" HIS BREATH BURNT HOT AGAINST THE WORLD "

Eight years after prologue

THE BEATING OF her anxious heart slammed against her eardrums in a boisterous rhythm, her gold tinted veins pulsing to life with the adrenaline of a billion gallant rivers. Her breath felt absolute as she filled her lungs with the humid air of the atmosphere, her ample hands shook helplessly with the heavy bones that resided beneath her milky skin.

The woman wore strength and darkness against her body in an equal display, for the scars that claimed her body pulsed with the history of her own warfare. It was the chaos that made her uniquely beautiful, for her wild persona could not be tamed by the simple hand of man. For the woman with golden blood was born half Goddess, and half Demon.

Augustina felt the heated droplet of gold escape the corner of her poised lips, her veins burning with an uncontainable flame. The dirt beneath her bare feet felt cool to the touch, the raging of man vibrating the bloodied landscape around her in a breath of joviality. It was sickening, for the audience craved the sound of breaking bones, crushed skulls, and unneeded death.

The tranquil silence she had built around her erupted with a chime of blurred exclamations, the audiences clapping breaking through the beat of her eardrums to pound against her skin. The crimson blood that caked her hands seemed unimportant in the spacious time she had collected, her palms lacerated with deepened cuts from the serrated blade that laid inches away from her right foot.

She had rightfully disarmed the man before her, the damaging result resting in the deepened cuts that rested upon her palms. The flesh giving away to give birth to the bone beneath, exposing the golden hue of her exotic blood. Augustina wasn't like the rest, for her bloodline was as pure as the dirt she walked upon with a balanced grace, as deep as the longest river, and as wild as the breeze.

Chaos reined behind her gray eyes, a storm of mixed emotions welling behind the lenses of her beautiful features. "Finish him!" A boisterous voice broke through the audience, the two words sending a fight of chills down her ridged spine. The white walls that caged herself and her opponent seemed to close in, for the smeared blood of unknown men stained the delicately cut stone.

The man before her looked upon her with beady eyes of brown, his busted lips parting in a gasp of angst for the woman of heated temptation. "Please don't," The man whispered, his bony hand raising upward toward the woman who held his fate in the palm of her calloused hands. "Please." The man added for emphasis, the single word falling short on his cracked lips.

Augustina didn't bother listening to the man's plead, for his words were darkened with deepening sin. He was thrown into the arena for a broken law, one that rested unknown upon the shoulder of the stark haired woman. With a shift of her gray eyes, she caught the attention of the man she served, the man that held the chains to her mind. The king of Theadale, the man who slaughtered her bloodline, and her prosperous people.

The round man perched himself beneath a tent of shade, watching with glee in his emerald eyes for his prized slave had captured the hand of a ruthless man. The King wouldn't look any happier, for his lips were parted with a hearty laughter of mesmerization. Blood and gore had been his ambition, his growing entertainment.

Why not let the daughter of your enemies serve it on a silver platter? Make her the puppet, and him the master? Dancing on the end of his strings she found herself glued to his large figure, watching with a gaze of observation. It wasn't she who discarded the life of men life, for she simply demolished the blow.

The man who set himself above the citizens of Theadale dealt with the needless murder, his golden crown justifying such horrid acts. Her hands were simply covered in the blood of his deeds, darkened with the stains of red and gold. With a raise of his shaking hand, the King of Man ended the pleader's life. The simple movement grinding the man's fate into stone, ordering the departure of his soul and body.

Keeping her eyes upon the laughing king, Augustina lowered her hands against the dirt below, her body dropping into a crouching position. "Please, I will do anything!" The man screeched, his hands reaching forward in an effort to collect the sword that was held by the raven-haired woman. Raising a stark brow, Augustina drew her attention toward the beady-eyed man.

"Do you truly fear death?" The question rolled from the Princess's tongue in a web of darkened silk, a mysterious aura surrounding the twisted question.

"N-no." The man rushed, his body fallen broken against the dust below the woman's feet. His knees pressing against the landscape, leaving his wavering torso to straighten before the forgotten Princess.

"Than do not cry as if you do, for death is simply an escape from the wretched world we are cursed to wonder."

The words alone sent a powerful flow through her body, for her own angst of death seemed to grow to dominate with the passing days. Her slippery hands laid barren against the handle of the blade, the mixture of sweat and blood making it almost impossible to maintain her hold on the heavy weapon. Raising the blade in a steadied effort, she surged upward from her position against the landscape.

"I am truly sorry, dear," Augustina whispered, that words oddly genuine against the dusty air that flourished before her gold-painted lips. The serrated tip of the sword didn't take long to rush through the air, capturing the area between the man's collarbone and neck. The sound of flesh against metal made her stomach churn, her heart skipping a beat as she watched the life drain from the eyes of the criminal below.

His lips parted with a gargling breath, his hands reaching outward to take hold of her blood smeared ankles. It was pitiful, watching the man suffer into death beneath the view of half the Capitol. Then again, it was a punishment set by the plump King above. Lifting her attention once more she skipped over the Kings gullible features, her grey eyes landing upon the man of deepened understanding.

The bastard son of the king...

___

A/N: Thank you for reading, please excuse the choppy details.

What do you think so far?