Page 26 of Heartless Prince

“Now we wait for the rebirth of our brothers,” Tobias called out in a booming voice. He walked off the stage, and some sort of play starring the Grim Reaper began a few minutes later. Parts of it seemed Shakespearean, but I didn’t recognize it overall.

The white-gowned girls and I were all still standing at the very back of the stage, holding the goblets as the play went on before us. My arm felt like it was about to fall off, but I gritted my teeth and held steady.

My eyes kept wandering to the right as I waited for the play to finish, over to the bull statue and the buried men. The show had been going on for half an hour now. How long until they ran out of air down in those coffins?

The men in the audience seemed to be getting progressively drunker and louder, and when the play ended, they all cheered and bellowed as if it were Hamilton rather than the weird, convoluted show it was.

I cast my eyes to the right again, and I was surprised to see nine shadowy figures heading toward the theatre. It seemed the men had escaped the coffins and climbed out of the pits. I guess that was another test for them.

When every last one of them had reached the stone steps around the outer rim of the theatre, several of the red-robed members in the crowd rushed over to them and greeted them with firm handshakes and cheers. They were given their own red robes to wear, and then they were led into the center of the auditorium.

A bevy of women marched out to meet them, and each man knelt and held out his left wrist. Over the next half hour—the longest, most boring half hour of my life—the women tattooed something on the men’s wrists, presumably some sort of Crown and Dagger symbol.

Finally, they were done, and Tobias stepped out onto the stage. “Welcome to the second level, brothers! And now for everyone’s favorite portion of the evening—virgo sacrificium.”

My blood ran cold. I knew what that meant. Virgin sacrifice.

A young woman in a white dress not too dissimilar to mine was quickly dragged out to the stone slab in the middle of the auditorium. She was kicking and screaming, begging to be freed. Mascara had run down her face in teary rivulets, staining her cheeks black.

“Please! Someone help me!” she cried as three burly men bound her wrists above her head and held her down on the altar.

My heart raced. She seemed genuinely terrified. What if this wasn’t just part of the show? What if they were really going to kill this crying girl?

My anxiety inched up further as Tobias stepped down from the stage and pulled an enormous dagger out of his black robes. It glinted in the orange glow of the fiery torches, and my nerves hummed with fear as he held it poised over the girl’s chest.

“No!” she screamed. “Please!”

A chant rose from the crowd, getting louder with each moment as Tobias slowly stepped around the slab, still holding the dagger right above the girl.

Then he plunged it down, right into her chest.

I almost screamed, but then I saw a grin spread across the young woman’s face, and she sat up on the altar and waved to the crowd. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It was a trick knife; she was fine. This was just part of the strange carnival of events.

The girl began to shimmy her hips and tease the men in the crowd by slowly taking off her dress, exposing her bare, heaving breasts below. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. No matter how rich or classy men pretended to be, they still went wild for strippers.

Naked servers with golden skin and trays of drinks streamed out from somewhere behind us, slinking into the theatre toward the crowds of robed men. They were swinging their hips seductively and smiling as the men’s greedy eyes lingered on their firm asses.

I nearly rolled my eyes again as I saw the brand-new second-level members being led away by yet more naked women. It looked like Willa and Mellie were both right. These events really were just a bunch of elitist guys getting wasted, doing silly old rituals for no reason and screwing high-class escorts. Just a glorified excuse to party.

Still, the strange, otherworldly goings-on would make an interesting topic for my paper.

A gong sounded about fifteen minutes later. Everyone went quiet and turned to face the stage, and the music and drum beats abruptly ceased as well. The sudden silence was eerie, and I swallowed hard. They all seemed to be looking at me.

The other Grecian-gowned actresses at the back of the stage with me slowly walked away from me, and I turned and watched them leave in confusion. “Wait, where are you going? Are we supposed to leave now?” I whispered urgently to the girl I’d arrived with as she stepped past me.

She kept walking, ignoring me.

I started walking too. Maybe I’d missed the instruction to leave, and I was supposed to follow them all. But as I walked, two red-robed men stepped in front of me, barring my way.

Shit. Someone must’ve figured out that I wasn’t really an actress; that I’d sneaked in here under false pretenses. “Wait,” I said frantically. “I can explain.”

The horn from earlier sounded again, and I heard a rising roar from my right. I turned to face the auditorium again, and my blood froze in my veins. Dozens of masked society members were charging toward the stage. Toward me.

I turned away from the two men barring my way and ran in the other direction, hoping I could get off the stage and escape the theatre on the other side. I had no idea how to get back through the forest, but I could figure it out later.

As I dashed down the stone steps leading off the stage, several of the men caught up, and I yelped as I felt an agonizing pinch in my neck, like I’d been stabbed with a red-hot knitting needle.

“Please, I….” I never got to finish the sentence. Whatever they’d just injected me with was already speeding through my veins and hitting me hard. My body felt boneless and my mind was spiraling into darkness, falling faster and faster with each second that passed.

I dropped like a stone, crumpling to the ground in a puddle of weak, whimpering terror.

The last thing I saw was a man in a sinister bronze mask looking down at me, and then the cold, calming darkness took over. I let it wash me away, far away, and then it finally pulled me under.

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