"WHERE IS THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS?"
The voice arose over the noise of the prisoners of Eden, grating through her ears like screaming shackles.
Lýes' fingers fumbled around the keys.
The voices sprung around. Memories. Remember, Lýes, remember! she screamed at herself. Remember the words!
The voice of Terra thrummed through her ears. True you are Keeper of the Keys, but is it you are the Keeper of Secrets?
Ariel's voice had answered. What secrets?
The question still remained: Is it not said that your father imprisoned a courtier of Tressden?
She was a courtier from the King of Tressden with a message in regards to the fate of the royal family of Erithea.
Tressden? How could such a one know of the northern kingdom? she thought. Did not King Arron banish the country's name from emitting from one's lips?
The voices of the castle guards stirred Lýes' blood. "You fools! You still have to find the keys."
The prison of the Garden of Eden was a labyrinth maze. Cells were carved into the stone walls plunging into the bowels of the earth. Trickles of the silver moon and a whisper of torches were a prisoners' only glimpse of light during a sentence lasting a lifetime. Black iron grates flashed past Lýes' face as she plunged into the prisons. The secret of the cells were by caste: Tiers of prisoners smothered by the darkness. Deepest in the bowel of the prison rested the ones of murderers, thieves, rapists, all who committed the evilest of sins. Common birth, farmers, villagers, men who tended sheep and seeds, all were held in cells stacked above the murderers. In the cells exposed to the sky and moonlight were imprisoned the ones of the High.
Her feet slapped over the icy stone steps, searching for one cell. The keys jangled through the air like a shriek of alarm, jolting some half-dead prisoners awake with groans. She muffled the sound with her skirts. Her heart thumped as she passed her cell, one where she had been held a wretched prisoner, and where she was to rescue another wretched one. Carved into a wooden plaque held a symbol, the name of the prisoner in the cell.
A name. A name. All her answer was: What of her? She still languishes in the prisons.
One of Tressden. One of Tressden.
Names. Hundreds of names. Adonis. Gabriel. Rachael. Rueben. Elon. Mikha'el. Amari.
Slumped bodies huddled against the stone, once beautiful clothing of wool and silk, gold, and silver, reduced to rags. Dark skin caked with mud, grime, and filth. Hair matted with mud.
Eyes of glass. Dead. Stripped of life.
Plunging darkness. Gripping the stone walls, she scrabbled on the icy stone. One cell before the darkness.
The final cell. Before her the Stone was swallowed by the darkness leading to the second tier. She peered through the bars.
From the darkness she could see a shifting figure. Chains of black iron dug into white flesh. Dried blood caked on her arms and ankles.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
Blue eyes met her own. Eyes sunken into dark skin caked with mud and filth. Her golden hair was matted and twisted around her wild face. She was a skeleton. Lýes could see the bones of her fingers through the translucent skin.
All life had been stripped from her.
At her black feet was another body. A man, dead. His dead, hollow eyes stared up at Lýes.
YOU ARE READING
The Cursed Prince - Fire and Ice (Book One)
Fantasy"What she remembers can never be spoken... " A young prince is raised by a king. His adopted sister hides the dark secrets of her mind within her heart-one that is locked away-filled of secrets. But all secrets and promises made are shattered when t...
