It is the season for love and murder in the court of Ravaeryn.
After a chance encounter one winter night, Lady Catarina de Fontaine had fallen hopelessly in love with Julian, the Crown Prince. However, upon discovering his untruthfulness, she immedi...
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1712, Tower of The Damned, Kestramore City
MARGUERITE shivered in the darkness, clutching onto her torn cape pitifully. It had failed to shield her arms and legs, but her face, her once beautiful face, was now marred with hundreds of small cuts and scratches. In truth, she was glad that her dungeon cell was devoid of light, for she could not bear to see her reflection. Not now, not ever.
She lay there, crumpled on the damp floor, and it was there that she found out about her family's fate. Her mother's charred corpse was found in her bedchamber, perfectly sprawled out on the floor, as if she had no intention to even escape. Her father, who was almost always counting money, was found slumped over his study table, his charred hands holding onto a bottle of whiskey, and there, in the money chest was a measly twenty golden coins, which was all that the le Princes had to their name.
But the worst fate certainly befell her brother Nathaniel. He had not been burnt into a crisp like his mother and father, and instead, he was only burnt from the waist down. They found that his manhood had been severed and stuffed down his throat, and his arms and legs were tied together, leaving him to be consumed by the raging fire.
Whoever did this had a clear vengeance towards the le Princes, and Marguerite could think of quite a few prominent names. While she could not care less about her family members, she did feel that she had lost some allies, and Marguerite knew that there was not one person on this Earth that would vouch for her.
In the cell opposite from her was Lady Dinah Finley, the mother of Eleanora Finley. Why Eleanora had not vouched for her mother's release was lost to Marguerite. The middle-aged woman, barely older than her own mother, was rocking herself back and forth, her pale blue eyes misty with tears. At times, she would lay on the floor and weep like a hungry child, and when she was not doing that, she would stand stoically by the bars, staring into nothingness.
At noon, it came. A prison guard walked up to Dinah Finley's cell, and nonchalantly, he began to read the contents of a yellowed piece of parchment.
"Dinah Finley has framed and harmed the Prince of this kingdom. She is a master of deceit, and all of this kingdom has fallen prey to her. As such, she is stripped of all her titles and demoted to a commoner. On Saturday morning, she shall be beheaded in the tower square as a punishment for her crimes and deception."
After he read those words, he simply walked off with a calm face, as if he had not just read out a person's death sentence. Today was Wednesday, which meant that Dinah Finley had a mere two days left to live. When she initially received the news, Marguerite saw that she was relatively calm. But when nighttime came, the wails and cries began.
"I don't want to die!" she would shout out. "I am the mother of the future queen! You cannot kill me!"
As Thursday rolled by, Marguerite grew rather anxious. Why was there nobody to take her in for questioning? During her three days locked up in there, not a single person had said anything to her, and as a result, Marguerite had never been able to stage that performance of hers.
