Cecilia floated to the pair, taking a hand to stroke the man’s cheek as his expression grew more irritated from the unheard words. The mystery woman held a glass of sparkling champagne, and he readily accepted.
“For you see, Valeria, it was I who condemned him,” Cecilia confessed. “I condemned him to hell, and there was nothing I could do but watch.”
The prince shoved the glass back into the palm of the woman, taking to the stairs. We watched together as he doubled over, clutching his abdomen in sheer pain, sweat beading across his brow. Onlookers stopped in the middle of their dance, gasping at the sight in horror. Screams erupted, and guards rushed toattempt to keep him upright as he twisted and stumbled farther down the stairs. White knuckles held the banister, and his crown skittered to a halting stop at the bottom of the steps. A leering silence fell.
Sputtering coughs erupted from the prince, dripping from his mouth into a pool of blood and staining the granite inlays. He clutched at his chest, struggling to rise only for his strength to fail him, his body coming to rest upon a crimson mirror reflecting back soft, vacant midnight eyes.
The ballroom was still. Not a soul dared to breathe a word, inching closer to the body of the man they once called their ruler. The woman at the top of the balcony sipped from her flute, disappearing into the expanse of the upper floor. The guards ushered in to the body, with one checking the pulse and shaking his head.
“It’s no use. He’s gone,” the guard said.
With a perplexity, I turned to Cecilia, who all but paled at the sight of the prince’s lifeless body. “Tell me who did you condemn? Can you tell me their name?”
The buzzing of cicadas trilled in my ear. She watches as the guard turned the body over, laying him onto his back.
The beauty of her translucent form melted away. Soft, tender eyes shifted to vacant, dark pits I was accustomed to from the ghosts of the castles. Her dress aged rapidly, the once bright crimson fabric in a blink of an eye becoming tattered and worn. Moth-eaten holes and smears of blood and dirt stained the once vivid fabric. The train of the dress draggedbehind her, the echoes of long-forgotten steps ushered in unwelcomed dread.
“I cannot. It’s not time yet for you to know. It’s too soon. Too soon to learn the truth of what once was,” she forewarned.
“Then why show me all of this?” Again, the scene shifted, collapsing in on itself as the walls caved in around us. “You brought me here to see something. What is it that you want from me!”
The candles lit the ballroom so brightly it began to dim. Then flickered. And then there was darkness. The faint glow of the woman’s form was the only light within the expanse of the dark, accompanied by the shrilled agony of bloodied screams.
Dying wails were missing dire information desperately needed to understand this place—to understand the purpose of why I was here. The answer, the only answer I received, was the bloodstained hand outstretched to me.
With a shaky hand, I took it eagerly, letting her guide me in the shadowy depths. Dark wisps curled undertow, the screams echoing from stone walls. The dank air smelled of decay and rot and mingled with the soft scent of the first blooms of sweet, delicious roses.
We stopped at a door cracked a hair, giving way to the brightness and warmth of fire burning within.
She curled her hand in mine, kissing it gently. The cold burned before she released it, departing on cryptic riddles. “You will know when it is time when the hour strikes midnight under the eye of the past.”
“And Silas? Your cryptic answers and riddles are not helping me come any closer to saving him as you urged me to. So, I ask again, you unhelpful ghost, you, what do you want with me?” I repeated.
Her dark gaze softened, stroking my face as my mother had once done when I awoke from a bad dream. Perhaps this was all this was. A crude bad dream. And I’d awake in my bed to the sun streaming in the window and Miriam bounding into the room in greeting.
The burning cold reminded me it wasn’t that simple.
“You have a gift, one that often is a burden to bear. You are not so different from him.” She smiled, her body a faint whisper among dancing candlelight. The space around us cracked, fissured formed with the screaming of the crown blossoming louder, cramming itself into my skull.
Cecilia turned to me, solemn solitude her vow to keep. “Save him. Time is short.”
The fissures shattered, the inky black scattering at my feet, and I was back in the hallway of the west wing as if I had never left. I turned to the expanse and discovered an alcove. On the wall, a mural depicted the scene that I’d witnessed. The lovers swooned at the top of the grand balcony only to meet a tragic end. Eeriness stayed with me there, imprinted upon my skin just as the mural was upon my mind. Just as the blood and icy hand held mine in tender care.
I shook my head, leaning against the doorframe, and peered into the room to the scene before my eyes.
Seventeen
Soft bubbling of the pot mixed in with the harshness of tubes clinking together as Silas ground the mortar.
“There,” he muttered. “That should be the last of it.”
I slinked against the wall, peering into the laboratory. It was quaint, with a charm to it, smaller than the other rooms in the east wing. Books were stacked high upon a large oak table and papers scattered about, similar to Silas’s desk. Test tubes, herbs, beakers, and other scientific materials intermingled with the open books, some filled with liquids of colors mirroring the grand stained glass window looming behind him. Plants lined the back walls of various species I often saw at Ayla’s cottage clustered around the window.
Within the grand room, a fire crackled from the fireplace, burning bright and hot, illuminating the scene before me. Silas poured liquid after liquid, crushing powders and mixing them into a sweet red fluid. Silas turned behind him to stroke the leaves of lavender and pluck several berries from the plant. He placed them into the mortar, pressing them into a fine juice, slipping it into the liquid and turning it a shade darker than blood.
What was Silas doing in possession of nightingale berries?
I shivered.
