Order of Scorpions

by Ivy Asher

For those that fall before they fly

Every blade slave has a secret hope for where they’ll end up, but hope is all it is, and in a place like this, hope can kill you faster than anything else.

a blue dress clutched in her arthritic hands, the color so deep it looks as though it’s been kissed by the night.

He jokes that I’m the sun his moon is always drawn to,

Death. It all leads to death.

I knew the reaper would find me eventually, but this is too soon.

Fate thinks it’s funny to pit me against mountains that can walk, talk, and fight.

“Because we failed you once, and we weren’t going to fail you again,”

“It hurts,” she pants. It breaks my fucking heart.

Let them all leave their castles and their cooks and their servants. Let them be bought, sold, and used as they come up in a ludere, and then maybe they’d be worth listening to. Until then, they can fuck themselves with an iron dagger for all I care.

“You’re my brother and I don’t want to hurt you, but she’s my mate. If you don’t move, I will fuck you up,” I warn.

“Fuck boots!”

I don’t want to get a taste of this life and love it, only to find out that it’s poison.

I’ll make anyone who’s ever hurt me, pay.

My stomach starts moaning again, and I beg it to stop trying to climb out of my throat in an attempt to crawl closer to the cooking food.

“They’d have to go through us to get to you, and no one gets through us,” he declares,

“You waited for her?” I ask reverently, simultaneously stunned and in awe of that kind of devotion. “I love her, Poppet. That means I will rip the realms apart if that’s what she needs, destroy anyone who’d dare ta stand against her. But it also means I’ll wait. Wait fer my strong incredible mate ta mourn and grieve and come back ta me. I’ll hold every piece of her shattered heart safe in my arms until she’s ready to put it back together. And do you know what’s so beautiful, so astonishing about it all?” Rink asks as my eyes begin to sting with emotion. “She would do the exact same for me.”

princess of death,

I’m his equal in every way. Not some slave stolen in the dark of the night. Not a conquest to capture and then cast aside.

“What doesn’t kill us fortifies us,”

a small laugh escaping her as she does. I want to pluck the melody from the air and seal it in a jar so I can hear it again anytime I want.

I sigh like some lovesick pup.

“I’m so sorry for what he did to you.” The in-between washes over me as his sorrow and his words wrap around my ribs and compress them against my heart. The last thing I see is a streak of long blonde braids and a pink night dress as Jovie flies into her parents’ arms. I chose her innocence over the roar of death, and as the shadows in the corner swallow me whole, I can’t help but wish that someone had once done the same for me.

I love how fucked in the head we all are. Who needs romantic overtures and jewels when you can have fights to the death and the torturing of your enemies?

Fuck. I knew someone was going to nail me with a crossbow.