chapter thirteen

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IN DIM, FLICKERING CANDLELIGHT, I saw a prince kneel on the floor, his hands clasped tightly together, his bare back glinting with sweat.

I stared at Prince Cairo's figure, frowning.

What's he doing?

As far as I knew, the King of Persia wasn't religious. I'd heard many rumors of him disregarding God altogether, and it hadn't occurred to me that his sons would have a different opinion.

Is he praying? But why is he praying shirtless?

But if he isn't praying, then what is he doing?

My questions must've made my gaze burn like fire, but the prince never once looked up. Instead, another low, dull moan echoed into the room.

It seemed to echo through my ears, into my skin and bones, embedding deep into a heart that was already anxiously thudding much too fast.

All of a sudden, I wondered why my back started to feel cold.

Prince Cairo started to groan once again, turning his neck. I could just faintly hear the crack his joints made as he stretched, and see the thin film of sweat covering his temple.

As he moved, I caught a glimpse of the item in front of him.

Aside from the few candles littered around the room, the area was bare. And so, even though the pedestal in front of him was quite plain, it caught my attention immediately.

What more, the box on top of it. 

Though the pedestal was inconspicuous and plain, the box was quite the opposite. Even from a distance, I could see that the opened lid held two shiny, circular gems that winked red in the light.

I had never seen a ruby before, but it wasn't very hard to identify.

They're much more hypnotizing than diamonds.

Perhaps... Even a little too hypnotizing.

I wasn't sure what was happening, nor was I sure of the cause, but it seemed that the longer I looked at the two gem, the brighter they were getting, and the harder it was to turn away.

Subconsciously, I knew something was wrong, and yet, I didn't want to do anything about it.

The jewels made me feel like I was in a dream.

I pressed my face closer to the keyhole, desperate to take another glance. Even though my mind was screaming that Prince Cairo was right there and that, at any moment, he could turn his head around to stretch and see me staring at him like a lecherous stalker, and when that time that it was very probable for me not to just lose my eye but also my head, I couldn't seem to turn away.

I didn't want to, either.

Slowly, my hand started to inch up the door, heading up to the knob.

Don't open the door, you idiot.

Don't do it.

He's going to know you're here.

I pushed down on the knob.

A clack echoed throughout the hall.

The doors and hinges in the palace were always well oiled, almost to a fault, but in the stifling silence of the third floor, the sound pierced through my ears.

And it didn't just pierce through mine.

Quick as lightning, Prince Cairo turned around, his eyes wide and darting around in an almost insane manner.

The look in his eyes was just the thing I needed to connect myself back into reality.

It was too unbridled, too wild and unfocused.

And if I wasn't mistaken, it looked too much like the eyes of a predator.

Perhaps, I'm the prey.

By the time I realized that I'd been holding my breath for too long, I was already running down the hall, hands desperately pushing against the walls in a futile attempt to make myself go faster.

Behind me, a loud, angry scream sounded out, followed by the sound a door banging against the wall.

"Who's there?"

Though my conversations with Prince Cairo were unpleasant as well as few and far between, his voice had always sounded quite pleasant — that sort of low, dark timbre you'd imagine a prince charming to have.

But his voice right now was hoarse, dark and heavy, as if some sort of spirit had possessed his soul and taken over his body. 

The sound of loud, heavy footsteps followed, and I felt my knees trembling as I ran.

Inside my head, I muttered words that would've made Khale pale with anger.

"Who goes? Don't think I won't be able to find you," the prince yelled out, starting to laugh. It was a strange, hollow sound, punctuated with frequent deep breaths.

He's gone insane.

The realization that I was very much facing a madman finally started to sink in.

Only a maniac could laugh like that.

Perhaps it was the presence of adrenaline, or perhaps it was the knowledge that a psycho was laughing a few metres behind me, but though I'd been sure that my legs were about to give out a few moments ago, they continued on.

Please just keep going until I can hide.

My breathing was loud and laborious, and bounced off the walls much in the same way his laugh did. For the first time, I didn't think to stop it.

He knew I was here, anyway, and I needed to conserve as much of my energy as possible.

Besides, it wasn't as if he'd be able to figure out who I was based off of the sound of me breathing.

But either way, no matter how fast or how deep you breathe, eventually, there comes a time when it's necessary to come up for air. The hallway seemed much harder to traverse than it had been earlier, and the shadows of the gargoyles seemed to stretch on for miles.

Soon, whatever last bit of strength my legs had disappeared.

Is this where I die? Is this how it's going to feel like to die?

A weird sense of dread staggered up in my chest, and faintly, I wondered if I was going to start throwing up mouthfuls of blood.

The ironic thing was, as I continued to stumble and stagger forward, I could just barely make out the silhouette of the staircase in front of me. But I was too tired, and when I looked down, my legs had acquired a number of blisters and a few specks of blood.

Now, where did that come from?

