CHAPTER NINETEEN A MOST CURIOUS DISCOVERY #2
After locking the door from the secret corridor, Ileana drifted down the stairs with the ease of an apparition floating through the ether.
I had a difficult time not sounding as if I were an elephant crashing through underbrush as I clunked down after her.
I’d never thought of myself as loud, but Ileana’s unusually silent tread put me to shame.
We descended around and around until my thighs burned.
Once we reached the main level, Ileana stalked straight over to a wide column.
I shook my head. I’d walked here several times earlier and had never noticed that what I’d assumed were only pillars ushering students into the main hall actually led to a narrow entrance on one side.
Ileana never broke her sure stride as she disappeared into the dark corridor that ran behind the enormous tapestries lining the hall.
An eerie feeling settled in my center. When I’d sneaked through the halls the night I’d left Anastasia’s rooms and ended up visiting Thomas, I’d sworn I’d been watched. I very well might have been. I shivered at the thought.
“Be as quiet as possible. We’re not supposed to talk or make noise back here. Moldoveanu is unforgiving when it comes to breaking castle rules.”
Silently, I bottled up every detail. There were more tapestries hanging on this side of the secret corridor, presumably extras stored here until needed.
We walked quickly enough that I had to gather up my skirts to keep from tripping over them as they wound around my limbs, but not fast enough for me to miss the scenes depicted on the tapestries.
Persons being impaled, screaming in pain and terror, adorned one.
On another was a forest of the dead, blood dripping from the victims’ impaled mouths.
Another showed a man feasting at a table, wine or blood spilled across its surface—it was hard to tell.
I was reminded of Radu’s mentioning that Vlad Dracula dipped his bread into the blood of his enemies.
Chills pierced my skin. Between the barely lit narrow hall and the artwork, I wasn’t in the brightest mood. There was a heaviness around my chest, pushing me back. This sinister castle seemed to breathe in my fear with delight. My pulse accelerated.
Ileana came to a sudden stop, and had I not been forcing myself to stare straight ahead, I’d have sent both of us sprawling.
I drew my brows together, noticing the color drain from her face. She jerked her chin forward, hands occupied with the empty tray. “Moldoveanu.”
“What—where?”
“Shhh. There.” She pointed to a section of a tapestry where a patch of fabric had been carefully clipped away.
I’d never have seen it if I didn’t know to look.
I assumed servants used it as a means of checking the public corridors before entering them.
A slithering feeling snaked down my spine.
I didn’t care for the thought of the walls having eyes. “Through the tapestry.”
I stepped closer, careful to not disturb the heavy fabric keeping us invisible to Moldoveanu. I prayed that the floorboards wouldn’t sound the alarm and that he’d not hear the thundering beat of my heart.
The headmaster was having quite the heated discussion with someone, though he seemed to be the one doing most of the talking. He spoke in Romanian so quickly I had difficulty keeping up.
A cloudy looking glass hung on the far end of the public corridor, offering a hint to his expression. His long silver hair flashed like the sharp sweep of a guillotine blade as he jerked his head from side to side. I’d never witnessed such a severe man in every sense of the word.
Ileana quietly translated for me.
“I have my job to do and you have yours. Do not cross the line.”
I strained to see around Moldoveanu, but he was thoroughly blocking the other person with his long black robes and his fists on his hips.
“We have reason to believe it will happen again. Here.” His companion’s gravelly male voice took me by surprise. There was an essence to it that was somehow familiar. “Members of the royal family received… messages. Threats.”
“Of?”
“Drawings. Death. Strigoi.”
Moldoveanu said something neither Ileana nor I could hear.
“The villagers are nervous.” Again, the deep male voice. “They know the body was missing blood. They think the castle and the woods are cursed. The body from the train is also causing… alarm.”
I covered my mouth, stifling the sound of surprise bubbling up. I no longer needed to see whom Moldoveanu was speaking to; I knew that voice even though I’d only heard it once before. I’d seen those sharp eyes that could cut a person in two.
D?nesti, the royal guard from the train, stepped from behind the headmaster, brushing down the front of his crested uniform.
His gaze paused on the spot where we hid, making my pulse still to a slow crawl.
Ileana didn’t so much as breathe until he refocused on the headmaster.
He stood tall, all angles pointed at the older man in the most threatening of manners.
“Do not disappoint us, Headmaster. We need that book. If those chambers are not disarmed, the royal family will shut the academy down.”
“As I’ve already informed His Majesty,” Moldoveanu growled, “the book was stolen. Radu only has a few pages in his collection, and it’s not enough. If you wish to tear the castle apart, be my guest. I guarantee you will not find what is no longer here.”
“Then may God have mercy on your students.”