The poisoned child

Esme 

The sky has the grey tint that indicates dawn is near, painting the hard training ground in dreamlike colors. We’ve already been out here for hours, and we’ll be here for hours yet to come. My training clothes itch, the raw white fabric scratching every time I move. I breathe heavily, trying to get myself together. 

Father stands to the side, his eyebrows raised, his dark eyes giving me his signature cold stare. I learned from early childhood that not pleasing him meant punishment for me and my mother, who he is keeping as a prisoner at this point to have emotional leverage over me. And although I’m 19 now, I do not have a choice on what I do, say or think. I have to do as he wants, or my mother is going to suffer the consequences of my actions. Besides, I’m just a lowly Omega he has trained to be the perfect secret in the palace where everyone has a secret or five.   

“Again” He says, crossing his arms. 

I raise the knives, my hands shaking from the effort. In front of me is my opponent, a young man with a sly grin. He doesn’t even look like he’s broken a sweat yet. Asshole. 

We clash in another battle of the knives and move to dodge each other. I hook my foot under his knee, sending him skirting in the dirt. He swirls, knives raised and the grin finally off that ugly face. I wave, keeping my posture and watching his every move. 

“Wait.” Father calls, coming forward. His eyes glint dangerously, and I don’t let up on my posture. He has drilled it into my skull; you never let your guard down. Not even with allies. 

“Did you notice what she did, Callan?” Father asks the young man, and he nods with a frown. 

“I felt it.” He says, grudgingly nodding approval my way. “She’s fast.”  

“Perhaps, but you are not a sapling, either. Remember that motion. Continue.” 

The training continues well after dawn, and by the time father deems us ‘good enough for now’, we are both sweating, heaving messes. I drag my body back to the cottage, going into my room to gather my normal outfit, a dark grey short sleeved shirt, pale skirt and a sash, then I also grab my work shoes, which are of a different type of leather than my training ones. 

Going outside again, I open the door to the outer washing room, where a barrel with rain water awaits. Over it hangs a small mirror, where I can see my reflection. My stormy-grey eyes are slightly haunted by the lasted adds to my training; killing actual people with poisoned food, drinks and knives. I need to toughen up more, father says. 

The blue tinge under them is less visible today, but only because I haven’t struggled to take my tonic. My light golden hair is loose after I pulled the pins out in my room, flowing over my shoulder. I know I’m too thin, but rations are scarce, and I don’t complain about my ration. I’ll live. Things would have improved more if my wolf had come when I turned 18 last year, but nothing more than a whisper. 

Father had snorted and said; “Of course not. You are a weak Omega, Esme. I keep telling you, and you need to listen more.” 

Out there I pour the cold water over my body, ignoring the jibes from the other occupants of the village. I’ve heard it all before, and none of them dare to touch me anyway because of my father, so I’ve learned to ignore them. 

While drying off my vision blurs as I hit a special sore spot at my left side, just under my ribs. I look over and there is a massive bruise growing. I guess training is working then, I didn’t even feel it before now. 

Training. I shudder. I hate it. I hate everything about it. The pace, the roughness, the competition and the fact that everyone is out to get me down. Father keeps me on my toes, hauling me through endless hours of repetition, waking me up at night to ask me questions and something to haul me outside to show him how to sneak up on someone.

I never asked for this. Never asked to be his daughter, but here I am. His mission in life is to kill the Werewolf King, and I am going to be his perfect weapon. The child he raised as his right hand. 

Flashback 

“Come on Esme! You need to do better than that. I don’t want to hurt you, or your mother, but you don’t seem motivated.” 

“No, father. I’m sorry.” The knives in my hand are too heavy for a 9 year old to handle, but I have been working with them for years now. Ever since I can remember back. “I’ll do better. Please don’t hurt her.” My mother is crying in the corner of the indoor training arena, bruises all over her face. Father looms over her, his cold eyes focused on me. 

“Then do better, daughter. You only have me, and I am not losing you just because you are a weak little Omega.” 

I do the shadow dance again, my entire body trembling. Tears stream down my cheek, clearing a path of clean in all the dirt. My mother cries silently by father’s side, while he just crosses his arms, his cold eyes steadily observing my movements. 

I’ve started to feel more and more weak ever since he started giving me my nightly tonic. I’ve tried to tell him I don’t want it, but last time I tried to refuse, he held me down and forced it down my throat while yelling how it’s my fault that we are poor, outcast and living in the edge of the village and he’ll have to hurt my mother if I keep being obstinacy. 

The next morning the sun isn’t over the edge of the horizon before I’m back in the training ring, but this time we’re outside and I’m only allowed to be in my underwear. To learn the lesson of being cold, but not making a sound. It’s in the middle of winter and freezing. My teeth are clattering. 

“Stop making noise, Esme.” He says, coming up behind me. He is a looming presence as I try to stop my body from convulsing in the freezing wind. 

“Sorry father.” 

“Don’t apologise. Fix it.” I swallow my reply, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. “Good. An assassin does not make any signs whatsoever, daughter. Remember that.” 

I shake the memory from my mind, only to have another take over immediately. 

My father dragged me from the cottage into the woods, dumping me in my training clothes and without anything else. I’m 12, and we had a row last night about my tonic again, and the fact that he is getting colder and more distant towards me. 

“I will fetch you in three days. Stay alive.” He turns and leaves without another word, making me sit in the dark forest without food, drink or weapons. 

The forest closes in on me as the darkness speaks loud with its stillness. Something scratches in the bush to my right, and then something else whispers a movement in the bush to my left. I throw myself to my stomach as someone jumps out sneering and cursing. Training takes over, and I blindly fight my opponent, rendering him unconscious before stealing his knife and running deeper into the wood. I need a height advantage. 

The trees loom over me, as footsteps follow in hurried and light movements behind me. My breath is coming in short controlled stabs, but soundless as has been drilled into me. 

I blink as someone hollers a crude remark my way, remembering I’m not yet dressed. Someone is tapping their feet, and looking over there I see my fathers impatient face. His brows are knit together in that way where I know I’ll have to hurry if I don’t want him to take his disappointment over me out on my mother. The clothes are on in hurried movement, as the memory of the days and nights in the forest fade into nothing in my mind. 

Every day at sunset he appeared, forcing the tonic in me, making sure I was alive and leaving me again. It was survival or death. He needed his weapon to be sharp. 

After the three days out there he bought me home to see my mother chained in the basement, beaten and bloodied. He explained the punishment he had to make her endure because of my insubordination.

“Good. Now come on.” He turns away to walk into the cottage. 

I follow with a small frown. He seems to have something important to discuss? I follow him inside, braiding my light golden hair back from my face. 

Inside, at the dining table a man with hollow cheeks, cold grey eyes and sleeked back dark hair sits looking stern and kind of frightening. His eyes do a once over when I step into the room behind my father, and I swallow a lump in my throat, hiding my emotion behind a blank mask. Father sits down beside the man, not inviting me to do the same, so I clasp my hand behind my back and stand straight. 

“Esme, this is Rastin. He works as the right hand to the Head Omega in the kitchens of the palace. You are leaving with him today. Go get your bag.” 

My body immediately reacts to the command, although my brain needs a second to readjust to what he just said. I’m leaving today? But the plan.. Well, the plan had clearly been changed. In my room my bag is already packed, and I just have to put it on, before I walk back out into the little dining and living area where father and Rastin are waiting by the door. 

“Ready pet?” Father asks and I nod obediently. “Good. Rastin will update me on your progress. Don’t let your mother down.” Then he opens the door to the fall weather and the waiting carriage.