No matter, no matter. The staircase is right there; I need to be able to reach it somehow. It's right there. I just need to get down and call for help, get down and call for help...

Just as I was trying to reinvigorate myself, just as I was about the reach the handrail, a deep chuckle sounded behind me.

"Found you."

For a single moment, I was certain that my heart had stopped.

I kept still, my back facing the prince, but I was sure that, even then, he was getting a view — there was no way he wasn't seeing the way my shoulders trembled, or the way my waist stuck to my clothes due to sweat.

I wondered dimly if the reason why everyone seemed so afraid of this prince was because he was a lunatic, and that scenes such as this one — scenes that would most definitely belong in a murder case — were often and extremely entertaining to him.

"No, no," the prince laughed. "You need to turn around."

I didn't want to.

After a long period of time of silence, Prince Cairo laughed again; a sort of throaty, hoarse noise that made me shiver. "You don't want to turn around?"

Something told me that if I replied, whatever chance I could've had of surviving would disappear.

I stayed quiet.

"That's no good, it's no fun if you don't turn around," he said, laughing again. His laughter had gone from being loud and piercing to incredibly low and pitchy, but even with this comparison, I couldn't seem to decide which I hated more. "But that's okay, I'll help you."

I forcefully sucked in a breath, as if the action could physically force my legs to move even just half a step. It didn't even matter that if I took even half a step further, I'd fall down the stairs and have to roll the rest of the way through.

Perhaps I'd end up injured, but I'd much rather end up injured than dead.

But my sweat must've made my feet stick to the floor, because when I tried to lift them up, nothing happened.

"Not even going to run?" the prince mocked, giggling, his steps moving closer.

Slowly, I traced my tongue around the rims of my teeth, jagged ends meeting soft flesh, and couldn't help but think that if I bit off my own tongue, then I'd probably die of blood loss, pain, or suffocation.

I couldn't decide if any of those three choices would be better than what Prince Cairo had in mind for me.

But, either way, it seemed that I wouldn't have a choice, because at the next moment, I felt his fingers on my shoulder.

They were hot, incredibly so, and burned me even through the layer of clothes in between us.

"Don't worry," he cooed. "I won't hurt you. I just want to know what you've been doing here, doing what you shouldn't have."

His fingers tightened. "But before that," he continued, "I want to know just who exactly you are to try to spy on me. Who sent you, hm?"

Why would anyone send anyone to spy on a madman?

But I couldn't say these words aloud; instead, I firmly bit down on my tongue, half hoping for the taste of blood to arrive, half hoping that I was too cowardly and weak to actually go through with it.

"Who do you work for?" As he forcefully turned me around, I squeezed my eyes shut. Whatever breath I'd been holding on disappeared, along with my composure.

Will I... actually die?

Though the possibility of death in the palace was inexplicably high, the morbid smell tainting the otherwise gilded, golden atmosphere, it had always been more of a faraway thought, a grim notion I entertained but never quite took seriously.

But today, the pain of Prince Cairo's fingers on my skin grounded me back into reality, and the reality was that—

At any moment, if his fingers chose to move to my neck, there was nothing left that I could do. After all, I'd spent my whole life working at a tiny port in Babylon; what strength did I have to compare to a prince who probably spent his whole life around assassination and murder schemes?

Nothing.

I squeezed my eyes tighter and waited for whatever was about to come.

For a long period of time, nothing happened. And then, slowly, I felt Prince Cairo's hold loosen.

I squinted my eyes open.

I didn't know what exactly I was expecting to see; perhaps a crazed smile, or those same blown-out, insane eyes I'd seen before. Perhaps even none of those two things, and I wouldn't see anything before his hand creeped down to the base of my throat and stayed there indefinitely.

But either way, it wasn't this.

Under the hazy, low glow of the sunrise filtering through the second floor window, I saw Prince Cairo's eyes flutter.

His face was turned towards the light, his tense, gritted jaw now loose, and as I stared at his side profile, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see any trace of the man I'd seen before.

The person that had chased me through the hallways in the dead of the night before was uninhibited, deranged and wild. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to connect my memory with the image of the person standing in front of me right then.

Currently, I'd never seen someone look so angelic.

Was I... Dreaming?

His arm fell back to his side, and I watched as his shoulders wrenched forward as he breathed, as if a stone or weight of some sort had just been taken out and this was the first breath he'd taken in a very long time.

I blinked. When I glanced down, I discovered that my knees were still shaking, knocking so hard into each other that it was a miracle I didn't hear them clacking.

What happens now? Do I still die?

I didn't know, but I didn't have to guess, because in the next moment, the prince's eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward with a sickening thump.

The sound echoed loudly throughout the hall, reverberating through the walls and gargoyles. Faintly, I thought I heard the sound of my own heart falling to the floor, too.

this has been so long in the making, but i hope it's quite satisfactory either way! what do you think?

KAY © 2019.

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