Flash Fiction Friday (14)

Dottie over at Tink's Place have come up with the idea for a Monday Morning Flash Fiction challenge. Each Monday a new picture prompt will be posted and if you choose to participate you post your story on Friday - 350 words, give or take.

I have to thank Blodeuedd at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell for introducing me to this fun meme. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with every week, but I'll give it a try from time to time.

The Image This Week:

This picture struck me as the same world I created with 'The Fathers Daughter' so this week I'm going to go back to her...

By Melissa

I watch from this rocky hillside as my husbands' army crosses the border into my home land.  Battle ignites with the shrill of battle cries and sharp echoes of metal clashing.  

I'm Queen of two kingdoms now, combined to make one.  We built our castle on these hills, that once divided the two lands, to create a meeting point of both sides.  But since I murdered my father that day a few years ago, things have been more turbulent than expected.  The people of the two kingdoms don't blended.  There are always skirmishes and many of my fathers' loyalists have risen from the shadows and underground labyrinth of piping to fight me and my new husband.  I had lost a quarter of my supporters with the marriage, even though they supported it in the beginning.

The cruel hand of my father kept our land safe, at any cost, while he ruled.  But now my new army, the army of my father's enemies' son, marches to decimate what was left at the abandoned castle I had called home.  And I don't care.  They will destroy every last stone that creates the walls my evil witchy sister cowers in.  She's poisoned the people of the land to think I'm the evil one.  I had great plans for us, her and me.  To rule together...  

I await my moment to go and sneak into her dilapidated castle, find my sister and become the assassin once again.  Using the gift I received on my tenth birthday, a silver jeweled dagger, intended to protect me from my enemies, yet has turned on the very blood that gave it to me.

I leave the hill side in a run, past the rocks to find the one that was my sister.  I'll take the horse waiting for me at the bottom of the hill with the secret guard to the hidden entrance I used when I laid the plans into action to remove my father from the throne and promise myself to my now husband.

I had thought Sasha was becoming like our cruel father, but now years later I have learned she has the infected blood of her father, the sorcerer that weaseled his way into our home.  He has filled her mind with rot all these years and now we have to act.  The only family I have left will also have to pass at my hand.  Once again I make the sacrifice for the greater good of my people, our people.  As the army fights and tears the dilapidated castle to shreds I will sneak in behind them with a small guard to find my sister.

I have started to see my father in a slightly new light, now that he's gone.  And, as I've always known there where secret agendas guiding everyone, I start to see a clearer outcome to them all.    This small blade I carry in my bodice has done more killing of family than killing my enemy.  Or... has one become the same as the other.  Who really is my enemy here?  My sister, my husband... maybe me.  Or someone else completely?