Always Golden

by Gina Dickerson

  She stifled a sob.

  They were no doubt delayed by ensuring Karima was sufficiently restrained.

  She paused for a moment.

  It was not right abandoning Karima, she should go straight back and wrench that blasted ring off Karima’s neck even if it meant she was captured also.

  Friends didn’t just give up on each other...she would fight the intruders with her bare hands if she had to!

  Fear rose from the pit of her stomach.

  If she allowed King Acapf and his men to capture her, what would become of the kingdom? She had heard frightening tales of how Acapf treated his subjects.

  Could she risk the lives of her father’s people over the life of one?

  ‘Make up your mind!’ she said out loud.

  No, there was only one path to be taken. She had to find her parents and save herself so she could stand a chance of fighting back and saving Karima. If she went backwards now she may as well tie a bow around her neck and present herself on a golden platter.

  Roughly brushing tears from her cheeks she surged forwards. The doors to the chambers were wide open. Oriana slowed, unsure what to expect. Similar to the charred curtains upstairs, the pair at the window in the corridor were in tatters and the stone walls were scorched. Reaching the entrance, Oriana slipped. In horror, she peered down to see a stream of red running from the rooms into the corridor. Carefully, she edged around the liquid, hoping it wasn’t what she feared it was.

  In the near distance she could hear the booming timbre of King Acapf saying something about Karima but she could not make out the rest of his words. Passing a window which overlooked the garden courtyard, Oriana peeked out. Smoke swayed on the air, and more of King Acapf’s men stood in small clusters, their swords stained, and their armour dripping. On the ground, between the feet of Acapf’s men, lay bloodied figures. Oriana stifled a cry as she recognised the battered corpse of the castle’s cook. Her eyes darted to each of the four corners of the courtyard, recognising body after body as some of those employed by her father.

  Oriana hurried through the first room of her parents’ suite, dismayed to discover the running river of red showed no sign of slowing. Passing through the room used as her parents’ personal dining room, she cried out upon seeing the offering set upon the wooden table. In the centre was the head of her favourite pet with its amber eyes frozen wide open, its beautiful white fur stained red with blood which surged from it and over the edge of the platter it was upon, flowing from the table to form the running river of red.

  Oriana choked back a cry as she reached for the dog’s head. ‘Oh, Shera, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to save you.’

  She caressed one of Shera’s well-furred ears; the fur still soft to the touch. The dog’s mouth snapped open, emitting an ear piercing howl and Shera’s eyes moved.

  Oriana screamed.

  Severed heads shouldn’t move...they shouldn’t make a sound!

  What kind of evil magic was this?

  What enchantment had they subjected her poor pet to after they’d butchered her?

  As Oriana edged away Shera’s head twisted with a squeak on the platter, her amber eyes following Oriana’s every move. Knowing it was no longer Shera looking at her did nothing to quell the wave of sorrow Oriana felt. With every step she took, Oriana remembered moments spent with Shera: as a puppy all soft and floppy and jangly legged; teaching Shera to obey commands; running with her through the fields around the castle; swimming together in the stream she was never supposed to play in; Shera curling up in a ball of fluff at the foot of her bed even when she had grown and was too large to sleep on Oriana’s bed.

  Pushing aside the memories, Oriana reached the doorway and peered into the next room.

  Nothing.

  Her parents’ sitting room was undisturbed, even the book on the low table by the two comfortable chairs was untouched. Oriana frowned. That left her parents’ bedroom to check. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

  Would there be two more platters with grisly wares?

  The distant sounds of King Acapf and his pursuing soldiers fell away as Oriana pushed open the double doors to the bedroom.

  Chapter Two

  Oriana

  It did not make any sense. Where were her parents?

