The voice in the hall
The voice in the hall
Selene POV
They unlocked the cage at dawn, two guards with bored faces and calloused hands. The metal rang as it opened, and the smell of damp straw and old iron flooded my lungs. My legs trembled when they hauled me up; pain knifed through my joints and muscle, but they gave me no time to steady myself.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, my voice a dry rasp.
“The King wants to see you,” one guard replied, as if it were an errand rather than the end of me.
They marched me through corridors that had once felt small and safe in a distant life — now they felt like a tunnel leading straight to the gallows. People stepped aside as we passed; whispers washed over me like cold water. Faces turned and then away, eyes bright with that peculiar mixture of fear and hunger. They believed Eleazar’s stories now. He had wrapped his lies in the guise of holiness until even the King and Queen bowed.
When we entered the throne hall, heat and light slammed into me. Tapestries hung heavy on the walls, banners rippling with the royal sigil. The King sat in his carved chair, the Queen at his side, both draped in velvet and the arrogance of power. Their faces were flushed with the excitement of ritualists who knew the price and considered it worth the glory.
“Glory to God, you return,” the King said, voice booming. “The blood rises tomorrow night. I will see to it that the sacrifice is done.”
Something in me laughed — a raw, involuntary sound that tore out of my chest. Hahahaha. It shocked the hall into a silence so sharp I heard my own heartbeat. Heads turned. The King’s brow creased. The Queen’s lips thinned.
All their eyes burned on me, but the laugh was not mockery; it was the breaking of something inside. “You are all fooled!” I said, each word forced through a throat that wanted to break. “You’re trapped by Eleazar’s lies! My blood is not for the kingdom — it’s for his greed! He does not worship the gods — he worships power!”
A ripple of confusion moved through the nobles. For a moment their armor of faith showed the cracks beneath. Hope — faint, ridiculous — fluttered in my chest as if they might see the truth.
Eleazar moved like a viper. The slap landed before I registered its weight, white-hot pain exploding across my cheek. I tasted copper and fury all at once.
“How dare you speak!” he hissed, advancing until his shadow fell over me. “Do not listen to this woman. She is a liar! She fabricates stories to gain sympathy. May God forgive us these blasphemies.”
His voice poured honey and poison at once, a performance of outraged piety. The King nodded, eyes clouded by his own desire to believe what would solidify his power. The Queen clutched her rosary tighter as if its beads could drown out reason.
“You’re a liar!” I shouted, fighting to stand taller even shackled. “I am telling the truth — Eleazar will use my blood to awaken his beast. He will not save us. He will save himself!”
My hands were raw where the chains bit into my wrists. Guards held me still, two iron anchors at my sides. I wore the marks of struggle across my forearms, the bruise where Harold had held me — a map of betrayals.
The King’s face darkened; whatever doubts had flickered died under Eleazar’s steady hand. “Enough!” he bellowed. “You will be taken back. We will not tolerate sedition in the presence of the Crown.”
They shoved me forward, and I stumbled, hitting the stone with a shock that splintered my knee. Pain flared through my leg — a hot, animal pain that buckled me to the floor. I curled instinctively, clutching my injured knee as the guards hauled me up by the chains and dragged me away. The world blurred in angry reds and the metallic taste of indignity.
As they shoved me into the cart for the return to the dungeons, my eyes caught a few faces in the crowd — some were hollow with fear, others were carefully neutral, and a rare few looked away as if ashamed. Leonora was not among them. Lira was not there to catch me. Aeron’s absence throbbed like a new wound. The emptiness around their absence settled over me like a shroud.
Back in the cell, the torchlight seemed colder. I pressed my palm to the scrape on my knee, tasting the salt of sweat and the sting of blood. The wolf beneath the surface whined, restless and furious at being restrained, but she remained buried. My strength felt sapped, but something flared stubborn and iron in my chest — a small, dangerous ember lit from grief and rage.
Luke’s face rose unbidden, the memory of his brave hands and laughing eyes. The guilt that Eleazar had tried to shove into my throat coiled tighter. They had tried to make me the murderer of my savior, but everyone who had seen Luke — the boy who had given himself for me — knew his heart better than to let his death be used as a silence.
I swallowed the bitterness and tasted resolve instead. They might brand me liar or beast or sacrifice, but words were brittle things; truth could be a blade if wielded right. I could not fight now — not with bruised limbs and iron cuffs — but I could plan.
They thought my voice could be broken by slaps and decrees. They had plucked me from the sunlight and thrown me into the dark, thinking the dark would be enough.