Chapter 30 #2
Flames flickered across the wall, casting dim light in this hallway of stones. This place was strange. Images from my memory overlapped with the walls of the labyrinth. Reaching up to remove the gag, the wet smell of concrete, of earth, filled my nose.
The noises from the other initiates had been drowned out the deeper I travelled into Game One, The Labyrinth so reminiscent of something…just out of the reach of my brain…“Come, solnyshka…your time has come…”
I silenced my steps, shifting into the predator as I turned a corner, the stones becoming more ancient, the atmosphere more oblique.
The air in this corridor was stale here; dried blood splattered across the floor, and the flame from my lighter cast long shadows that had me imagining what occurred here to some other unfortunate soul. That fate would not meet me.
A stone room opened at the next bend. Horrified screams from someone nearby shattered the heavy silence as prayers for help were heard above the grinding of stone on stone.
My lighter whooshed off, the breeze winding through The Labyrinth taking the sounds of the injured initiate with it as my feet carried me on, the time ticking down in my head like a drum.
Across the room, a door swung open, and the sconces lining the walls flickered on as a cloaked figure stepped forward into the dim light.
“Your mind must be challenged, and the first test has begun,” a cold voice stated from behind me as a hand pushed me forward, forcing me to step further into this hellscape I had stumbled upon. From the darkness, a Queen will reign…
“Your mummy won’t save you now, little Ellsworth…”
“Pretty, pretty princess, how beautifully you cry for me…”
“Nobody will hear you scream, sweet girl…”
“Will you try to run from me?”
A multitude of voices assaulted my ears, robotic and cold, yet somewhat familiar. Gloved hands clamped down on my shoulders as the stranger behind me leaned down close.
“Ashes to ashes…dust to dust…I caught a Princess…and her fire won’t combust…”
My eyes snapped closed as my head shook, refusing to acknowledge the taunt at the nursery rhyme my mum used to sing to us at night.
A song that Aleksandr, Cameron, and me now, sang to the boy we kept hidden away.
As if whoever made this trial knew it would affect me this way.
The rhyming stopped, picking up another tune, a more sinister vibe carried across the chamber as the robotic voice became childlike… and feminine.
“Shadows to suns…Roses to snakes…my pretty Princess…caught in a trap she tried to create…”
“Stooop…” I muttered, trying to break free, only to be met with a second set of hands pulling my head back again, forcing my eyes open.
Cold fingers gripped my face, spreading wide over my cheeks as the stranger held me in place.
Dank breath. Overgrown nails. Uncut facial hair.
“No.” Bringing my head back, I leveraged my weight, attempting to unlatch the fingers digging into my face. “Stop. Let. Go.”
“Where’s mummy, Audrey?”
“Where’s your precious little twin?”
The voices began to morph, from cold to warm.
Young and old. Male, female, unidentifiable, all spouting words my dad used to scream at Mum when he believed my sister and me were fast asleep.
You have come to repent, to make the Ellsworth line worthy again.
Overhead, videos played out. Home films that were filled with static, ones I thought were lost when I was shuttered from the outskirts of London.
“You killed her, pretty Princess…such a bitter girl who pretends to be sweet…”
My eyes filled with tears as videos of the plane crash filled the screen above me. The worst night of my life played out in vivid colour, brighter than it had any right to be, the tragedy that shaped me into a woman who guarded all she was.
Tonight, the world lost a family known to all.
The Ellsworth Foundation denies all requests at this time and asks that we respect them in their time of mourning.
The loss of Henry, Sloane, Kellan, and Elena Ellsworth will take decades to overcome as the sole heir now rests upon the shoulders of a five-year-old girl…
one who just lost her family in one horribly tragic accident.
Reports of foul play…
My eyes locked onto the image of their plane going down, a fiery ball lighting up the night sky as it fell from the heavens.
The screen flipped to an interior camera, screams echoing off the stone walls as terror coated the sanctum.
The last moments of my family played across the screen for the morbid founders of these games.
It is with great regret today that we announce a new face of Ellsworth holdings…until the heir comes of age, the company will no longer be held by the Ellsworth name…
“How does it feel to know you’re sleeping with the long-lost son of your family’s enemy?” An image flickered on the screen. A remembrance of a time when I was innocent, and life hadn’t been taken from me. “With the man whose father and uncle murdered your mum?”
