The Black Death (A Medieval Action/Romance)

Chapter 17

Too hungry to care about what people thought of her she ripped the meat from the bone and swallowed before chewing it completely.

The maid looked frightened and disgusted at the same time but yet she was still staring.

“Stop that,” Izzie snapped over her shoulder.

Marianne opened her mouth to protest that she was doing nothing.

“Stop staring at me before I gauge your eyes out,” Izzie clarified for her before she turned and leant back against the table, “Now, tell me, clearly,” she emphasised, “What you meant when you said that I was she?”

“The woman from the prophecy,” Marianne smiled as a glimmer of hope sparkled in her blue eyes.

Izzie groaned with annoyance and tiresome; how many more prophecies were going to be conjured up to save the hope of humanity?

“Oh really?” Izzie sighed, “And what did this prophecy say?” She tilted her head and took another bite of her chicken.

“That a warrior woman with a dark past would come to our kingdom and save us from the throne,”

Izzie stopped chewing for a second, “The king?” she assumed from the word ‘throne’, “Not the betrayer?” she was thinking of Colt.

But why would there be a prophecy for someone to save people from a king? She knew he had been killing his own people but prophecies were created years in the making.

They could not see this coming, surely?

“This is a trick,” Izzie stood straight and rested her hand on her sword, “You’re tricking me to get the kingdom back from Colt,”

“No!” Marianne protested too loud as she looked over her shoulder, worrying someone had heard her, “We need you! The King he- he isn’t in his right mind,”

“You can say that again,” Izzie scoffed.

“No- you don’t understand, he- he keeps his only living heir locked up in the dungeons. He sacrifices peasants to the Devil and there are stories that he can-” Marianne took a breath as her lips started to turn blue, “That he can do magic,”

“A sorcerer?” Izzie raised an eyebrow in mockery, “You’ll have to do better than that, girl, if you wish to bait me, now . . . would you mind telling me exactly where we are in the castle?”

“We’re not in the castle,” The maid frowned, shaking her head.

“Well, where are we then?” Izzie sighed in exasperation. She was quickly starting to lose her temper.

“We’re in the dungeons. This feast is for the Prince himself,”

Izzie looked back at the banquet before looking around the walls and saw that there were no windows.

“Why would there be a secret tunnel to the dungeons from the throne room?” Izzie snapped, it didn’t make sense.

“The King didn’t imprison his son for nothing,” the maid told her, “In fact it wasn’t the King’s idea at all . . . it was his son’s!”

“The prince had himself locked up?” Izzie frowned, her gaze flickering around the room as she gripped her sword tighter, “But why would he-? Oh,” Izzie smiled, tilting her head back as she knew why, “That’s very clever.”

Izzie admired him for his skill at the very least.

“I’m glad you think so,” A dark sound taunted her from behind. It sounded like ten thousand dark voices speaking the same words at once directly into her ears.

But when she turned there was nothing there but a brick wall.

But Izzie had come to suspect brick walls after discovering the secret tunnel. How many more were there in the castle?

“What was that?” she asked over her shoulder to Marianne, keeping her eyes peeled to the wall.

“That was the prince,” Marianne replied, her voice no longer so scared or shaky.

“You said he could use magic, what if he-?” Izzie turned back to Marianne to see her stood directly in front of her, her eyes completely opaque with no white bits, as she smiled darkly up at her.

Izzie’s own eyes widened as a six-inch dagger, swirled in darkness, appeared in the girl’s hand before she slipped it under Izzie’s ribs and into her lung.

Izzie raised her sword to strike her down when the high shrill of laughter shattered her ear drums and the girl vanished from view only for her to reappear across the room and with the flick of her hand, Isadora’s sword went flying across the room and imbedded itself in the stone wall.

“Now,” Marianne stepped forward as Izzie pressed her hand against her bleeding wound; her blood seeping out between her fingers.

Marianne’s image shimmered and grew into another image as she took more steps forward.

Izzie was struggling for breath as she stammered backwards, unable to control the fear that Was gripping her heart.

“Tell me again how clever you think I am,” the laughter grew dark and heavy as she looked up at the image of a young man.

“You’re the-,” Izzie’s eyes struggled to stay open as lost more blood, “You’re the-”

“-The prince,” He finished for her, still smiling.

And it was that smile and that laugh which haunted her dreams as she lost her first battle.