  The four-poster bed, swathed in rumpled velvet covers, was empty and the chair to Oriana’s mother’s dressing table was slightly pushed back. Looking around the room, everything appeared normal to Oriana. Her mother was quite fastidious in keeping the room neat. Then her gaze picked out a sliver of purple ribbon on the floor beside the bed. A tiny fragment from inside of the locket her mother wore. Bending, Oriana retrieved the ribbon and squeezed it tight in her hand. The offcut was from Oriana’s ritual gown, worn when she had been a tiny baby and was first “marked” as a princess. She remembered how her mother had told her from the day the priest “marked” her with the water from The Pool of Health, her hair had grown long and thick. She still bore the crisscross-shaped scar on the back of her neck.

  Stuffing the tiny piece of material into her waistband, Oriana knew why her mother had left it behind. It was a sign, a secret one between mother and daughter.

  Oriana gulped, desperately trying not to cry.

  Her mother had feared for her own life, and that was why she had left the ribbon for Oriana to find.

  Hearing the approaching clatter of King Acapf and his men as they reached the second room where Shera’s head was, Oriana knew she had to carry on alone. She must flee the castle. There was no other option.

  Slipping off her shoes, for the heels could give her away, she tiptoed to the far corner of the room and felt the wall for the push-stone to access another secret passageway. No-one else besides Oriana and her parents knew of this passage, not even the staff. Finding the raised section of stone hidden behind the bookcase on her father’s side of the bed, Oriana hit it and jumped through the opening as soon as there was sufficient space.

  Once inside the passageway she activated the next push-stone, heaving a sigh of relief as the stone panel slid silently back into place. Unlike the passageway from the bedroom in the other wing this one was lit. Granted, the lighting was gloomy coming only as it did from air grates the size of Oriana’s hand located at the base of the left hand side of the passage, but at least it was something. The space between the walls was even narrower than the last passageway meaning Oriana had to edge along it sideways. The reason the passage was so narrow was it ran parallel with the outside wall of the castle. Part of the inside of the thick wall had between removed by her father over the years so the passageway was as well concealed as possible.

  A tear snaked from Oriana’s eye and she rubbed it away. It would not do to shed any more tears; they would have to wait until she was safe. She paused, hearing noises near the hidden entrance.

  ‘She can’t have disappeared into thin air!’ boomed King Acapf. ‘Alisdair, you said the dog’s head would capture anyone in its rays and render them immobile. You failed, I don’t see the girl frozen into a statue, and the blasted head’s on the floor by the bed!’

  ‘I don’t know how it moved from the table and into here!’ replied a trembling voice. ‘I only enchanted it to move on the platter!’

  ‘Useless!’ King Acapf shouted. ‘Bloody useless. What’s the point of magic you can’t control? No use, that’s what!’

  There was a piercing scream and a heavy thud.

  ‘That’ll teach him,’ shouted King Acapf with a clap of laughter. ‘Let’s see if Alisdair can move his own severed head back onto his body. Now, where’s my son?’

  ‘Here, Father. Why did you kill Alisdair? Now we no longer have a warlock.’

  In the passageway Oriana knew she should keep on moving but she wanted to listen. She could hardly believe the young man who had saved her in the corridor upstairs was King Acapf’s son. How could someone with the compassion he had shown her have come from a cruel person?

  ‘Ah, Hashir, we will recruit ourselv
es another far superior warlock in good time,’ King Acapf said in his loud voice. ‘Find the princess and kill her. We don’t want her surviving and exerting any claim upon her father’s throne. The time for games is over. This kingdom will widen mine, my power will be immeasurable.’

  ‘Kill her?’ Hashir asked. ‘You want Princess Oriana dead?’

  Oriana held her breath. The sound of her thudding heart filled the narrow passageway, making her fear the others on the opposite side of the stone panel would discover her. She exhaled slowly to try and lessen her pulse. The last thing she needed to do was to faint.

  ‘You heard me,’ continued King Acapf. ‘Track her down and slit her beautiful throat yourself if you wish. You can keep her head as a trophy if you like.’ He broke into loud laughter. ‘You know why...she has such amazing hair after all.’

  Other people in the bedroom joined in with the king’s laughter.

