Crown Of Horns

Rue's P.O.V.

I slot the most useful potions in the back and left side straps before reaching for my inherited Spine.

I lay it on my table and trail my fingers down the darkened and tempered diamond metal face that runs down into a sharpened point. The intricately designed runes on the front two faces of the diamond shape are of a language no longer taught.

It was all meant to be forgotten so that turning the dead into weapons could still mean something.

I sigh.

I miss him and his stories.

My father's bloodied face flashes before me.

I slip it into the leather loop at my right on the waistband. I put the last of my books and ingredients into the satchel attached to my straps.

I take one last look around the small greenhouse turned alchemy room before tightening the leather belt around my scaled, lithe waist. I reach for the tattered old green sash that marks the alchemist trade I claim.

Stepping from the greenhouses' doors and letting them swing shut behind me, I make my way to the main house carved into the rock of the underground cave system.

I push past the beaded curtain separating the living space and the external cave. I walk over to my brother Thistle and gently tug on his horns.

"It's time I leave for the capital."

My auntie rushes over to me and captures me in a hug. I wrap my arms around her as her voice graces the back of my mind. Soft and withered with age.

"Please be safe; the tunnels are always dangerous."

I press the top of my head against her, my hand finding the back of her neck. After I pull back, my brother does the same thing with me as tradition dictates.

When Thistle turns to me, I reach my scaled hand toward his belt and give it a firm pull, seeing it's loose.

"Hey! Rue!"

I tilt my head to the side and shake it before my voice graces the back of his mind.

"Take care of Auntie while I'm gone, okay?"

I check the tightness of my belt before I start to head for the entrance of the cavern.

"Rue!" My brother's voice urgently reaches for my mind. I turn to him. "Be safe, sister, please."

I nod and tap the hilt of my spine and then dip into the tunnel lit by slow-burning lanterns hanging every meter or so.

I travel the tunnels for the better part of an entire day before I get to the first sign of civilized rest.

A small tavern set up in the entrance of an expansive cavern. I step inside, my clawed hand resting on the hilt of my spine, and I cautiously approach the barkeep.

"Relax, we are a civil establishment here." He's already turning to me with a clean crystal glass, pouring an amber liquid into it by the time I release the hilt of my spine.

"How much?" I prompt, digging into my satchel.

"Two Tithes," he turns back to his wall of glasses and starts to grab another to clean.

I dig out two of the sapphire-colored pieces of crystals mined from the deeper part of the cave system. Tithes.

I set it then on the bar next to the drink and pull it closer to myself.

I retract my clawed shell around my fingers and extract the mandible from my pointer finger and submerge it into the liquid. I relax a bit and finish the drink before nodding and leaning back slightly in the chair.

"You know, I usually make people pay for information, but I'm giving this voluntarily. Beware if you're heading into the capital." His voice is small when it speaks to my mind, as if he were scared for me or hesitant for some reason to give the information up.

I sit up a bit straighter and tilt my head, digging out another Tithe and tossing it his way to keep him talking.

"Well, you see...Wait, do you not know? Your horns...You're royalty, aren't you? No branches." He gestures to his own three-branched pair of horns.

"What... I have no idea what you're talking about; I was raised in the Southern tribe. Doubtful royalty would come from there..." I murmur absentmindedly.

The silence stretches longer than it should have.

I look up from the reflection in my glass and see him agape.

"Lords. You really don't know." He puts down the glass and dips behind the shelf; after a burst of shuffling and crates knocking together, he produces an old printed news-cloth.

It's tattered and worn by time, but the black ink pressed into the fabric shocks me.

The headline makes me shoot out of my chair and gently take the fabric from his hands.

"King killed by his own heir. Newborns, prince, and princess are missing."

I look up at the barkeep.

"How much?" I reach into my satchel.

He shakes his head and presses the cloth held in my hands to my scaled chest.

"It's yours; take it, but just be careful who you show. They recalled and destroyed almost all of these; I just so happened to be far enough from the capital to not get caught with it."

Confusion fills my chest before I look back down at the ink-pressed image of that all-too-familiar image of my father's bloodied and lifeless body on the ground.

I fold the piece of paper up and carefully put it in my satchel.

"Thank you, I'll be careful."

I turn toward the bead door separating me from the tunnels of the cave system.