TWENTY - Esmarine

Esmarine finds more than she bargained for.

It didn’t take long before she was climbing the front steps and walking through the castle doors.  She headed down the long entry hallway and towards the Throne Room where only yesterday she had run into her father standing Guard.  Surely that was where they would gather when they returned.

She came to the doors, which were tightly closed and locked.  She pressed an ear against the door and heard only silence.  If anything had happened in here, it was long over now.  Did they not have a meeting?  Or did I miss it?

She stopped and pondered where she might be able to find the King’s Guard now.  It’s not like they’re guarding the King…  Where does a guard go when he has nothing to guard?

The whole idea sounded exhausting.  But then she had a different idea.  I could try to find Saxon and Sephora!  At the very least, I’ll be able to see them again.  And if anyone finds me while I’m with them, I’ll be able to bring them up without it sounding suspicious like Tadghan was worried about!

She set off through the castle corridors, confident that this was the best possible plan.  The problem was that she had no idea where to start looking.  The castle was vast.  Every time she thought she had gained her bearings, a new hallway would appear and she realized she was somewhere new.  Doors upon doors lined the hallways.  What could they possibly need with all these rooms?  There aren’t enough people in Xantom and the Outskirts combined to fill all this space.

As she approached the end of a hallway, she heard the muffled sound of a woman’s voice.  It was coming through the door at the very end of the hallway.  She hadn’t been able to make out what she was saying, so she crept closer.  It has to be the queen.  But why would she be here while her husband is about to leave on a dangerous mission?

She walked closer and closer to the door.  And then she realized it wasn’t just the woman’s voice�"there was a second voice.  A man’s voice.  Who is she talking to?  And what are they saying?  Curiosity, again, got the better of her, and she continued towards the sounds of their conversation.

She reached the door and pressed her ear against it.  But they weren’t talking so much as making sounds.  No wonder I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  The man sounded like he was grunting, almost like he was angry.  And the woman was moaning.  Is he hurting her?

“Please…” her voice cried out.

“This is what you get,” the man’s voice said.  And then there was the loud smack of a hand on flesh.  He’s beating her!

Without thinking, she threw the door open and shouted.  “Stop!  You’re hurting the queen!”  The door crashed into the wall.  The woman was bent over the bed, the man standing behind her.  She couldn’t quite make out any details in the darkness, but the man stepped back and the queen screamed, rolling into the bed and pulling her furs up to cover herself.

“Who’s there?” the man yelled.  He pulled up his pants, which had been on the floor for some reason, and approached her, furious.

She quickly turned and scurried from the room.  “Get back here!” the man called.  But she was fast, and quiet, and bolted down the hallway away from the man.  As she ran, he called after her, but his voice was growing more distant.  She round a corner and nearly crashed full-on into a small girl.  She managed to stop herself, but she tripped and fell to the ground.

“Who are you?” the little girl asked.

“You have to be quiet!” Esmarine said.  “Don’t tell anyone I was here.”  She stood and continued running, then realized she would have to hide.  The man was about to catch up.  She stopped and ducked behind a pillar just as the man came around the corner and saw the little girl.

“Cassiopeia?” he asked.  “Was that you?”

“When is my daddy coming home?”

“You little brat!” he spat, grabbing the King’s daughter by her hair and pulling her back down the hallway towards the bedroom.  She began screaming and crying and Esmarine couldn’t take it.

She stepped out from her hiding place and yelled, “Stop hurting her!”

The man looked up to see Esmarine’s outline in the darkness.

“Who are you?”  He asked, but Esmarine turned and ran.

“Cass, who else was with you?” She heard him ask.  “Who was that girl?!”

When she didn’t respond, Esmarine heard a cry of pain and the sound of quick footsteps following her down the hall.  The man was chasing her.  At least that means he isn’t hurting the queen or her daughter anymore.  But now she was in just as much trouble as they had been.

She sped up, moving as quickly as she could, trying every doorknob, looking for a place where she could hide.  It was too far to the front of the castle now; she would never make it before he caught up to her.  He’s so fast!

She had a decent head start and needed to use it to her advantage, and quickly.  She rounded a corner and tried another door; this one flung open and she stepped inside, closing the door quickly but quietly behind her.  She tried to slow her breathing so as not to give away her location.  She heard the man come around the corner just outside the room.  He stopped for only a second before his footsteps grew quieter in the distance.

Esmarine let out a long breath she was unaware she had been holding.  She finally got a chance to look at the room she had chosen to hide in.  It was another bedroom, it looked like it hadn’t been touched in ages.  There was a single torch lit on the wall, revealing a large bed and a few garments of clothing, but otherwise the room was empty.  Why is there a torch lit if no one is here?  Whose room is this?

She walked towards the bed, which was neatly made and looked as though it had been untouched for years.  The whole room gave off a stale, cold feeling.  As soon as it’s safe to leave this place, I’m gone.  I’m not comfortable in here.

There were some words engraved into the stone behind the bed, but Esmarine had never been taught to read.  All she could make out was the “VII.”  Seven.  Is this the former King’s bedroom?  That would mean… this is The Passing of the Seventh.  This was the room the last King died in.  It was supposed to have been sealed shut.  If this room is forbidden and sealed shut… why was the door unlocked?  Why is the torch on the wall lit?

She turned to leave.  Even being caught by the crazy man who had been beating on the queen would be better than being caught inside the Passing of the Seventh.  She would be exiled immediately if she were discovered here.  I can outrun that crazy man, but I can’t outrun being Exiled.

Then she heard the sound of stone scraping against stone from behind her.  This room is haunted.  A tingle started in her spine and crawled out across all of her skin.  I have to go, now.  But she couldn’t make herself open the door.  She had to know what had made the sound.

She turned around to face whatever was there.  A piece of the wall had opened, revealing a dark passageway.  Two men stood in the tunnel with torches…  Impossible.

“You…” she started.  “What are you…? How are you…?”  It was Riordan.  He wasn’t at his home because he was in the castle.  In The Passing of the Seventh.  In  a secret chamber in The Passing of the Seventh.

“Esmarine,” he said.  “What are you doing here?  How did you get in?”

“It doesn’t matter why or how,” the other man said.  This was the guard who just yesterday had been standing guard over the Throne Room with her father, the one called Vanderford.  “We can’t let her go.”

And Riordan stepped forward and grabbed her.