  Oriana could not tell how many others were with the King and his son but she could tell they were all definitely male. She sniffed; her father had female soldiers as well as male. The thought made her wonder if any of her father’s army had survived. It was a small army but the soldiers were good fighters from what she had seen; fast and efficient. Even so they lacked the one thing King Acapf had brought to the fight.

  Magic.

  She crept closer to the concealed panel, eager to hear more from Prince Hashir.

  ‘And what if I don’t want to kill the princess?’ Hashir asked. ‘What if I prefer her alive, just as we had discussed? You told me she would be mine. You did not tell me I would have her only after she was dead.’

  The room’s occupants fell silent.

  In the passage, Oriana froze. Hope dared to lift her spirits. The prince was nothing like his father!

  ‘You, Boy, will do as I order. I may be your father but above all else I am your king and you will do as I damn well say. You are still my subject, my kin or not!’

  Footsteps sounded. ‘Do you know what, Father? I am sick of your orders, sick of being told what to do. I am twenty-seven-years old. By the time you were my age you were already King. You have been King for almost thirty years.’

  King Acapf laughed. ‘You desire your own kingdom, is that it? You wish to be released to discover your own land to take and reign over?’

  ‘That isn’t what you did, is it, Father?’

  The King chuckled. ‘No, my son, I did not.’

  ‘You took the land from your own father.’

  ‘That I did, my boy, that I did.’ Acapf erupted into rumbling laughter once more.

  ‘And now it’s my turn.’ Hashir’s voice hardened.

  King Acapf’s laughter turned to a cry of pain. ‘What have you done?’ he asked, his voice audibly lower than before.

  In the passage, Oriana began to back away. Fear dried her mouth, making her tongue stick to the roof of it. Prince Hashir had not just murdered his own father, had he? From her parents’ bedroom a cheer went up.

  ‘Long live King Hashir!’ shouted a voice.

  ‘Hear, hear!’ bellowed another.

  ‘King Hashir!’ Several voices rose in unison. ‘Long live King Hashir The Bold!’

  ‘Enough!’ Hashir shouted, silencing the crowd. ‘I will no longer be known as The Bold, I will be known as The Collector...the same as my father and his father before him.’

  ‘Long live King Hashir The Collector!’ cried several voices.

  ‘Quiet,’ Hashir ordered. ‘Fetch Germaine’s crown and bring it to the Grand Hall. Round up any of his remaining subjects. If they will bow before me as their new ruler they shall be spared, if they refuse...well, you know what to do.’

  Oriana swallowed. Bile rose in her throat. Forcing her legs to work, for they had all but turned to jelly, she moved along the narrow passageway. Following its twists and turns her mind whirred. She had to escape the castle. There was no doubt her father’s army had been slaughtered and, by the sounds of it, her father’s subjects faced the same fate unless they bowed to Hashir. She could not save her father’s people alone.

  Leaning her forehead against the cool wall, she briefly closed her eyes before tiptoeing down the passageway. She had lost not only her home but her best friend. How could she ever fulfil her promise of saving Karima if everyone she could trust had been murdered?

  Reaching the end of the passageway ten minutes later, Oriana wiped her cheeks. No matter how many times she told herself it was of no help crying, the tears still resurfaced.

  No-one could help her now.

  Acapf and his band of monsters had seen to that.

  The exit at the end of the passage was yet another concealed panel of sliding stone. Pressing the push-stone, Oriana poked her head out of the gap and looked up and down the corridor outside and was relieved to find it empty. Stealing out of the secret passageway she hit the push-stone on the outside to close the panel. She was at the lowest level of the castle and it was the riskiest part of her escape yet. Her father had not carved out a safe exit and she would have to use the very one King Acapf had more than likely used to first gain access to the castle.

  Consoled the only sounds to be heard were far off in the heart of the castle, Oriana edged cautiously towards the exit. This part of the castle was not usually busy as the rooms in the lower corridor housed the wine collection. Oriana’s father was a hoarder of rare and unusual beverages and this particular collection was reserved for special occasions. Nearing the storeroom it was no surprise the locked door was now not only open but battered and hanging off its hinges. Risking a peek inside, she saw bottles had been pulled from their shelves, their expensive contents spilt across the floor.

