Bride of Adron | ✓

Chapter 21 - The Final Battle

Delilah burst open the door with her foot with such a sudden force that Noelle jumped despite herself. She then followed the Queen into Adron's chambers, which when looking around, Noelle noticed were empty.

It was a gargantuan master bedroom, with a great four poster King-sized bed, draped in exquisite blood red curtains with a golden trim. The walls were plastered with silver wallpaper, intricate patterns carved into the surface. Noelle stepped closer, examining the wallpaper, and noticed that the patterns resembled paintings... faces. Of many beautiful, young women. She continued looking around, until she finally found a familiar face that she recognised.

Black hair, bangs and pasty skin.

Her breath caught in the throat. "Is this...?"

"Yes, it's you. By the looks of it, it's all of Adron's past brides," Delilah said, stepping up behind her. "Every so often he would find a new wife and they were wed, until she grew too old for him. Then, she would be executed or thrown in the dungeons to rot."

"He keeps a tapestry of all his past wives?" Noelle asked, swallowing the lump in her throat. Seeing this only heightened her disgust in the horrid man, only making her thirst for revenge stronger.

Delilah sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. If you had not escaped, your fate would have been the same."

Noelle finally tore her eyes away from the wallpaper; the longer she looked at her face on the wall the sicker she felt. She was here to complete a mission, and that was what she was going to do. She turned around to see what Delilah was doing, and she was examining the other side of the chamber, moving bookcases and wardrobes, trying to find the secret passageway she spoke about earlier. Noelle decided to help her.

She looked at the bed, shifted against the wall. Next to it was a small side table, where a crystal lamp was placed. Noelle took the table in her hands, shifting it to the side. Her face fell lightly when she saw only a regular wall and floor where it once stood.

Instead, Noelle began looking at the bed. She got down onto her hands and knees, dropping her gun, looking at the side of it. Suddenly, she noticed that there was a light shadow on the floor, missing the dust that was present everywhere else. To her, it was clear that something stood there before, and that the bed was in the wrong position. When she looked again, Noelle saw that the bed wasn't quite pushed up against the wall and was not aligned with it, showing that someone had moved it.

Bingo, she thought, a smirk on her face.

Noelle grabbed the lamp on the table, turning it on and shining it below the bed. She crawled under to get a better view, running her hands over the smooth wooden floor to try and feel for a different texture. Noelle felt small ridges, shaped like a square in the floor, and when she felt around further her hand came into contact with a metal ring for a handle. She shone the light onto it, and sure enough, it was a small trapdoor, yet still big enough for a grown man.

"I've found it!" she yelled, and the Queen quickly went to join her. "Help me move the bed."

She crawled out from under, and together they pushed the bed to the side enough that the trapdoor was visible and possible for them to enter.

"Wait." Delilah paused her just before Noelle opened the trapdoor. She walked over to where two silver swords hung on the wall, slipping them onto her back and attaching them with strings. "Just in case we need to resort to them."

Noelle grabbed the metal ring with both hands, pulling it toward her. It opened with ease, and it wasn't even locked. She cast a glance to Delilah, before disappearing down the hatch.

. . .

After crawling through the narrow passageway for ages, the unlikely duo reached a large, barricaded metal door.