160. I know Where They Are.
The sound of his voice sent even more shivers of uneasiness down my spine. I take another step down as I try to explain to him what has happened since he has been unconscious.
“W-W-Well, the t-thing is you’ve actually been hurt and almost died-”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He snaps, following me with each step I back away from him.
He was highly confused and suspicious of what I was saying. “I’m not hurt as you can see, and I don’t particularly recall of almost dying either. I think that would be something I would remember.”
I begin to shake my head and finally stop on the last step of the stairs. “You don’t understand, nor remember because technically you’re still unconscious right now.”
He stops and looks at me as if I had suddenly gone daft in the head. I get it. He was standing there thinking he was in perfectly good health, not a scratch on him, looking just as he probably normally does every single day.
“I-I think this is a dream or maybe a memory…”
He still stares at me like I have gone insane. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to explain this to him. No matter how I was going to put it he was going to think I was some crazy woman who had followed him down here.
He slowly looks around again with furrowed brows. “Why-how would that be possible?” He was a bit flustered.
Well here goes nothing, I guess.
After ten minutes of explaining to the best of my ability I stand there watching his reaction. He just stares at me with a blank look on his face. He then looks around again. Then back at me and says quite curtly,
“You’re insane.” He turns away and stomps up the stone steps in a hurry. I blink at his retreating back.
“Wait! I’m telling you the truth!” I scramble to follow him.
“I’m not falling for it. You’re trying to distract me from something and when I find out what it is, I’ll be sure to give the punishment it deserves.” He swings back to me with an angry scowl.
“I may not be my father. And I may be too young to take the throne. But I’m not as gullible and naïve as everyone thinks I am.”
“Your highness, I don’t think that of you at all. Please, you have to believe me.” I nearly beg him, needing him to understand.
“If I was lying why would I ask you where we are, if I had followed you here?” I press.
He goes to say something, but then stops.
I take a step closer. “Like you said before, your Elites would have stopped me long before I had gotten this far, right?”
He still doesn’t say anything, his eyes shifting back and forth as he thought hard on what I was telling him. So, hoping I was getting somewhere I press on.
“What is the last thing you remember? Before you came here, in this underground cellar?”
His eyes stare back at me, but this time they squint. “I was just at the…” He frowns in confusion. “I was at the…wait…”
He turns to look behind him, up the stairs that showed nothing but darkness. Just how far down here were we?
“No, that isn’t right.” He whispers.
“You were hunting, right? With your men?” I ask carefully.
His eyes widen just a bit as he looks back at me. “That’s right. I was on the outskirts of the palace lands when I was suddenly…”
Alarm slams through him as he quickly clutches his side as if trying to see what could be there. And I remember, that was where he had been viciously attacked and a large chunk of his muscles was missing. That alone should have killed him, and it was still a mystery to everyone why it hadn’t.
“That wasn’t a nightmare…was it?” He whispers in disbelief.
All I could do was shake my head at him.
“Then my brother-”
“ARGGHHHH!!”
We both jump at the sudden scream of a young boy. I whip back around to where the sound had come from.
“Zidane?!” He yells hysterically as he pushes me to the side where I nearly fall from the side of the stairs, but I catch myself as I watch him race back towards the giant wooden door.
Another scream, just as loud and gut wrenching as the first one sounded, pierces through that thick door. Prince Zander starts pounding on the door in his anger.
“Zidane?!” He calls again.
When the screaming wouldn’t stop, he swings to look at me with fear-stricken eyes. “What’s going on?! What’s happening to him?!”
I shake my head as the horror of what was happening was sinking into my bones. “I-I d-don’t-”
“Yes, you do!” He cries out, grabbing my upper arms tightly in his grip.
“This is just a vision! Even if I knew, we can’t do anything cause we’re not even here right now!” I scream back in his face.
He slightly let’s go of me, tears brimming his eyes. “Vision, because I’m unconscious?”
I nod at him quickly afraid of the sounds that wouldn’t stop.
“The Royal catacombs.” He whispers as a single tear falls. “This door is beneath the royal catacombs where my ancestors are all buried. Deep underground of the first King’s tomb.”
Everything begins to blur as he fades away and I barely get the last thing he says to me as I’m pulled back to reality as someone was crying out my name.
“Safina!” Shane’s worried tone filled my ears as I gasp awake.
I had fallen asleep on the crown prince’s arm. My chest was heaving as the anxiety and terror was filling me. Those screams just felt too real to be fake. It had to be the connection between the two brothers for us to hear them in the first place.
We were running out of time.
“Hey, are you alright? You were mumbling?” Shane’s eyes were glazed with concern and something else that I knew all too well, grief.
“I know where Prince Z and Benji are.” I quickly spit out as I stare into those haunted eyes.
He frowns. “What-”
“Where?!” Derek comes rushing in all the sudden, followed by Arion and everyone else.
When did they get back? But that didn’t matter, since I was thankful that they were. Shane helps me to stand to face them all, each face masked with desperation.
“Arion checked the entire grounds for the place. They’re not there.” Osmoses states as he comes forward.
“That’s because they aren’t on the grounds.” I say, pushing forward to look right at Arion.
“The Royal Catacombs. Do you know where it is?” I ask gently.
His eyes brighten. He quickly nods his head.
“There’s a tunnel deep under them. He stated that the door we are searching for is under the first King’s tomb.”
“The first king’s tomb is in the Royal graveyard though, not the catacombs.” Osmoses’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“No.” Arion states firmly, turning to look at the Elites. “The first king’s monument is in the graveyard. But his tomb…” He turns to look back at me with his piercing honey colored eyes.
“You said ‘he stated’.” Shane comes up to my side, gently taking my hand. “Who’s ‘he’?”
I turn around to look down at the still unconscious Prince Zander. “Him. He told me.”
Still staring at him, I feel my body shaking as I say, “We’re running out of time. Benji and the young prince are in deep shit as we speak.”
Turning to look at everyone I continue to say, “At this rate, we might be already too late.”