The female Goltachi stares at the horizon, her gaze lost at the line connecting the barren desert and the canopy of clouds.

Even the most inexperienced observer would recognise her noble lineage.

Her figure is elegant, her bearing proud, her delicate snake-like face is embellished with nose rings. A storm of gold and gems enriches the crown that surrounds her head and reaches down to her neck, a flap of skin that indicates her bloodline like a cockade.

Yet she is terrifying in her predatory presence, with her slender, agile body of diaphanous scales adorned with necklaces and bracelets shining in the gloomy light of the sky.

The woman's arms are resting on the stone parapet of the balcony facing north. The curtain arch above her head, as well as the chiselled columns supporting the façade, are enveloped in the coils of a crimson rose, whose bloody flowers almost glow so are bright. Plants are rare, and flowers even rarer, but this specimen is regularly watered, obsessively cared for and loved like a fragile newborn child.

The grey rock of the fortress is washed by the grey light of the ever leaden sky, a soft, ghostly glow.

Someone, down below in the town, looks up and catches a glimpse of the beautiful maiden. It seems like a dreamlike, magical vision, that beautiful creature, surrounded by grey stone and scarlet roses. Envied, hated, feared... that woman is as beautiful as she is powerful.

A sigh escapes the female. Her eyes are not kind, they shine with the ravenous light of predators, they are blue and cold as a dagger blade. Yet a veil of sadness softens them.

The tall, glassless windows are enveloped too in the thorny coils of the rose, which thread their way through the quadrilobes of the pointed arches and down the delightfully manicured little columns.

This is the room of a fairy-tale princess, even if it is inhabited by a queen.

Goltachi walks away, her mind lost in a thousand thoughts. The dress that descends from her shoulders to her feet like a shroud shows her perfect form, frightening in its impossible symmetry. It is the beauty of a carnivorous plant, which has become more and more attractive over the centuries, just as a weapon is perfected to be more and more efficient and lethal.

At the base of the bed, in a basket with a few pillows, rests a trembling little creature. Feverish, certain that it is close to death, the miserable entity cries in despair and chirps pleas that he knows will never be heard.

«Poor puppy...» Whispers the queen softly, lowering herself beside the ragged human. «There' s not much left anymore.»

She is sorry that even that specimen proved disappointing in its durability. She liked that little creature, so obedient and so ready to worship and serve her in order to save his life. She found it so fascinating that the little monster had sacrificed first his mother and then his sister to avoid being eaten by his lords. If he could have, he would have given other lives to save his own, but he had nothing else to sacrifice on his mistress' altar.

The woman's thin, pale fingers slide over the creature's sweat-soaked forehead. She feels slightly disgusted as she touches the filth produced by the animal, but after all, this puppy has been with her for a long time, satiating her with its stormy emotions: shame, anguish, fear, love, joy, hope, relief... Drop by drop, the human had lost a fragment of himself every day, forgetting parts of his life, becoming more and more simple, naive and harmless. The will slipped away with every bite, the memories followed, only handfuls of instincts and the foundations of a personality now almost devoid of humanity remained.

Now, the little being gnaws at what remains of himself with hysterical terror, knowing that one last bite would make him an empty shell, like the others who roamed the Goltachi fortresses and cities. He would join the ranks of idiotic and obedient servants, perfect for satisfying the monstrous urges of their masters.

«Let go of your humanity, sweetie...» The woman's words are the epitaph for a coward jackal. He had given her everything, she had promised to let him live without making him suffer....

The queen's perfect black lips curved into a sweet smile, rippled slightly by the lust that animated her. They open wide, revealing a row of perfect teeth.

The human is too afraid, his will is now a flame that even the lightest of sighs could have extinguished.

The neck now ravaged by the queen's teeth is there, vulnerable and by now accustomed to being plundered.

The slow, almost hypnotic movement of the Goltachi remains imperceptible to the human. When the canines sink into the trembling flesh, for a moment the little creature tries to resist, clings to life, to freedom, to all that was its identity. Then, it welcomes that marvellous emptiness which is immediately filled by a vow of eternal obedience.