Heart [ON HOLD]

Chapter 22: My Queen

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca

Lilith was halfway through her third heart of the evening when her mind split in a screeching headache. The heart fell from her hands and she shrieked and clapped her hands over her ears. Her nails dug into her skin and her teeth ground together. The lights were too bright, so bright they were burning, and there was an echoing halo of red over everything she saw. Lilith squeezed her eyes shut and new images sprang up.

Dark corridors, all alone, a heart in hand- A presence. Someone. No one. Hugo? His name kept repeating. No. Someone else. Uninvited. Hurrying faster, taking the mirror in hand- A memory. My memory. The spells, the runes glowing, hiding it. The heart that could unravel her, hidden out of reach, kept on a leash. And that hiss behind her, that presence, stronger, screaming, watching, seeing, knowing-

“Get out!” She screamed it so loud that it tore her throat. She hurled the plate across the room; it shattered and the headache ceased.

Lilith sagged against the table, shaking. Frigid sweat dripped between her eyes.

“-ajesty?”

She knows.

“Your Majesty?”

“She knows,” Lilith breathed. The polished wood of the table buckled under her fingernails and splintered. “She saw.”

“My Queen.”

Lilith looked up. The banquet table had gone completely silent. Three Jacks and some forty nobles stared back at her, dumbstruck. She caught at least five exchanging poisonous, traitorous glances, plotting out in the open. They were always plotting, everyday against her, they’d been doing it since the beginning, since her first heart-

“What are you all gawking at?” she snapped.

“They're concerned for you, My Queen,” said a voice near her ear. One of the Jacks stood near - male, dusty haired, covered in freckles. He looked so much like Hugo. “Are you alright?” he asked. “Are you in pain?” It was gentle voice, reassuring- a front, a facade, a plot. Lilith unsheathed her razor edged glare.

“Are you insinuating that I grow weak?” she snarled. The Jack bowed his head.

“Never, My Queen. My humblest apologies.”

He moved off.

Smart boy.

Lilith moved her glare to the remainder of the court and they quickly resumed whatever frivolity they'd been engaged in prior. Plotting. They were all plotting. They all wanted to kill her, every single one.

She started a list in her head of the most dangerous ones, the ones in whose eyes she saw the bitterest bite, but she kept interrupting herself.

Lady McClain, Duke Axim-

She knows.

Lord Franklin, Lady Vail-

She knows.

Sir Gleeson.

She knows. She knows. She knows.

Cora Kesari.

She knows.

* * *

The next morning Alastor left before the sun was up. He shifted to wolf form and went running. Patrolling the perimeter in this skin was easier. He made larger and larger circuits around the castle ruins, loping through the woods in long, even strides. The rhythm of his paws against the ground was comforting. Out here, in the moments before dawn, nothing bothered him. He sucked in breaths of clean air, unfettered by chains or walls and trotted up a small knoll to watch the sunrise. There were aspens at the summit, but the gradual slope was mostly bare. He could see the first glow of light on the horizon, and the smell of bluebells wafted around his feet. The ground was carpeted with them, swaying in the morning breeze, nodding their indigo heads and coating the ground in color.