His Evil Cinderella (On Hiatus)

Fallen In The Air

A/N: Thank you all SO much for the encouragement and support. You made me so happy with your comments and all. :') Thank you!

This chapter is dedicated to @makemydreamsreal for making me such a lovely cover on the right. :)

Happy reading!

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CHAPTER FIVE

~I've been looking in the mirror for so long.

That I've come to believe my soul's on the other side.

All the little pieces falling, shatter.

If I try to touch her,

And I bleed,

I bleed,

And I breathe,

I breathe no more~

(Breathe No More, Evanescence)

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His shadow was stalking him.

He took a breath, trying to calm his wildly palpitating heart as he glanced around him warily. He could feel it pounding blood into his ears. Each heartbeat reverberated powerfully through his bones like a gong. The wintry air clung to his lungs like a blanket as his breath misted in front of his face.

He didn’t know why he was going to the tower tonight. It was pointless. He knew that the effort would be futile. They never left the proof of their existence lying about like discarded bones. No, they were careful. They veiled themselves with the darkest shades of the dusk, as invisible as crows against the depthless midnight sky.

His fingers curled around the hilt of his sword at that thought.

But she'd be there.

He quietly unlocked the heavy wooden doors and pushed them open. They didn’t emit a sound, that well-oiled the archaic hinges were. He slipped between them, a silent intruder. The torches flickered like miniature beacons in their brackets, casting strange, ever-shifting forms of phantoms on the dark stone walls. The air grew dank, as if no one had come here for centuries. His senses turned outwards, straining to detect the hidden.

His footsteps were noiseless as he took the wide, crumbling stone steps curving and spiralling upwards, letting the darkness slowly engulf him as the light of the torches dimmed. 

Words and thoughts gibbered restlessly in his mind. He couldn’t---hadn’t been able to believe what he’d seen that night on the balcony. He’d been seeing strange things lurking inside his castle ever since his father, the king, had died. At first he’d ignored them, mistaking them for the tricks played by his grieving mind, but somehow, deep down, he’d known that these trivial things shouldn’t be ignored. He had stowed away that instinct---had turned himself deaf to every screaming voice inside his head. Then he’d seen them with talking to his new bride and all the illusion had shattered around him.

His princess could see them: the stooped, warped parody of human beings, shrouded in cloaks of night. He’d thought he was seeing things. But they were real. His beautiful but naïve bride had been whispering to them about the tallest tower. And they’d made her promise to come. She’d assured them that she would, whenever her husband was gone away from the castle.

Her words had left him frozen, the hurt stinging him like a slap on his face. What was she hiding from him? Didn’t she trust him, who’d throw away his life without a single thought, for her? He’d waited to hear her explanation. He kept quiet, waiting to say if she’d tell him about her conversation with those ugly creatures. She never did.