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Passing through the main lobby of the castle, I stopped in my tracks, throwing out an arm to stop Gracie alongsideme before she stepped right into the puddle of dark red blood that was there. My eyes went wide as I took in the sight before me. The floor, usually white marble, was covered in blood. A trail dragging right through the middle and towards the throne room as though a body had been dragged through the space, and a set of footprints on either side of it. Furniture had been knocked to the side, vases smashed, and table legs broken.
Cyrus cursed, his own face mirroring the shock on mine as he took in the sight that had greeted us. Staff members hurried around the space, cleaning up splintered wood and dragging mop buckets through the bloody puddles, only seeming to cause more mess.
A strong hand on the bottom of my back snapped me back to my thoughts, and I blinked, turning to see Cyrus looking down at me. He nodded his head in the direction of the throne room, and I nodded, side-stepping the biggest puddles of blood, and picking the cleanest looking path across the main lobby towards the suddenly menacing looking doors.
Pushing my hands on the heavy golden handles, I pushed the doors open, and revealed what was nothing short of pandemonium.
The full royal guard lined the walls of the room, their swords drawn and pointing towards the center of the room. The bloody trail that had led from the main lobby continued into here, and a ring of soldiers stood in the center of the space. From here, we could not see what they were guarding, but it could not be good.
Cyrus urged me forward again, and I stepped forwards into the room, my hands clasping together in front of me as I lifted my chin slightly, taking on the Queen-like persona they were all expecting to see. Guards dropped to their knees as we walked past, their heads bowed and the only noise coming from their heavy metal armour hitting the marble flooring. Gracie walked at my side, her shoulder shaking with the tension in the room, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and reassure her.
Cirro waited for us on the dais already, standing on his usual place on the right of Cyrus’s throne. His cheeks flushed and his hair limp by his shoulders, his shoulders were heaving with his heavy breathing.
Cyrus held out a hand for me to take and helped me step up onto the dais, a small smile on his tense face as he did so. I thanked him, standing in front of the grand, golden throne I always sat on whilst I waited for him to take up position in front of his own. Gracie took the space to the left of my throne, and Cyrus nodded his head, gesturing for the guards to stand and for us both to sit.
A heavy silence fell over the room as we settled into the heavy velvet cushions on our thrones. I let my eyes roam over the guards, all of them stood to attention and their eyes trained directly in front of them.
“Is anyone going to tell us what is going on?” Cyrus’s voice broke the silence, and I looked at him. He lounged back in his chair, his head resting on his hand and his elbow on the arm rest.
A guard in the center of the room cleared his throat, and all at once the circular formation broke apart, revealing what they had been guarding.
The body that lay in the middle of them all was crumpled in a heap. Their face was pressed into the marble and their knees were underneath them. Hands tied behind their back; blood pooled around them where they lay. I sat forward in my seat, my hands gripping the ends of my arm rests as my blood pulsed in my ears. The same guard that had initiated the move stepped forward, grabbing a handful of black hair, and pulling the figure up into a kneeling position.
And my heart fell to my toes.
Maeteo stared back at me. His face bloodied and bruised and swollen, but his eyes were wide open, and they bore into me without even needing to look for me.
“We found this one sneaking out of the city tunnels, Your Majesty.” The guard leading the rest addressed us, his eyes on me, “He was wandering the city streets just after midnight.”
I heard Cyrus move in his chair, sitting up straighter and frowning at the bloodied Maeteo in front of us. Gracie’s heavy breathing came from my left, but I could not turn to look at her, my eyes locked on Maeteo’s face.
He had come.
He had gotten my letter and followed me anyway.
“Did you find out why?” Cyrus’s voice sounded far away as I stared. The bruises on Maeteo’s face were already purple, turning black in some places. His nose crooked in the middle and streaming blood over his swollen lips. A gash on his forehead had started to clot, taking the hair that had fallen into it and matting it.
“No, Your Majesty. He claims he will not talk unless it is to the Queen.”
Every pair of eyes in the room were on me then. And my hand started to clam up as I gripped the arm rests of my throne ever tighter. Cyrus cleared his throat, leaning over from his throne towards me. A gentle hand on my cheek had me pulling my eyes away from Maeteo’s to meet Cyrus’s ice blue orbs. Whilst they were still heavily lidded with sleep, the concern in them was staggering.
Cyrus assessed me for a minute, as though he could figure out what I was thinking without me having to voice it, and for the first time, I wished he could.
“What do you want done with him, Sweetheart?” He asked, and it might have been my imagination, but I thought he had spoken my nickname slightly louder than the rest of his sentence, as if he were deliberately taunting Maeteo.
I paused, my eyes scanning Cyrus’s face.
“Take him to the dungeons,” I said, my voice clearer thanI had expected as it carried around the room. I drew my eyes away from Cyrus, looking back to the now grinning Maeteo where he knelt on the floor, the guard still holding a fistful of his hair. It looked as though it was more to keep him upright than to keep him from moving, and my heart ached in my chest as I thought about the injuries, I could not yet see on him.
“Are you sure?” Cyrus asked, his nose crinkling slightly, “We could just kill him.”
“No!” I snapped, my gaze hardening as I turned it to Cyrus. “No. Take him to the dungeons, and I shall talk to him there tomorrow. Let us be done with this now, I am tired.”
The guards in the room nodded, and with one last look towards Maeteo, I stood from my throne. Cyrus copied the motion, slipping his hand into mine and helping me step down from the dais again. I clutched onto his hand tightly as we walked through the throne room again.
As we stepped out of the room, I heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor, and I sucked in a deep breath, fighting to keep myself from running back into the throne room and screaming.
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