The Infernal King | 1 ✓

CHAPTER XXXV | WEEPING SOULS

       SHE LAY IN bed, wrapped up in silken sheets and a heavy duvet, shivering—but not from the cold. Maarit was restless, for she could almost hear the souls of the dead weeping through the walls, echoing and resonating and vibrating in her bones. The sky was sobbing as well, the ominous silence disrupted by rumbling thunder gradually becoming more distant.

Her mind was always reeling as of late, but now more than ever. She didn't know what to feel or think. She had had everything backwards, twisted inside out by wretched prophecies and gossip of the villagers. She no longer knew what to think of him. Was he the villain or the victim? Was he truly a monster or was he merely a good man who had done some regrettably monstrous things?

A memory that felt distant—though was only a few weeks in the past—resurfaced in Maarit's mind, spurring a small gasp from her lips as she came to a heavy realization. Back when she had been imprisoned in the dungeons, there had been a rotten corpse in her cell.

Somehow, she hadn't figured it out before. At that point in time, Theodoracius had only been in power for a day. The body had to have been rotting in that dungeon cell for months—years, perhaps. What the previous king did with his prisoners was no longer a mystery. He allowed them to starve, wasting away in the shadows enclosed within the rusted bars and stone walls.

       And Theodoracius. He had been blamed for his father's misdeeds and transgressions from since he was a child. The king had spewed hateful words directed at his son, and the rest of the kingdom had swallowed them up. Blindly. Mindlessly.

       Something like guilt for how she had treated him made a lump form in her throat. He had withstood so much abuse from his father, and then from her as well. Something he had once told her flashed through her mind: "It is quite interesting that the only person to ever have spoken to me the way you are now doing is my father."

Maarit hugged a pillow closer to her chest and swallowed the bile that was beginning to rise in her throat.

What she finally understood was why his eyes were so deep. The eyes were the windows to his soul, and he had pushed his soul so far down that it had been forced to dig itself deeper and deeper, until all that remained was a dark void of swirling secrets and self-loathing.

       There was a knock on the door of her room that sent Maarit's heart barrelling right out of her chest. She shot up, throwing the covers off of her and jumping to her feet. She placed a hand on her chest, steadying her breathing and trying to prevent her lungs from collapsing. She had to remind herself that it wasn't happening again.

No one would touch her anymore.

She was safe.

Maarit heard her name being whispered and with it, all the initial fright left her. Frozen, she stood at the foot of her bed and waited as the lock of the bedroom door clicked. As the door swung open slightly, it creaked on its hinges. She let out a sigh, though her heart was still beating erratically. There was turbulence in her chest just as there was in the thunder-stricken sky.

       "Maarit," said the king's hesitant voice, quiet enough that she had to strain herself to hear it. "Are you awake?"

       "Yes," she whispered back, knees wobbling slightly. She squinted her eyes, trying to make out his figure in the dark, but failed to do so.