  She nearly moved on before she noticed it.

  A bloodied foot encased in a pale lilac, satin slipper.

  Oriana hardly dared to breathe; in fact she was not sure if she even was. The spilt wine splattered under her bare feet as she staggered into the room and towards the direction of the foot, protruding from behind a floor to ceiling wooden wine rack.

  Time slowed although Oriana’s pulse raced.

  She knew the slipper.

  Knew to whom it belonged.

  Yet, someone else could have borrowed the slippers, couldn’t they?

  At first all Oriana saw was a flash of lilac. Her vision blurred, and then sharpened. Pale legs, bent awkwardly, stuck out at odd angles from within a mound of satin and lace. A slender waist encased within a crimson splattered bodice led up to shoulders which were so blood red it seemed as if they were wrapped in a ruby shawl. Looking past the neck, her mind already anticipating the sight of her mother’s heart-shaped face, Oriana screamed.

  No head…her mother’s head had been severed!

  ‘Mother?’ Oriana whispered, bending down to touch the bloodied corpse. Her fingers brushed her mother’s leg and she recoiled, the skin was already cold.

  Pain seared through her kneecaps upon impact with the blood slicked floor. Beyond her mother’s body was another. This time Oriana recognised the smart trousers, the ring on the little finger of the left hand. Her father’s white shirt was sodden with his blood, and the ruffles at the neckline were tattered, obscuring the stump where his head should have been.

  ‘No!’ Oriana wailed, flinging herself between the bodies and, despite her fear, grasping one of each of their hands in her own. ‘This can’t be real...it must be a trick...or an enchantment. Wake up!’

  Clinging onto her parents’ cold hands, Oriana hung her head and sobbed so hard her head throbbed. Unaware of how many minutes had passed, she slowly composed herself, grief gradually giving way to anger and hatred.

  What was it with these people and heads? First Shera’s, and now both her mother’s and father’s heads had been removed by these...these barbarians.

  Hell, she had to escape. Neither of her parents would wish her to die here.

  She must survive to ensure vengeance was exacted.

  Far off in the castle the sounds of battle still rang clear. It was a
small relief to realise she did not need to worry about her scream being heard for the same music played throughout the halls and corridors; cries of her father’s people as the new king’s soldiers claimed every soul for their master. Spying a small blade on the nearest wine rack, Oriana swooped on it and rapidly set about hacking off the bottom half of her heavy skirt. It was not easy. The blade was small, used as it was for pulling corks from bottles, and the layers of her skirts were wet both from when Hashir had thrown the water over her and blood seeping up the cotton to her knees from the floor. It was not a flattering look and Oriana could not help but imagine what her mother would have said about her flaunting her thighs.

  Needs must, Oriana thought, surely her mother would forgive her the immodesty if it meant saving her life. It was much easier to move without the burden of extra material.

  Deciding the blade may come in useful, Oriana secured it in her waistband and left the cellar room. Wishing she had the strength of six people so she could have taken her parents bodies with her, she tried to remain composed. She raced to the exterior door. The way out was as wide open as she had hoped. The once secure wooden door lay in pieces on the ground and the hill outside was unguarded.

  Running into the ankle-high grass, Oriana spied a dead body just in time and jumped over it. Having encountered one her eyes easily picked out yet more victims peppered upon the grass and wild flowers. Zig-zagging through the carnage, Oriana dared not look back as she leapt over the bodies. She skidded, pausing for a moment as she passed the body of a child.

  Animals, she thought angrily, what monstrous savage animals Acapf’s and Hashir’s soldiers truly were. There was no need to murder a child who could not even wield a sword.

  Oriana was half way down the hill when she heard a shout behind her.

  ‘Halt!’ a voice commanded.

  Looking over her shoulder, Oriana stumbled over a decapitated body. Swiftly she turned the stumble into a skip and jumped over the bloodied corpse. Her feet threatened to slip beneath her as she sped down the grassy slope, desperate to stay ahead of Hashir’s soldier.