1705. Luck had never been on Eleanora Finley's side. After her father died in a tragic fire, she was left at the mercy of her domineering and abusive mother, being deprived of all love and affection.
Truly, who would have thought that the simple red...
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1711, Aethiel Palace, Kestramore City
Some say she was strangled, and some say it was poison. Some say she was bitten by a venomous spider, some say she fell and broke her pretty little neck. Many mouths opened and started to babble, their voices loud yet their words hollow and lifeless, born out of assumption and without substance.
All that Eleanora knew was that Princess Eufemia was dead, her stiffened body having been carried out on a stretcher, her once lovely green eyes now dead and still.
It had only been two days since the incident, but it seemed like an eternity to those who were present. In all fairness, the whole palace had been in an uproar for the first few hours after the news reached them, people milling about, rushing from place to place, trying desperately not to panic. It hadn’t worked; everyone was too shaken up, too worried, and too scared to even sit down or sleep.
A member of the royal family had just been killed within the walls of the palace. The Palace of Aethiel was supposed to be the safest place in the entire kingdom, but now, that seemed quite doubtful. Was there an assassin in the midst? Was someone trying to go against the royal family? In reality, there wasn’t much anyone could do to calm themselves down. They couldn’t stop thinking, they couldn’t keep their minds away from one particular thought – who would have done this, and why?
The dead princess's quarters were completely overturned as the investigators desperately tried to find even a sliver of evidence, but to no avail. Eufemia's corpse, now blue and bruised, floated in a large tub of rubbing alcohol in the basement of Lavilia Perra, soon to be dissected. It was everything that anyone could talk about; the pitiful consort who met her grisly end within the gilded walls of the palace.
As the residents of the palace began to employ food testers and bodyguards out of paranoia, they soon forgot about the existence of the queen's lowborn niece. Perhaps it was a good thing, as for once, Eleanora was left alone in her own solitude, and after all that has happened, it was everything that she could ever hope for.
Eleanora walked down the dark, winding hallway at midnight, clutching onto a single oil lamp. She did not feel safe there, and she constantly looked over her shoulder, fearing that Sir Rolf's ghost would suddenly jump out from the shadows. But to be fair, she did not feel safe anywhere.
She was not alone there; there were soldiers crawling the entire palace like cockroaches, marching up and down the corridors in every waking hour.
Tonight was no different. As soon as Eleanora heard the heavy, rapid footsteps, she moved to the side and lowered her head, hoping that none of the soldiers would care about her. As she had expected, twenty or so soldiers walked down the corridor, each brandishing muskets and bayonets. They all walked ahead, not sparing her a single glance, except for one of them.
His footsteps came to an abrupt halt as soon as he saw Eleanora's familiar mop of red hair, and he silently sheathed his sword, not wanting her to see the exposed blade.
