landed softly on his arm. She was crying .

  "Don't be too hard on her," she whispered.

  The King rubbed his eyes, his shoulders shaking. "She knows people talk, Eleonora."

  "They call her the 'Red Witch' because of her hair," the Queen sobbed. "My little girl..."

  The King stared at the empty spot where I had just stood, where the sunlight danced on the dust.

  "I know," he said hoarsely. He cast a glance at the Bishop, who stood whispering triumphantly with a clerk. The King balled his fist again. "If she stays here, she will die. There... in Aeridor... there she is at least safe."

  He closed his eyes.

  “Hopefully”