Chapter 22

Ch. 22: Janice Pt. 3

The man started walking once more, evidently displeased with what he heard. Janice was half skeptical about the stranger’s odd questions, but had she not experienced strange phenomenons within the alley? If he were able to make her divulge her secret, lifelong wish, who was she to claim who wouldn’t be able to fulfill them? A small, dangerous flame of hope began to burn in Janice’s wicked heart and she continued to speak her case to the man.

“Please don’t go, sir. I am willing to do anything, did I not say that before? Tell me your conditions and I shall fulfill them to the best of my abilities,” she beseeched. The stranger turned around, a slight smirk on his face.

“And what if it cost you... everything?” he asked, carefully observing her actions.

Janice swallowed nervously and stood straighter on the wall, now free to move once more.

“I would still do it, sir,” she said in an even tone because it was true. Janice would do anything to become a wealthy member of the elite. It was the life she just knew she had always been destined to lead.

The stranger had ceased walking away and now had a pleased expression on his face. It seemed he liked what Janice had said and she gulped but did not show any sign of objection.

“Good. It will not be sudden, but I promise that while you are still in the golden haze of your youth, you will achieve the highest power you could only dream of. You will sit in the seat every woman dreams to win and have the eyes of the most powerful man in the Empire.”

The man slowly approached Janice again as he told her the sweet, sweet words she had always wanted to hear. To think it would be so easy? Be it within a year or ten, Janice was willing to wait if she got what she wanted.

.....

“Yes, that is what I want!”, Janice crowed, looking at the stranger as if he were a lost satchel of coins she had luckily happened upon.

The young maid, soon to emerge from her teenage years, covered her mouth giddily. To think she was supposed to stay in her tiny, rural village and remain engaged to the chieftain’s son! It had been a worthy gamble for her to run away from home and seek a better life for herself. Becoming empress, Janice had briefly wondered about the possibility, but the empress was rumored to be the most beautiful woman in the land. But the emperor had been unfaithful once, her previous mistress was evidence of such. Who was to say Janice wouldn’t be able to tempt the emperor to sin once more?

“What do I do to get my wish, sir? Do you need me to kill someone?” Janice asked, intent on pleasing her wish granter.

She had never killed anyone before, but Janice was certain she would be able to follow through with it if it gave her what she wanted.

The stranger shook his head with a bemused expression.

“For now, you need only ingest my blood for the magic to begin its work,” the gentleman said softly.

Janice startled backward, surprised by his request. To consume blood was a grotesque method but as her mind wandered back to the shimmery china plates in the Rose Palace and the beautiful garden she would never see in her dreams, Janice stared at the man’s hand ravenously.

She snatched it from his side and with a savageness not many young women possessed, bit down hard into the meaty flesh of his palm. Janice did not want to give him any opportunity to cheat her and in an amusing parallel, had quite literally chosen to grab her fate with her own hands. Trickles of blood ran down the corner of her lips and over her tongue. Janice had expected the bitter saltiness that blood usually held, but this was different and her eyes widened with surprise and she bit deeper.

The stranger did not resist, instead patting her on the head as if she were a child. It was odd, but she was too invested to chide him about it. A sweet taste, like an exotic fruit she had never consumed before, filled her mouth and left her wanting more. Janice could not even worry about how unladylike she appeared making a meal out of a man’s hand, for the taste was so good she could think of nothing else but drinking more and more, the taste trickling down her throat and setting her throat on fire in the most pleasing way.

‘There, there. That’s enough now,” the stranger said softly. Janice had a death grip on his black sleeve and was drinking vigorously, but it only took a wriggle or two for the man to free himself.

A yawning void of hunger had opened within Janice once the first drop of blood fell onto her tongue. Her stomach cramped with hunger and she glared at the powerful man before her viciously until the haze faded and she realized what she had done. But Janice was not keen on apologizing anymore and instead scowled at the man again, her unfriendly side emerging.

