Page 109 of Down from the Tower

The door opens, and silence greets us once more. But further down the hall there’s light, the first I’ve seen in a while. Other than the gold of the statues and the lanterns in the halls, the castle grows darker by the minute. Night is creeping in, the silence of the castle becoming that much more absolute.

Then the voices catch my attention. They sound resigned and sad, like the person speaking doesn’t want to do this anymore than we do. I strain to catch what’s being said but the voice is too soft to tell who it is or what they are saying.

I jog down the short hallway, and Zarev keeps pace with me beneath the shadows. He’s not going to let me run into danger alone, even if it is my father we’re about to face. He might be okay with me delivering the final blow, but he’s not going to let my emotions put me in any more danger. I’m grateful for Zarev’s presence and how just being here makes me more confident but all I want to do is burst ahead and end this.

The closer I get to the light, the heavier the air is. It’s as though a great, immense pressure pushes down on me, making every step feel a bit harder. I slow my pace, and Zarev is watching me cautiously in the shadows with a worried expression.

The hallway comes to an end at a wall with a door directly to the left that’s been broken. Stepping through cautiously, we enter the greenest clearing I’ve ever seen in Tressa. It’s even brighter than the gardens.

If it didn’t feel like evil lives here, it would be stunning.

Trees surround the opening of the castle, and we step together into what appears to be the treeline surrounding a clearing. The muffled voice is a little louder here, but it’s still spouting off gibberish I don’t understand. But I can see figures ahead, and despite the foreboding feeling all around me, I move towards the strange light.

Stepping closer to the clearing, Zarev stops me just before I can properly see anything. I turn to snap at him but a sense of terror washes over me when I see the way terror colors his features and a new, suffocating feeling envelopes me. If I thought I sensed evil before, this is true horror. It’s soul-crushing, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt and leaves me feeling like I can’t catch my breath.

My eyes swing up to Zarev. I want to know what he sees in the clearing, and what the strange light is pulsing in the dark. It’s brighter out here than the castle and the strange pressure in the air makes me want to turn away as much as it pulls me in.

Zarev’s hand is a vise on my arm, and I almost think I can pick out some of the words of whoever is muttering when he grabs my face, turning my attention to him so I can read his lips.

Mad Queen.

28 Rapunzel

If Zarev is telling me the Mad Queen is in the clearing ahead, I want to see for myself. It would explain the terrifying pressure in the air, the feel of evil incarnate like a bad taste on my tongue, But his grip is unrelenting and I glare at him as I try to catch the words of the speaker in the clearing. They’ve gotten quieter again, and I seriously doubt someone with the title Mad in their name tends to get quiet when ranting.

After the tale he told me about becoming a Reaper, I can understand his hesitation to continue forward, but I need to know what’s happening and if someone usurped my right to kill the King. I’m certain that if the Mad Queen was here, she wouldn’t leave my father alive.

Staring through the trees an overwhelming sense of dread settles in but the feeling doesn’t belong to me. I press a hand to my chest as I stare out at the scene in front of us like it’s being forced upon me. Maybe it’s magic, or maybe it's just the terror in the air.

I want to be clever about this, I need to use my head and not my rage. Dorah’s death was a bloodbath, and her spirit was almost as unhelpful in death as she was in life. I get the feeling if I push Midas too hard and too quickly, he’ll shut down forever. Midas has to die. There’s no way to right so many wrongs without his end. But the Mad Queen arriving in Tressa? That’s a completely different problem. If I let my emotions get in the way, it will cloud my judgment for what must be done. I don’t need some lunatic queen here to complicate matters.

I shove away from Zarev, managing to remain in the shadow’s comforting embrace, and push forward to the trees. I don’t step into the clearing, well aware that I need to not be rash; I want to see what’s happening before jumping into the fray.

The voices are still quiet, and I realize that Midas, Theo, and Cyrus all stand, their gazes fixed on a large, ornate fountain. Even through the trees I can tell it’s massive, the sides all disappearing into the trees and I can’t make out the back.

The thing is huge. Beautiful even, with a reflective surface that’s spiraling in the middle. How have I missed this until now?

I realize suddenly that there’s no one else here. No Mad Queen like I was expecting. Zarev is tense beside me as I watch the swirling water turn dark as night, the foreboding sense turns to utter terror. Once again, I’m feeling someone else’s emotion like I’m a vessel and their fear is being poured into me. It makes me want to turn and run, leave this place and these feelings far behind. Zarev’s hand tightens on my arm and I believe he feels it, too.

From the water, a figure takes form. The water lifts, turning black and red as it does, and my mouth falls open as a woman slowly appears.

The Mad Queen. It must be. That all consuming feeling, the voices that whispered her name, all of it took place as she was arriving. And now that she’s here, I can’t tear my gaze away.

She’s manic looking, but somehow still beautiful. This woman is different from the one I remember from years past, but when she flashes a vicious smile, I recognize the jeweled red hearts embellished on her teeth. Her skin seems to be pale but her lips are painted black. As she steps down from the water I see she’s wearing a long coat that cascades down her back and is lined with what appears to be fur. Tight trousers cling to strong legs and even her shoes exude power, tall heels that seem to be balanced on carved hearts.

But it’s her hair that’s the strangest. Deep and dark, the color of ink, it’s pulled into an intricate updo, around a crown that appears to be made of a mixture of flower stems and small bones, woven together into a headpiece like none I’ve ever seen. At the center is a blood red heart that I swear pulses and moves. When she offers a smile that shows off her perfectly white teeth, I imagine there’s madness in her eyes.

I fidget, fighting the urge to force myself closer. I’m both terrified and curious about this woman, and I kind of want to see her manic attitude for myself.

She seems to take a deep breath, and from the spiraling water behind her, four men emerge. They are all tall wearing dark red cloaks, twin swords crossing their backs, and carvings on their foreheads.

I look again at Zarev, who frowns. They have playing card insignias on their foreheads, carved deep into their skin: diamonds, spades, clovers and hearts.

Just like the Reapers.

Throwing her head back she cackles in obvious glee, her mad laughter echoing through the clearing. Her spine keeps bending, bending, bending, until her head is down past her waist, her eyes seeming to dart all over the place as she holds her position, hands held wide as a sinister smile spreads across her lips.

“Ah,” the Queen breathes, looking around the gathering. She takes a breath in that impossible bend, leaning her neck back so I can imagine her hair brushing her butt unnaturally. Then she throws herself into motion, rocking back upright as though she didn’t nearly snap her spine so she could laugh at everyone maniacally.

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