Chapter 14 #2
I need to know more about this king that Esse was afraid of. I didn’t want to go into this blindly. Especially when he was a king that ruled over this place.
I stepped past a male carrying a tin bucket full of fish skeletons, flakes of their flesh still clinging to their brittle bones. The smell almost makes me gag. “Has he ever chosen you?”
There was a slight pause before Victoria answered. I glanced at her face but didn't find it hardened like stone. That’s a good sign, right? “Yes a few times. He has . . . certain tastes, but it’s not so bad.”
Certain tastes? Doesn’t sound appealing. Though none of this ever did.
“Does he at least pay us?” The words stumbled out.
Victoria shrugged, followed by a nod. “If he’s satisfied, you’ll get your coin.”
I didn’t know why I even bothered to ask about money.
I needed it to survive here like I did in The Grey, but it was a different kind of survival now.
My thoughts travelled to the hidden tin that held all my savings.
I’d been so close. And now it meant nothing.
There was a good chance it would sit hidden behind the wooden wall panel until the Silver Finch rotted away.
Something tugged inside my chest when I thought of what else I had hidden in that tin. I’d taken them from my dresser and stashed them with my coins only days before . . . Rhodes.
Three letters and three crimson feathers.
Where was my saviour now? Where were they the night my life was stolen?
So much for the pretty words scribbled in ash.
There’s a light in you the dark cannot touch.
Seems as though the dark did touch me. It sought me out like a lion to prey, and then it devoured me.
Nausea returned, but I shoved it down and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
“He’s gentler than the old king was but he’s narcissistic so you need to watch your tongue,” Victoria warned.
The sound that escaped my lips was foreign even to me.
“What man isn't?” Victoria chuckled in agreement. We passed a fountain crouched in the heart of the town square. At first glance it could have been the twin of the one in District Five—the same carved basin, the same weathered stone, but here it was a ruin of itself. The water didn’t leap or spill with life; it clung stubbornly to the edges, seeping out in thin, broken rivulets.
Every drop seemed reluctant, as if even the fountain had grown weary of this place.
I dragged my gaze from it. “So this king before. What happened to him?”
Victoria lifted a shoulder. “Some say he went mad and his advisor shipped him off to a castle far away. Others say the new king suffocated him in his sleep.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think he lost his mind from a broken heart,” Victoria murmured.
“What woman broke it?”
Victoria shook her head. “Wasn’t a woman. It was his own son. The prince. Defied his father and married a woman from the kingdom of Light. He lives there now.”
My eyes widened at the notion. “Is that possible? To change kingdoms?”
Victoria huffed as she adjusted the cloak around her shoulders. “Only if you’re the prince. Haven’t heard of anyone else doing it.”
Her words crushed the miniscule pinch of hope that I had buried deep in my heart that maybe—just maybe—one day I might be free of this place. How stupid of me to hold such empty dreams so tightly in my grasp.
I should have listened to Meeka when she told me to go—to run. But as the stars would have it, I didn’t listen, and now I was stuck here.
The palace rose from the heart of Oscuro like a monolith carved from night itself. Its walls were hewn from black stone, slick and uneven as if the earth had been scorched and hardened into jagged blocks.
Air lodged itself in my throat, threatening to choke me.
The towers clawed at the sky, their spires like broken teeth jutting against the sickly glow of the sun. Shadows clung stubbornly to every crevice, as though even light refused to linger here. The windows were narrow slits, nothing inviting, more like watchful eyes waiting to swallow me whole.
The gates loomed tall and iron-barred, rust bleeding down the black stone like dried blood stains. Chains rattled when the wind cut through, sharp and metallic, a sound too deliberate to be anything but a warning.
Victoria gently nudged my shoulder with hers. “Come on, it’ll be over before you know it.”
My stomach churned, sour bile clawing at the back of my throat as I stood there, my palms slicking with sweat.
I shoved them into my dress pockets, feeling for the ribbon I kept hidden.
It wasn’t just a palace. It was a fortress, a tomb, a place built to devour hope.
And as I stood on the threshold, nausea rolling through me, it felt as though I’d stumbled to the edge of the world where warmth and mercy had long since been stripped away.
I followed after my newfound friend—if I could call her that.
Only time would tell. We didn’t pass through the front doors like normal folk would.
No, we were ushered by angry looking Thorns, as I’d come to learn.
They were the same looking folk as the ones that shoved us through the town gates three days ago.
All black wings and skin-tight clothing.
I suppose that’s what I’d be called now too.
My nails bit into my palms again, forcing one foot in front of the other down the empty hallway. Low chatter and the sound of heels clicking on the floor echoed around us. Perhaps Victoria would be right. It would all be over soon. I could do this.
I squared my shoulders as the group stepped through the doorways and into what I could only presume was the throne room. It boasted of wealth but in a cold, and empty sort of way.
Black marble stretched across the floor, polished so bright it threw back fractured reflections of torchlight. Gold filigree crawled up the pillars, intricate and showy, yet the metal was dulled, lifeless—as though wealth had been forced into every surface but drained of all warmth.
Sheer red flanked me. Victoria’s auburn locks glinted under the low light. She stared at the scene around us before flicking her gaze to me. “You’ll get used to it.”
Something in my chest tightened. Her words were meant to be a comfort but they fell by the wayside. I couldn’t afford to cling to any form of hope, so I just offered her a weak smile.
The room was already alive when we slipped inside, but it didn’t feel alive in a way that comforted me. Music thrummed from the corner. A collection of men and women huddle together, black wings towering over their heads as they plucked strings too fast.
My eyes wandered until they landed on the focus of this entire ordeal.
The king.
He sat upon a black marble throne that gleamed from the centre of the room.
It too was devoid of warmth, growing from the floor in a seamless manner.
Dressed entirely in black, a cloak draped from his shoulders, fastened by round, golden disks.
There was a design etched onto them, and from a distance, I could only just make out the image of a coiled snake.
The king’s pure white hair fell past his shoulders, reaching all the way down to his waist.
On his left hand, he wore a single black glove.
His dull, lifeless grey eyes fell on me, his smile cutting like the sharpest blade. I shrunk into myself, wanting desperately to vaporise on the spot. Who cared if my blood would paint the walls red? At least I’d be gone from this place. Forever.
True Death.
That’s what the whispers on the lips of Thorns said anyway . . . that Oscuro was eternity for the damned and if you died here again, your soul would be sent to the black nothingness.