The Crown cannot Help You

Chapter 2: The Assassin

Audelia's breaths came out in short pants, and her eyes were half-closed as she shoved the man, who was formerly on top of her, onto the floor.

His body rolled over with a thud, and Audelia's eyes immediately started to well with tears of terror and exhaustion.

They were all dead. Audelia had won.

She didn't know how long it had taken, only that she had slain three people and their faces were yet to leave her thoughts.

But as Audelia took a few more calming breaths, the wave of emotions that had been drowning her was now gone, leaving her numb and empty.

She started a sluggish crawl towards her bedroom door, and upon reaching the closed door, she carefully climbed to her feet.

She whispered several encouragements to herself as she stared at the door ahead of her. Her entire body ached with refusal to look at the bodies behind her.

Once she found the will, she opened the door slightly and slipped through the small gap.

Audelia promptly closed the door behind her as though she feared someone would see into her room and see what she did. She didn't wish for people to think of her as the type of monster she feared the most.

Then, with her room securely sealed behind her, she opted to stand still for a moment, peeling her hair away from her face. This wasn't a task worth taking the time to do, but the strands had found themselves stuck to her cheek with what she could only infer to be blood, and wanting to forget what had just happened, she quickly threw her tarnished white locks behind her.

Audelia started to wander down the hallway yet found her walk had become more of an exhausted hobble but, because she had perfected the art of pretending everything was fine, she was able to ignore it. Even with her dress being entirely shredded, her head crown-less and her feet without shoes.

The one thing she still did have, however, was her dagger. Her hand was so tightly wrapped around its handle that she couldn't help but think it was now a permanent addition to her body.

She kept walking down the maze-like hallways of the palace, knowing she was heading towards the ballroom. The only thing that was keeping her going, was the belief that her mum was in the same danger that she had just been in.

Her pace gradually got faster as any pain she had been in, was slowly becoming more of a thought than a feeling. And finally, she found herself outside the ballroom doors.

She tried to catch her breath for a moment and ended up listening to the light flow of music that was mixed with the mindless chatter of an undisturbed crowd.

She acknowledged how old the calm nature of the room was but pushed the thought to the back of her mind anyway. She believed there wasn't time for questioning.

Eventually, she gathered enough strength to place her hands against the broad wooden doors and found that she now barely flinched at the sight of blood splattered across her knuckles.

The doors squealed as she shoved against them before they dramatically swung open to reveal the ballroom filled with people.

"Mother!" Audelia cried out as she scrambled into the room. She caught the eye of every person inside, and she couldn't help but admit how their horrified faces made her feel better.

She pushed further into the room and realised it was becoming harder to move her legs. As the ripped pieces of fabric from her dress were no longer flowing freely around her legs, but instead were now fixed against her skin. It wasn't hard to figure out it was blood that was sticking the dress down, only she couldn't work out whether the blood was hers.