They say that, long ago in a time gone by, when people whispered her name on their lips, it was in prayer, not in fear.

My shattering knee echoed through the room to accompany the screams as her hammer finished its arc. I think the screams were mine. I couldn’t be sure though.

It was hard to imagine the people hearing her name in the streets and feeling… hope? That’s what she was once. Apparently. She heard the stories. How she fought for the lowest of the low; how she stood unwavering like a beacon against the cruel tyrants that held the throne. They say her smile was gentle and kind as she offered her life for yours.

That smile was now lopsided with the scar marring her face, and stretched in so much bitterness it was impossible the see the possible kindness once there. But perhaps it was her eyes that were to blame. Their sharpness was cut by all they saw on her fight.

“Now, darling, it’s far too early for you to leave me here.” Her calloused hand with the tip of her middle finger missing grabbed her hair as she pulled my hanging head up. “We have the world to save. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

I wondered if that’s the side of her the kings and queens saw as she toppled their empires. If she seemed as cruel to them as she seems to us now. If she ever inflicted as much pain back in the stories they tell of her.

She sighed, her black - dark brown from up close as I noticed this close - softening slightly as she reached forward to wipe the tears and blood from my face. “I’m sorry. I know how painful it is to try and survive something like this.” She ran her bloodied fingers through hair hair, spreading red streaks through the ashen white. “I’ve spent months in Melarions royal dungeons. I wish no one ever had to feel even half of that pain.”

There. Her eyes, ever so slightly glassy, looking at me bleed. I could almost imagine the kindness they speak of in her stories.

“But we both know we’re out of time.” She keeps her eyes on the floor as she grabs the black dagger off of the table, turning it over in her hands. She brings the tip against the bottom of my eye applying ever so gentle pressure. “So I’ll do what I have to in order to save those who need it most. And you either help me willingly, or I take what I need from you.” Her eyes meet mine, devoid of all feeling, and I could swear they turn deeper black.

“Please-“

“Shhh” her head twists to one side, her brows furrowed in apparent worry. “We don’t have time for this. We both know what needs to happen. All you have to do, is tell me where that child is. I know you think you must protect it. But is it worth letting the world wither under its soul?”

They say she was kind once. That she let her own life nearly end countless of times just to save another. That she let the kings go free in favour of harming those she tried to protect.

“I… don’t know - where he is.”

I wonder if perhaps she did give her life at some point. If she died in that dungeon from which she came changed. If it was not her heartbeat but her soul that ceased to be for the world.

“Oh, but you do” and the sound in her voice truly made me feel as if it hurt her to say. “And I’m sorry to say that you will tell me. One way or another. The world depends on it.”

I know the screaming won’t help me. But it seems impossible not to as the blade digs through my eye.