A pair of twins stood on a grand staircase, identical eyes of ice-violet and bright white smiles. The obsidian-haired one took a step down, cocking her head at a boy.
Dark navy eyes peeked from under a mop of dark hair. The boy stood at the door, reluctant to come in. Yet fury lined his features as he looked over at an older man making his way into the seating room.
“Who are you? You’re not welcome here,” the black-haired girl stated. She was fierce for her young age of five, but fearless in the face of danger she had yet to learn.
“My family wants to kill yours.”
The boy turned and stalked from the house. The girl’s twin walked up to her sister, both watching from the window as the boy paused in the presence of another boy. A boy who had a rose branded onto his hand.
Two other boys met them, one with pale green eyes and white-blond hair, and one with brilliant golden eyes and ink-black hair. The four made a haunting image.
The twins backed away from the window when their mother walked into the room. Gripping each other’s hands…
“Does it keep you up at night, knowing you have yet to get away…from him?”
Hands turned to bones as blood dripped from a gaping mouth. Pale skin clutched the now cold hand of her twin. The girl whose once vibrant smile would now only be remembered in memory.
A scream slipped past my lips as I finally broke free from their grasp.
Lashing out with my lighter, I ignited the robes of the one whose eyes were pale, like broken glass.
Damn them for forcing me to watch that fucking awful night.
The smell of liquor hit me then, a slow torturous leak as he stumbled back, howling at the hungry flames licking across his mask.
Smoke was sucked inside, causing him to suffocate to death. A new image appeared around me, the leader of this test appearing unbothered that his partner burned nearby, holographic images showing a different memory, a different sanctum. The night my silent torturer first set eyes on me.
That place made me feel bad. I didn’t understand why Mummy wanted us to come with her tonight. Clutching my Cerberus stuffie to my chest, I tightened my hold on my mum’s hand, twisting my head to make sure my twin was still with us.
Flames flickered across the wall, casting dim light in this hallway of stones. That place was strange.
The inner sanctum, a voice in my mind whispers.
It smelled of death down there. Death and decay. It burned my nostrils as I tried to get Mum’s attention.
“Remember, malyshka1, you must not show fear.” Mum smiled at me, but it looked wrong. Like she knew something was not right tonight. Turning, she continued, “And you, solnyshka2, be her light. She will need you.” Standing, mum grabbed our hands again, continuing into a circular stone room.
An altar sat in the centre, ominous in the shadows surrounding it, as if begging for the deities that once roamed this land to bring life to it again. Begging for sinners to plead for mercy, and for liars to repent.
My mind was screaming at me. The inner sanctum.
Urging me to turn around. That something was wrong.
“Come daughter, your sins demand a sacrifice. Take the flame and accept the fate of your line.”
Wrong. My mind screamed at me, refusing to see my mum down on her knees.
Domus Veritatis. House of truths, a chilling whisper rasped in my head.
Mum’s voice filtered over the air…trying to lure me back into memories my brain refused to let me recall. You are an Ellsworth. We bow to no man. We bend no knee. Remember what happened here today, and refuse to ever admit defeat, Lenochka.
“Always protect your twin Little Queen, for she is what this world will need…promise me…”
“Promise me…”
And suddenly, there was a boy, covered in scars and shadow. Dark-golden eyes, locked on mine. Ink-black hair covered one eye partially. He silently shook his head, as if warning me not to run.
I blinked, and he was gone. An apparition of shadow. A warning, with a gaze that stayed seared in my mind for years to come.
A voice broke the silence of the sanctum, echoing off the walls, drawing chills down my back, as we dropped each other’s hands.
“Elena Vasilisa Ellsworth, your number has been called. Step forward to receive your fate.”
“No. You will not break me,” I shouted at the room, now empty of the two strangers who lured me into this test. “I cower to no man, no country. No King.”
Dropping down, I searched, looking for where the smell of alcohol grew stronger, where I could spark a fire that would burn down this forsaken room.
My knees scraped the dirt, hitting stone, splitting skin as blood began to ooze into the soil beneath me.
You’re wasting time. It was just memories.
I refused to budge until I found the source, knowing the man was still watching me, a coward who chose to hide from the damage he wrought. Well, he would die tonight.