Briseis

08 The 21st Queen Elena Elswood

After the suspicious and questionable breakfast time, Jasper called Penny to lead me to my room.

"Elena, are you excited?" Penny asks.

"Not really, I'm more nervous."

We continued the conversation until we got to my room.

"Thanks, Penny." I say. Then Penny gives a short reply and leaves my room after closing the door.

I push myself onto the soft, comfortable bed. I lie down until I fall asleep.

I woke up. How much time has passed?

I check the time by looking at the watch on my wrist. It points 2:30PM, but it clearly isn't. It's too dark to be noon. It was night. And I'm sure I skipped lunch.

I grab a lantern and step outside the room. I look around, there's no one.

I start wandering around because of curiosity. It has nearly been two days since I came to this mysterious world, and I really don't know the structure of this castle.

Quietly but swiftly moving around, I find the castle a bit boring. Every phoenix is gone and it is as silent as if there's no one.

I keep walking around, but I find nothing interesting. All doors, corridors, curtains and... wait. I found something.

I found the hallway. The one the Blue Light lead me last time. It was so narrow and dark, so dark that even the lantern wouldn't brighten it up.

"It's too dark. And it's late already. I'd better get back to my room." I whisper to myself.

Just then, a blue light comes towards me. It's that Blue Light.

"Lucia!" I shout. The Blue Light then forms the shape of a lady. Lucia.

The Blue Light, Lucia, puts her index finger on top of her mouth, telling me to be quiet.

"Can you speak?" I ask quietly. She doesn't reply. I take that as 'I cannot say'.

The Blue Light lightens up what my lantern couldn't. Then she leads me into the hallway. As I step in, I see rows of huge portraits hanging on the walls. I go to the nearest one, but before I place my lantern to read the description, Lucia smoothed down the lantern with her untouchable hands. Then she makes gestures that tells me to read the descriptions below the portrait. She then slowly disappears.

"Wait..!" I call. But she has faded already. I sigh and start reading what the description says.

"The 1st Queen: Lucia Elswood" I read. Then I shine my lantern up high to see the portrait. It was a painting of Lucia in Queen's clothing.

"Wow," I say as I observe the portrait. I see Lucia with a low bun, with a Queen's Crown on her head that matched with her beige hair color. She has purple clothes with simple laces on it. Entirely she doesn't anything fancy, but the grandeur of her makes me feel and know naturally that she's a queen. Her position is calm, back is straight and her pupils are looking forward.

'She might have been a great queen,' I think. "But why was she queen?"

I step forward as I continue with the portraits. The next one says "The 2nd Queen: Cadence Anne". I see her long blonde hair curled up into a French bun, but the hair on the side sticking out. Her clothes were green colored, not too fancy just like Lucia's.

Then I move on to the next one: "The 3rd Queen: Mave Whether". I give a short look. Brown hair with blue dress. The colors match well.

I glance at the forth portrait. "The 4th Queen: Bellamy Baker". I don't observe the portraits anymore. I feel hurried. I feel there's something at the end that I have to see. I feel something pulling me to the end of the hallway.

I start running.

Step by step, breath by breath. I skim through the portraits on the wall.

"The 5th Queen: Regan Larsette, The 6th Queen: Brighid Lunne..." Then I start to skip some. "The 13th Queen: Dianthe Heed,... The 15th Queen: Reine Wilson, The 18th Queen: Aracelli Bell..." Then I arrive at the last one.

"The 21st Queen: Elena Elswood." I say. But there is no portrait. It's empty.

"So this is my destiny... To be the 21st Queen of Briseis." I murmur. But I clench my fist. "I will never be the Queen of this place."