“Get up!”
The harsh, lethal voice of her father jerked her awake in her bed. Blinking awake, dazed and confused, she sat up slowly. “Your Majesty?” she called out. When she glanced around, she saw the bowed, uneasy heads of her aides as they stood outside in the Drawing Room.
It was early in the morning, just around the time she was meant to wake, but the sight of her angry, disheveled father standing there was very much out of place. Still dressed down in a robe, he yanked at her arms. He impatiently pulled her off the bed, and she stumbled as she followed after him.
“Your Majesty, what’s going on?” she asked breathlessly, running after his hurried pace.
“Not here,” he snapped. He slowed down unnaturally and posed a strained smile whenever Palace workers passed them by, but it didn't stop his strange fury. When they reached a similar door to hers, he shoved her inside.
Still in her nightgown and barefoot from the haste, she shivered as they approached Princess Morgan’s bedroom door. Inside, she heard scurrying footsteps and the Queen’s callous shouts. Helene knew something was terribly wrong in this room, and she wasn’t keen to find out.
Her father seized her arm, sharply turning her to face him. “What did you do?”
Helene made a face at his accusatory tone. “Nothing.”
She didn’t know what he could possibly be blaming her for now, but she had made extra effort to avoid Morgan’s path throughout the past few days. Although a few expected barbs were thrown her way when she wasn’t successful, Helene, like always, did nothing. Whatever he was charging her with, it wasn’t her.
“Your mother’s sickness,” he started again, looking at her with wild eyes. “You described it to me once. Tell me again.”
Helene parted her lips, shocked by the direction of his questioning. “Why do you —”
“Tell. Me.”
She gulped, dread piling onto her heavy shoulders. “I-it started with hallucinations. She saw things no one else could and started talking about things that made no sense.”
She remembered when she first noticed it in the unusual letters her mother started sending her. Talking nonsense and completely different from the voice she was used to reading, it concerned her starting then.
“Speak,” her father impatiently bit out.
“Black marks started appearing out of nowhere, almost like bruises and patches of dead skin. Then, it was the tears of black blood. Her life force was being sucked out by something. She grew thinner, weaker, further away from me,” she trembled out.
She saw her father clench his jaws. Slowly turning the knob, he cracked it open as if he didn’t want anyone to know they were there. “Stay quiet, and look inside.”
She did.
Maids rushing around with bowls of water and stained cloths. Queen Irene sitting by the Princess’s bed, distress and lunacy painted all over her face. Ian pacing the floor, yelling at a young girl who was scrubbing at a spill on floor. When Helene’s eyes settled on Morgan’s body lying on the bed, her heart froze.
It was the same sickness. The black marks, the blood, the lifeless form of her fading body — they all mirrored the illness that had taken her mother. But it was harsher.
Where it had been more gradual in her mother’s demise, Morgan looked like she was balancing on the precipice of death. Black blood seeped out from every opening in her body. Whether it was her eyes, ears, or nose, it didn't matter. Her pale skin was now completely darkened, and she was more bones than anything else.
Shaking down to her toes, Helene stepped away from the door, stumbling in her steps. The sickness was now in Theolos. It traveled all the way here. How?
Her thoughts first settled on the abyss, where she had felt it, and her stone necklace vibrated against her chest.
The King snatched her neck, his hands encircling her throat and crushing her windpipe. “What have you done? What did you bring?” he simmered.
“Your Majesty,” she choked out, clawing at his fingers as her face turned blue.
She blinked, and he was thrown across the room, crashing against a table and knocking over its contents. Helene’s hands quivered violently and her lungs stopped working. When Ian ripped open the door, she ran.
Her mind raced faster than the pace of her feet as she streaked through the halls of the Palace. She couldn’t breathe. She needed to breathe. Helene ran into a delicate figure.
Small hands came to her shoulders, stopping her in her tracks. “Helene? What’s wrong?”
Princess Amelia’s startled voice broke through her panic, but she couldn’t answer. She heard the Princess ask her something else, but this time, it didn’t make it through the ringing in her ears. Feeling herself moving blindly, soothing hands rubbed at her shoulders and soft words were whispered at her. Her mind buzzed, the stone grew hot, the images didn’t fade.
She was seated on something soft and a wet cloth was brought to her brow. “Lay down, Helene. You need to rest.”
Helene laid down, but she couldn’t rest.
But her eyes closed, and she drifted somewhere far away.
A humble baker cracked his back after a long day, dusting his hands against his floured apron and closing his shop for the night. He would be up in just a few short hours to ready the dough and start another day of the same old routines, but he never minded. Since his father had taught him at a young age, there was nothing he loved more than the scent of freshly baked bread or the feel of using his big old hands to create something so delicate and delicious as his famous frosted cookies.
Smiling to himself, the baker whistled a happy tune on his way home. His wife would no doubt be waiting for him with a stew of some sort and some of the leftover bread he always brought home. Even now, he carried a loaf or two under his arm, excited to share them with little Tommy, his son, and Spots, their old, graying cat.
It would be the same, mundane evening, and he loved it.
Passing the other shopkeepers closing up all the same, the baker called out his usual greetings, tipping his hat with a merry smile on his face and a couple witty jests ready to fly. Laughing heartily, he clutched his heavy belly and turned the corner.
The street was unusually empty and the air grew colder. Shivering under his thin, worn-out coat, he hurried towards the light signaling his near arrival at the warmth and happiness of his cabin.
In just a few minutes, he would be able to burst through the door, calling out a darling greeting for his wife and lifting Tommy up in his arms to twirl around like he always asked. Spots would be snaking around his legs, waving his furry tail as he sniffed at the packages of baked goods he had brought. He laughed just at the thought of it.
What the baker didn’t see was a black shadow following in his wake. Sneaking through the crevices of the earth and awakened by the enticing life force of the merry man, it followed relentlessly.
The shadow reached out, clawing at the baker’s feet. It stopped him, and he looked down curiously. Black smoke slithered up his legs and fed on the new fear overwhelming the joy he had felt. The shadow reveled in it, basking in the racing heart beats of the man who was now frozen in terror. When he opened his mouth to scream, it rushed down his throat, choking his breaths and tasting his life on its tongue.
It was good. This man was strong and big and happy. He was one of the good catches.
Blood started seeping out of his pores, and his bones started to stick out — the heavy man no longer soft to the touch. The shadow devoured him over and over again, delighting in the taste and feeling the strength carry over.
Just like that, the baker was gone.
And it was good.
Helene blinked. She was laying on a comfortable bed in an unfamiliar room. When she looked out a near window, night had already fallen.
She sat up, grabbing her hammering chest and wincing as her head ached. She had a dream. A dream of a baker who was stolen away by a shadow. A shadow who brought the same sickness that her mother suffered.
Just like Morgan did.
Tears started to leak out of her eyes as she clutched her knees to her chest, rocking slowly as she cried softly. What was happening to her? What was happening to Theolos? What was happening to Morgan? To her mother?
“Helene?”
Princess Amelia’s sad voice turned her head to the side, where she saw the Princess sitting on a chaise by the bed. She came over to wipe her tears away and soothe her with kind words she could barely hear.
“You’ll be okay,” Amelia whispered from afar. “It was only just a dream.”
Only just a dream.
Please let it be a dream.
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