The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter 41 ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter 41 ✰✦✰

" Crook Who Was Caught "

BLINDLY, I FOLLOWED Jacks through the filth that was these underground dungeons they'd built.

I couldn't focus. While I could see—it was as if I had truly gone blind.

I didn't know anything anymore.

I wished I could un-recall how we'd almost had it all.

All six of us.

I'd been betrayed by a close friend and for all I knew now, my friends could be dead too. Apheses might've lied to me again, just like he had with Jacks. Maybe I truly had nothing left.

Asking Jacks any more questions would've been pointless, so I didn't on our way up to the throne room, knowing he'd give me only silence or robotic answers that would be of no use to me. So I kept my lips sealed. Then again, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to talk even if I really wanted to.

We eventually stepped foot in the castle. Into my castle.

We were at the very bottom floor, by the kitchens and servant quarters. Recognising it brought me no comfort, no sweet nostalgia. Only reminders of everything I'd lost; what my mother had sacrificed in order for me to be safe, only for it to be purposeless in its finality.

The place was mostly clean. Like they'd polished it up solely for my arrival. Jacks led me through golden corridors and we passed bedrooms, dining rooms, offices of my father's, play rooms, dressing rooms, gardens, the chess room—

I wanted out. I wanted out now. I knew it was wrong of me to want to leave now, even without the others, but the emptiness in my heart bore too much excruciating torture. It was too much for me. It would've been too much for any person.

"We're here," Jacks said suddenly, snapping me from my train of thoughts. I glanced at him, but, as expected, he didn't spare me a single ounce of attention. Instead, he opened the double doors and revealed the great hall I remembered so vividly.

Golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, sparkling in their richness, shedding a bright, warm, ironic light onto the marble floors. It was then that I spotted the initials my sisters and I had carved into the ground as toddlers:

S + C + E forever

I bit down on my tongue but my tears cared no longer for my wishes. They streamed out my eyes, into my mouth, loaded with a summery childhood I was losing once and for all.

I'd done such a good job at hiding all these years. . .locking my memories in a faraway place in my mind so that only I could get to them. Being back here unlocked those vaults. It spread the memories across the castle and stained it with the death that had been trying to catch me for nearly a decade.

One could only escape death a certain amount of time before its amusement faded, replaced with a craving for revenge.

Stained windows of our royal heritage sat on both sides, long and sunlight pouring through them, the resplendent walls glittering in response. The floor guided us on and on, a long pathway towards the end of the room where a throne was situated. A tall, white and golden throne with enough space to squeeze Clara, Mia, and I in.

Instead, Apheses slouched there, grinning like the cruel villain in a fairy tale and wearing a dark suit. He'd crossed his legs with a wickedness that told me he believed he deserved to sit there.