Beast of the Damned #2

* Chapter Ten *

~ KINLEY ~

"Still in bed this morning I see." Marianna's voice coincides with the rattling of a metal tray. She sits the tray down on the vanity and lifts the lid to reveal breakfast—fresh fruit and oatmeal. "You best eat up if you want to go on your morning walk with the others. You know the Prince is strict when we are entertaining company at the castle. If you miss this chance, you will not be able to go outside again until suppertime."

I sit up in bed, drowsy from the deep sleep she woke me from. Golden woven metal catches my attention, halting the sleep I'm attempting to rub free from my eyes while Marianna goes about tidying my room. I stare at the foreign object clasped around me, tracing the thin metal chain as it dips beneath my nightgown. My hands hit the weighted center, my fingers fumbling with the texture of smooth polished stone. I pull the pendant out from underneath my sleep clothes.

It's a necklace.

The center stone resembles a white opal held in place with intricate gold dotted with small diamonds within the swirls. The peculiar thing is there is an iridescent substance moving within the opal like a live stream of energy. It's a stunning piece of jewelry, however, I've no clue how it got around my neck.

The glitter effect within the stone shimmers brightly as sunlight streams in through the window Marianna opens to let in fresh air. When she opens the window closest to me, a beam of sunlight hits the direct center of the stone. A white light engulfs me, yanking me from my bed and into a shadowy corridor lit by a torch in my hand. I lift the torch high, battling the blackness of this strange new place.

"Marianna?" I call out, her name bouncing off the empty vastness of the winding hallway. All that returns to me is the giggles of a little girl.

"Hey, wait!" I chase after the fading orange hue up ahead of me.

"Hurry up or he'll catch us." The little girl's voice grows faint toward the end, the corridor seemingly swallowing her whole as I round the curve of the narrowing hallway.

"Where'd you go?" I continue to walk toward the darkness, skimming the damp stonewalls with my fingertips to help find my bearings.

The flickering light of the flame in my hand catches the timber structure that comes into view once I step into the cellar at the end of the corridor. My shriek reverberates back, the ghastly sight of charred skeletal remains nailed to a cross getting carved out among the shadows that surround me. The wrists of the being are fastened above their head while a single spike is embedded in their crossed ankles.

Torchlight glimmers off something hanging in the center of the skeleton but does not for long as I move the torch to the right. The bones of a wing span the horizontal timber of the cross. I step back. When I do, the little girl I heard earlier is staring in awe at the being in front of us. Warmth begins spreading throughout me, my heart beating fiercely as whispers that sound like wind fill my head.

"It's so pretty." The young girl steps forward, her hand outstretched for the pendant glowing as if the sun is trapped inside.

It isn't just the little girl reaching for the pendant. It's both of us. The little girl is me and I am her. We are both drawn to the voice telling us to come closer.

The little girl's hand fails to reach the necklace, her spirit wrapped in me as I rise to my toes, grabbing the necklace for us both.

"Are you listening to me, child?"

"What?" The pendant from the necklace around me slips from my hand, disrupting whatever images my mind is pulling from.

I don't remember leaving my room last night, but what I saw couldn't have been a dream if the necklace in it is around me now. Why don't I remember getting out of bed? More importantly, how did I find my way back to the cellar I found as a child without being seen?