DEAREST

PART 1: FEAST OF WAR, Ch. 4

4

We escape through the corridors until we reach the secret entrance to the nearest underground corridors, located behind the tall painting of "The Lady in Red," next to an abandoned dumbwaiter.

The truth is that I could manifest the Lightning Scepter through a relatively easy spell and gain a bit of advantage for the night, but it is paramount that my strength does not run out so soon. Also, I don't know how to fight, how to take a weapon, or how to defend myself. I've decided it this way, in a fit of pride, but now I regret it. I think it's because of the weakness of all these people who serve our family. While I walk through the corridors, and I sense the alarm from the demons that approach us, in my mind images are reproduced in relation to the important events of my life that have occurred so far. I think of my mother, her mistake that I don't forgive, what is happening now, and what is about to happen during the war, and I'm afraid.

If we are lucky, no one will find us, and the only ones who will die then will be those soldiers and demons. But, if not... I don't even want to imagine it.

One of the demons attacks us from the rear, and takes the first maid of that night. I'm the only one who looks back, while the demon tears up the girl's body. The other maids hurry around me, and my maid takes me by the hand, holding me tightly.

"We'll be there, my lady," she says in a high-pitched, panting voice.

I bring my free hand to my chest, ready to activate my power, but my maid squeezes my hand even tighter.

"Please stop. It will be useless if the lady does it now."

The images I see after are heartbreaking.

One by one, the group of maidens is shrinking. We hurry up to run without any dignity through the corridors, but the demons come from any corner, they try to attack us, and the only thing we can do is keep running until we reach the vault, which is protected with a barrier spell that should be enough to confuse them for a while.

However, when we reach the vault, we are cornered by more demons. I push my maid behind me and order her to open the vault. This time my voice sounds firm. In my hand rests a ring, a delicate ruby that concentrates a fraction of my power. Since I was young, and I started to study this power, I thought that casting spells on crystals and other objects could be very practical. The only non-practical aspect is that I would have to carry some of these gems with me at all times. At that time, it was a problem, but now that I can wear dresses with knitted beads, it is no longer a problem.

Tonight, despite my physical weakness due to the ritual from the previous night, I activate the power concentrated in this ring. It's enough to stun the demons.

"It's done, my lady! Please come in!"

The sturdy steel door of the vault is so heavy, that the only thing the maid managed to do was opening a space wide enough for us to slide through and enter. I go into the vault first, but when I grab my maid by the elbow and try to drag her inside with me, a demon takes her, and I feel her elbow, flesh and bone, tearing from the rest of her body. A small squeal of despair escapes my lips. The disgusting sensation is repeated over and over throughout my body, and I close the door with the little force I am capable of.

I try to erase this sensation from my body using all my remaining strength to block the bolt and run through the empty supply pods. The place is cold, spacious and humid, and it stays in dim light, as one might expect from a clandestine laboratory. Well, it's kind of a clandestine laboratory, after all. I did not allow it, and I ordered my mother to close it that day.

I run as far as I can from the door to the other end of the vault, but I am seized with a panic attack and so I stop right there, in the middle of the vault. Lightheaded, I know it's a panic attack because it's not the first time I feel this way. A year ago I felt the same way, after the car accident. I tried to escape from the castle to give myself a moment of peace, but my car overturned in a curve and I ended up in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, at night, while the rain poured heavy.

So, I know what it is when, without any warning, the air starts to run out and I feel an icy sweat running through my entire body. I close my eyes and try to conjure a blank image in my mind, but then I can only feel the skin of my handmaid tearing, as if it were my own. She didn't even get to scream.

Even as my body trembles, I try to move forward in search of a door that leads me to the exit. I know there must be one, since the corridors are connected to the different levels of the castle. In spite of that, it's not a door that I find, but one of the several abandoned dumbwaiters that are installed inside the castle. As I approach, I wonder if it still works. Next to the wooden door of no more than seventy centimeters high embedded in the stone wall there is a handle that, when slid, automatically carries its content to the room that the dumbwaiter is connected to.

However, I don't know to which room this particular dumbwaiter arrives. I guess it leads to the kitchen.

Despite the terror that causes me getting stuck in such a small cubicle, and my current attack, I prefer to be stuck in such a place instead of being found by a demon and murdered. No, I will not be killed. Inside of me I carry the Lightning Scepter, and if the enemy wants it, he must manifest it on the physical plane in order to use it. To do this, he needs me alive.

I try to ignore a subtle and continuous beeping that originated in the center of my head, And I'm in search of some other noise that might alert me that the demons have left. I sense their absence beneath the unpleasant palpitations and the headache. It is unlikely that they will trace every wall of the castle in search of my presence, which I blocked after the ritual, the night before. Even so, it is possible that there is still some remnant of it, but it is not enough to alert those basic-creation demons that only serve for misleading purposes and to do exactly what they did to my group of maids. Without further delay, I open the little door, I get up, I curl up in a ball, I stretch my arm to pull the handle, and I close the door.