Words and Worlds Apart: Lamb of Serpents

Chapter 5-Walls Hold More Secrets than a Corpse-

     One, two, three...ten...Lucas counted every step he took through the quiet corridor, shadows seemed to lengthen as he passed by...but Lucas never hesitated. Something or someone was calling him, and he was determined to find out. Lucas looked up at the murals as he continued to slowly walk. Many of the murals were of ancient Draconians trading and the many previous rulers. But as he traveled further the murals grew more...grotesque. Famines and natural disasters, civil wars, assassinations, and even evil rulers.

Lucas also noted the large chandeliers which appeared to be carved from ivory...or bone. Lucas made a couple of turns right and one left until he reached two large, dark wood doors. Lucas slowly pushed the doors open, his breath quickening as he entered the dark room. There were no more chandeliers, only small wood torches on the walls spaced out evenly, causing pockets of shadows in between. The blonde prince hesitantly stepped into the hallway, swarmed by unintelligible whispers following him from the shadows...Lucas' breath quickened, but he continued- determined to reveal what was calling him. Nothing mattered anymore, not his Father, his kingdom, his future fiance, not even existence itself. He needed to keep walking or it felt like he would lose his sense of self. Farther down the hallway were more murals. Even more grotesque than the ones in the other hallway. Many of them contained violent images of torture, natural disasters, severed heads, horns of Draconians being cut off, and even Draconian children being held by their tails...Lucas wanted to vomit. His throat clenched and his hands clenched. Was this the Draconian version of art? Was it some sort of way to strike fear into their enemies? Or perhaps...it was a prophecy?

One of which caught Lucas' eye more than any of the others to the point where Lucas stopped dead in his tracks and looked up at it with a feeling he couldn't describe. Above Lucas in large orange brush strokes...was a mural of a boy...but no ordinary boy. The boy in the mural was in a crouched position with one knee up and the other on the ground. His eyes were slits, his hair spiky and black, his features sharp, his arms up and his elbows bent- similar to a pose that one would use to scare another. But what was truly striking was the two sharp black horns atop his head- as most Draconians have since they are dragons...but most important was his tail. The boy's tail wasn't a tail, but rather a snake. Its head baring fangs menacingly facing the opposite direction the boy was facing. Atop all of those features was...

A crown of thorns and roses.

(gay.)