“I’m not sorry,” she said obstinately, licking her lips generously.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be,” he casually responded, rebuttoning the sleeve of his white shirt under the jacket. Through the magic that Janice now believed he had, his hand was already healed and spotless.

She looked up at him, feeling nervous at the entity before her.

“Are you- Are you really Akira, sir?” she said, staring at his healed hand in dismay.

Janice should have given more time before she reverted to her usual ways. Even if she didn’t believe it, Janice remembered the tall tales spun around the bonfires at her village regarding Akira and his constant battle with Helio. If this man was the Darkness itself, according to the stories she did bother to listen to, he could eat her soul or something scary like that. Janice wanted to bang her head on the wall behind her. She should’ve listened more closely when the village elders spoke.

“Why ask, when you already know?” Akira rebutted. Janice froze in place, not from his magic, but from her own horror. She had just made a deal with Akira, the Darkness.

“W-What will your magic cost me, my lord?” she asked timidly, afraid he would ask for her soul or steal many years from her life. Her lips trembled as she spoke, along with the rest of her body.

Akira pretended to consider for a moment.

“For now, I have not determined it. But the next time you see me, I shall inform you. Until then, return to the palace,” Akira ordered calmly. How could Janice afford not to obey him?

“Yes, my lord,” Janice said in her most reverent tone, even dropping into a low curtsey. Her mind was going in circles. She had been expelled from the palace less than an hour before, surely if Akira was all-powerful, he would know this?

“Maid Janice!” someone yelled to her left, so loud it startled her out of her curtsey. A maid was standing at the mouth of the alley and was calling her name with her hands cupped around her mouth.

Janice stared back at the sudden intruder with wide eyes, like a rabbit that had gotten caught in a bear trap. For a young woman to be in an alley with a strange man, it was a scene that would be considered disgraceful if the wrong people heard about it. She looked forward to where Akira had stood with a guilty expression, but there was nothing before her but the brick exposed wall of the alley.

Janice furiously spun in a circle, but there was no one in the alley but herself and bags of garbage that suddenly all stunk at once. When she had been speaking with Akira, she had not noticed a single, unpleasant scent and Janice offhandedly wondered if the god had made it so the trash would not stink as they spoke.

“I’m right here!” the maid yelled again, irritation evident in her voice.

As far as she knew, there was only one entrance to the alley. Surely this maid the empress had ordered her to find was not so foolish so didn’t know the way out?

“I know,” Janice said sullenly, quickly storming over the maid.

She could not fathom why anyone from the palace would deliberately seek her out. But as she drew nearer to the maid in question, an unpleasant smile spread across her face. All maids in the castle wore a similar uniform, but those who worked in special locations, such a royal’s palace or courtyard, received special pins on the front of their garment that denoted their rank.

Janice had previously worn a pink pin, but when she had been dragged through the servants’ quarters, the greedy hands of those who laughed at her had snatched it off her breast and torn the fabric of her black dress. The maid before her wore a red one, the color of the Empress’ Sunrise Palace.

Janice smiled at curtsied at the maid after she had exited the alley, but after so many years serving the empress, the maid had a keen sense of who was sincere and who wasn’t. Her senses told her that this Janice was mocking her, but the maid recognized the double-edged sword of bringing this beautiful woman into the palace and said nothing.

“I am no longer maid Janice, please simply call me Janice,” Janice said quietly. She looked down so to hide the bloodthirstiness in her eyes.

The maid sniffed disapprovingly but relayed her message nonetheless.

“That may not be so, Maid Janice. How would you like to serve her majesty and earn more riches than you could ever dream of?” the maid said in a monotone voice, just reciting what the empress had told her to say.

Janice smiled an awful grin at the ground, one that would make anyone’s skin crawl if they saw it. So this was what Akira had meant when he told her to remain at the palace.

“I would be too happy to comply with her majesty’s wishes.”