Odette Eldrid always believed her kingdom’s old addage, the streets were paved in blood, to be a tad melodramatic.

For merely a year prior, the young woman couldn’t have imagined such a thing in actuality. The red headed warrior princess could easily imagine it now as she walked through the once bustling street of her capital city.

The very cobblestone street she’d walked down for her coronation, which had been lined with red and gold then, was now swathed in a reddish brown color.

Dried blood. For her city’s streets truly were paved in the rust colored liquid now.

Oddette’s stomach churned as she took in the devasation of her once beautiful kingdom.

Red filled her vision, sorrow turning to visceral anger in her chest. Twisting her ruby red heart into something far darker.

For, it was her fault.

She hadn’t taken the Auburn King, and his blood mages, threats seriously. At least, not as seriously as she should have.

She’d heard the stories, as all in her kingdom, Lymira, had. She knew the mages and false king where feared throughout the lands across the Vernillion Sea to the west, but she had her Gingray.

Giant, fantastical crimson scaled beasts capable of breathing red hot fire. Not to mention, an entire kingdom loyal to her and their fellow man.

She foolishy thought that was enough. It was not.

Her calamity of Gingray, twenty strong, was wiped out in one fell swoop by the Auburn King’s forbidden blood magic. Before her army had even finished rallying he’d pushed through their defenses with his savage army, causing all there to either retreat or perish.

Odette could do nothing to stop the bloodletting. For, while her magic was powerful even then, it was a healer’s touch she possessed. Utterly useless in a war, for she couldn’t even revive her Gingray - there had been nothing left of them.

So, now she walked painfully slowly through the streets of her fallen kingdom. Looking for any survivors, as she trudged toward her fate.

She found none, only blood and gore survived the latest battle. As did she.

One useless so called warrior princess. She was unable to save her kingdom from their scarlet hued fate. She’d protected some as long as she could, had held out nearly a year after the inital attack, but this last battle had left her city decimated.

There was nothing left for her to do now, far too many people had died to save her the fate of the prophecy. It was time she too accepted her fate.

So, she walked and walked and walked further still.

Until she made it to what was once her rose colored palace, but now belonged to someone else entirely.

Blood mages guarded the entrance. They stiffened at her approach, but didn’t move. The stiffening was a sign that they knew she’d learned far more than how to heal in this past year but she made no move to attack. Only walked up the carmine steps with bare blood covered feet.

The red mages smiled insidiously as she passed them, heading through the towering gates, and straight to the throne room.

The Auburn King, Edom, sat upon her ruby throne with a sickening smile on his too red lips.

“Welcome home,” he purred sweetly, but she wasn’t so easily beguiled. She knew his friendly demeanor to be a mask he took on and off at his leisure. She’d fallen for it once before when she’d called for a truce.

That truce was met with sweet words and fake smiles she foolishly believed - it ended with hundreds of her people dead. The memory made her back straighten and blood boil.

“You’re in my chair.” She said, held high as she continued to walk towards him. Her bare feet ached, having carried her tens of miles from her encampment on the outskirts of Lymira, but nonetheless she walked surefooted to the ruby incrusted throne.

Not letting a speck of her fear show.

“Am I now?” The Auburn King drawled, head cocked as he stared at the bodice of her gown, looking like the drooling mutt he was.

“Yes.” She stated, that one word holding so much power the roof of her palace shook. The blood mages guarding the king took a few steps forward.

The Auburn King held up a hand, halting his guards. They immediately stopped moving as if puppets on the King’s strings. It was a foolish thing to do, but something she had been counting on. Edom had always thought little of her and her lithe body, seeing no threat worth taking serious in her crimson eyes.

That would be his downfall, as it had been hers.

“Why do you come here, Odette?” The king inquired, raising a perfectly shaped brow.

“To die,” she said solemnly.

Before the mages or the Auburn King could react she was upon him, using the magic she’d practiced to move faster than should be possible. In a heartbeat, she was atop him, straddling his much larger frame with a dagger poised against his throat.

The Auburn King swallowed thickly, knicking himself against her sharp blade as a trail of bright red blood slipped down his pale throat.

“Honestly, you wench. You must know how futile this is. You’ll never make it out of my cas-“ The words turned into garbled nonsense as she slit the male’s throat.

Crimson blood sprayed her face, but she wasn’t the fragile princess she used to be. It didn’t sicken her, instead she smiled and lifted the knife once more before plunging it into his skull.

“As I said,” Princess Odette Eldrid of Lymira growled into the false King’s ear. “I came to die.”

She wrenched the blade free. A moment later, the mages were upon her. They grabbed at her viciously, tearing her clothes in the process as they attacked the woman.

They beat her mercilessly, flinging her into each other’s magic filled attacks. Her skin burned under their attacks but she gritted her teeth and bared it.

Bared it for all of those who suffered before her.

After a few more vicious blows, a particularly enraged mage apparently grew tired of toying with her. He raised his sword and plunged it into her stomach. The shock was immediate, as was the blood.

She looked down at the wound and past it to the palace floor and smiled.

Finally, it was her ruby hued blood that had fallen.

“Stop smiling, whore!” The mage growled, twisting the blade painfully but she couldn’t stop smiling. even as the pain deepened. Because past the frantic shouting and clanking of metal she heard the beautiful sound of her Gingray’s powerful wings.

The prophecy was true then.

A princess with a heart of rubies must, by her hand, end the life of another, the prophecy had went. A false king with a rusted heart of reddish brown must be felled. Only then, would order be brought to the world, raising all that was never meant to be lost.

Odette fell to her knees, the sword slicing sickeningly through her as she hit the ground, but she was long past feeling.

“You better run,” she said with watery eyes and a savage blood red smile as her blood filled her mouth. The mage’s eyes widened as hers began to close. She fell back, the sword slipping from her as she fell hard to the ground.

‘The Ruby Princess may die today,’ she thought, still smiling, as she slipped away. ‘But my kingdom will rise stronger from my blood and ashes.’

The last thing she heard and felt was the sorrowful trilling of her crimson hued Gingrays. And, the shaking of her castle as they landed, beginining their attack.

Then there was nothing,

but blessed peace

and for once she

didn’t see red.

For the end

was golden,

beautiful,

and hers.