Chapter 18 #2
Wrapping his hand around the hilt, he jerked the sword free and charged up the last of the stairs to the pair of tall white double doors that led into the grand throne room.
His mother didn’t spend her time sitting on the throne each day, listening to supplicants.
Like him, it was all boring meetings in stuffy rooms with long tables, and boring meetings while eating meals.
The throne room was for pomp and circumstance.
Yet, as he shoved the doors open, his breath left him.
Inside, he found even more dead bodies. Each one had been brutally murdered, just like all the people on the staircase.
Blood pooled in dark lakes across the marble floor and splashed on the walls.
All the chandeliers had fallen, and the lights were ripped from the walls.
The only light in the enormous room poured murky and grim through the enormous windows.
Lightning flashed, casting everything in a stark, gut-wrenching display.
He raced across the room, but his footsteps slowed as he reached the center of the room.
His mother sat on the throne in her typical black dress—the same color she’d worn for years following the death of his father.
In the center of her chest, a sword protruded, pinning her torso to the back of the chair.
Her head lolled to the side and her mouth hung open in death.
He continued even though there was nothing he could do, only to find that it was his sword buried in her chest.
But…wasn’t he…
He looked down to find the sword that he was sure he’d pulled from another body was no longer in his hand. How…
How had she come to be stabbed by his own sword?
Panic and despair swamped him, threatening to send him to his knees a second time. Nothing made sense. Why was his family dead? Who was killing them?
With each question that formed in his brain, the lightning flashed and the thunder slammed from the heavens, causing the entire world to shudder.
“Shey?”
Rayne. It was Rayne.
“Shey!”
The terrified shout sent Shey running yet again, racing out of the throne room, desperate to put this horrific scene behind him and save at least one person before it was too late.
“Rayne!” he shouted. “Rayne, where are you?”
“Shey!”
Closer. He was closer. The voice was closer this time.
He left the throne room through a side door and darted along a narrow corridor, lit intermittently by old oil lamps.
Even though glass surrounded the tiny flames, they flickered and danced wildly as if in a strong wind.
Shadows lunged and writhed along the pale-gray stone walls.
He thought this might have been a servants’ passageway, but he wasn’t sure.
He hadn’t sneaked through these halls since he was a kid, trying to evade his tutors and bath time.
Yet after a couple of random turns, he found Rayne standing at the end of the corridor, looking beautiful and alive. His light brown hair was short and mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. The light glinted off his glasses and shone in his jade-green eyes.
But his trimmed circle beard was missing, leaving his pale, smooth cheeks bare.
As Shey drew closer, he realized that this wasn’t the Rayne he’d last seen less than a year ago, but the Rayne of his youth.
Those decadent, playful years when Shey attended university and ran wild, avoiding all his duties so he could show off for the overly serious student from Erya.
His steps slowed. Something was wrong.
“Rayne?”
“Shey!” young Rayne cried, hurrying to his side.
Even as questions and doubts crowded Shey’s mind, he still opened his arms to embrace the one and only man to ever claim his heart. “What’s going on? Mother and Fiona are dead. Who’s doing this?”
Rayne ignored his questions and gripped his biceps with both hands. “Where have you been? How could you leave and abandon your duty to Caspagir?”
“What?” Shey gasped as his breath became lodged in his throat.
Is that what Rayne thought? It wasn’t true.
He left because it was his duty to protect his kingdom and people.
“No, I abandoned nothing. Damardor. Something strange. But…” His words fell away.
The mention of leaving and Damardor teased at a memory that refused to come free.
It was locked in a dark corner of his mind.
“You left because I got married. Because I didn’t want you. What kind of prince are you?” Rayne demanded.
Shey tried to jerk away, but Rayne’s fingers dug deep into his arms, holding him in place. “No! I didn’t run. This wasn’t because of you. I—” He broke off and shook his head hard. Everything was getting jumbled. Nothing made sense. “Rayne, who killed my mother and sister?”
“You did.”
The air rushed from Shey’s lungs, and he almost stumbled, if not for Rayne holding him trapped. “What?”
Rayne’s lips parted as if to explain, but a strangled cry broke from his throat as his chest jolted forward and then froze.
Shey looked down to see the bloody tip of a sword protruding from Rayne’s chest. As the sword was pulled out of Rayne’s body, Shey jerked his eyes up to see a shadow solidify behind Rayne, and he stared into his own face.
“Shey?” Rayne whimpered and tumbled, his legs giving out under him. Shey lunged, wrapping his arms around Rayne and lowering him to the ground even as his shadow doppelg?nger ran off.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Shey mumbled while shaking his head.
This couldn’t be real. None of it made sense.
What kind of dark magic happened that would steal away his family and his sweet Rayne?
He sat on the cold ground and pulled Rayne into his lap, holding him with one arm behind his shoulders while his other hand pressed to the wound right through his heart.
Blood seeped through his fingers, and a thick, wet gasp for air came from Rayne.
“I’m so sorry, my love. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.
Please don’t leave me, Rayne. You can’t leave me now,” he pleaded.
Each word fractured into tiny glass shards as it left his lips.
He stared through tear-filled eyes as Rayne’s face grew paler and his eyes lost their focus behind his glasses.
“Shey?”
“Yes, love. I’m here. I’m never leaving you.”
“Ty…”
“What?” Shey tightened his grip on Rayne and leaned in as close as he could to hear his breathless words.
“Tyche claims the sky is green.”
Shey jerked his head up. What the…
Thunder crashed, shattering the world. In an instant, all the memories came rushing back into his brain. The secret trip to Damardor. Being captured and thrown into prison. Tyche. Tyche had said bad things were coming.
This wasn’t real.
It was a nightmare. He was still a captive in a secret prison.