Wizard's Wish - (Kinda) Yandere SGE x reader

Chapter 88: Riddles and Mistrals

(Chapter in Tedros' pov, one of those very plot relevant ones again)

(Also, yesterday, May 4th, was my birthday! Now I'm 19!)

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As Tedros swept through the white tower, veering into dead ends and going around in circles, he kept passing the same square-jawed guard, smirking in his blue-and-gold uniform, daring him to ask for directions.

Tedros insisted to Lancelot he could meet the advisors without Lance taking him there. The knight demanded to come along, wary of a king treading into the dungeons on his own, but Tedros shoved past him, ordering him to stay behind. First of all, the advisors had made it clear they wanted to see him alone. Second, he didn't want to admit he hadn't a clue where the prison was after a lifetime of living in Camelot and almost a year ruling it. And third, he was done passing the buck to others. On his first night in the castle, when the advisors had refused to see him, he'd let Lancelot throw them in jail instead of doing it himself.
But tonight he'd right that wrong. When it came to these advisors, this coming meeting felt personal.

He'd been roaming the White Tower for nearly an hour now, but the reddish torchlight made every hall look the same. Any time he opened a door it went wrong: a storage space filled with broken weapons... a steward undressing in his quarters... a laundry maid in the midst of ironing, so spooked at the sight of him she burnt through his shirt... it was futile guesswork: the only part of White Tower that Tedros knew was the strange guest room his father had built on the second floor, which he kept returning to every few minutes like a rat restarting a maze.

Orion could have shown me the way, Tedros thought, missing the bird he had grown a connection to. He even almost wished he had Reaper to show him the way, the same cat he also had thought about throwing out. But he had already sent away the bird again, and after he kicked the cat in the guest room this morning, Reaper had vanished, no longer compelled to protect the king.

"Lost, Your Highness?" said the square-jawed guard as he passed.
"If I was, I'd ask," said Tedros. "Especially since guards don't speak to kings unless they're spoken to first."
The guard bolted to attention, spear to his chest.
One day these guards will look at me the way they looked at my father, Tedros thought, prowling through the empty staff dining room into a carpeted corridor. One day no one will question my place as king–

He tripped over a hole in a carpet and toppled through an open door, his crown flying off him, his body splaying onto a wet floor. He stood up gingerly, his chest and legs drenched. He lit his fingerglow and saw he was in a spacious bathroom, almost as big as his master bath in the Gold Tower. The floor was flooded and inch deep with water. Tedros scanned the bath with his glow until he found the source: a severed toilet hose that had dumped out the entire water tank. Tedros groaned and picked up his dripping corn, smushing it back on his head. He was about to trudge back into the hall and fetch one of the maids... but then something caught his eye.

Farther in, the bathroom had two side doors across from each other, each leading into opposing rooms. Which meant this bathroom was shared between whoever occupied those two rooms.
"No wonder it's so big," Tedros thought.
Curious as to why neither of the rooms inhabitants had noticed the leak, Tedros opened one of the side doors and stepped through–

He raised his brow.
It was the strange guest room, with the brown-and-orange rug, bare beige walls, and a lonely bed in the corner. The one his father used to hide in during his drunken hazes. The one he was never allowed inside.
But Tedros hadn't used this door earlier that same day, when he explored the room. He'd entered through the front door across the room, which still had his bloody handprint on it. And he'd used a key.
He turned and examined the door he'd just come in, with no doorknob on the inside and deftly concealed within the pattern of the wallpaper. It's why he hadn't seen it when he was in here this morning.
A secret door? To a guest room?
It didn't make sense. Then again, many things in this castle didn't make sense. Especially in the middle of the night, when he could feel his brain deadening and his eyes starting to close. But then another thought struck him–