The Princess of Wrath

Chapter 4 - Part II: A Daughter's Hatred

Eventually, the elevator arrived at its destination and the trolls opened the gate to allow them to pass. There was no complication in the journey despite of the slight flooding caused by the Twin Rivers, and the procession arrived at the Keep.

As Asura stepped out of the carriage, an umbrella shielded her from the rain.

"My lady," One of the younger servants had positioned himself at a respectable distance from her, holding the umbrella and not caring at all about getting soaked.

"Thank you."

Followed by the servant and her two bodyguards, Asura walked towards the main entrance. Two spear women in heavy armor guarded the great archway. Among them a male Wraith loomed.

Unlike most of the Wraith's masks, his resembled a monstrous, inhuman skull with sharp teeth and had crimson glass in the eye sockets over the pitch blackness that was hiding his real eyes.

"Good night, Princess Asura. The Empress requires your presence in the Hall of the Throne," he humorlessly said to her with the eeriest voice she ever heard as soon as she put a step inside the archway, where only the drops of water carried by the wind reached. "I shall accompany you."

"Silas. Fuck... I really need to go to sleep," she thought, tired enough to be able to hide a gesture of annoyance towards that unnerving man that was the Master of the Wraiths and who used to be her principal source of nightmares when she was a little girl. She came to identify him with that name because of a horror story she read about a demon named Silas that tormented a dying woman. "I have two bodyguards already."

"The Empress asked for my specific service. Sir Royce is dismissed, while you, child, will wait here for instructions," Silas addressed his apprentice. Lucy nodded dryly in response. "Please, follow me, Princess."

"Alright... See you tomorrow, Royce, Lucy."

The two bodyguards respectfully lowered their heads before her and she left with the Master Wraith.

The gates beyond the archway were open wide and the stone corridor ended in the small Garden of Thorns; a dividing area of the Keep whose only representative feature was the great ancient tree, the third of its kind, whose bark and branches were covered by sharp thorns.

Beyond the garden was a simple but wide foyer that opened to the sides to the main hallways that led to the western and eastern areas of the Keep. At the opposite end was the white door previous to the Iron Graveyard, which opened as soon as the two guardians saw the Princess and her escort arriving.

"What does my mother want?" Asura asked as they walked through that atmosphere of rust and metal carried by the humid wind. "It's about the Nemasian Ambassador?"

"I do not know, Princess. But I can tell you that the foreigner is enjoying our hospitality in the dark," Silas informed her, chuckling so creepily that made Asura's blood froze inside her veins.

"So... No clue at all?"

"Unfortunately no, my lady."

Too much secrecy, at that time of that stormy night... She did not like the way the events were unfolding. Elfriede was too unpredictable, even for someone that had known her since the very first breathe after making her way out of her womb.

Silas opened the black gates of the Hall, moved aside to let her in and closed the door behind her.

Asura flinched when the sound of the pouring rain went extinct and looked around, feeling a growing distress. Penumbra had swallowed the hall, and sobs and cries of pain coming from within the shadows were creeping in her soul. Only the weak, remaining light of some of the torches allowed the Princess to see the sources of such haunting sounds: there were a man and a woman immobilized with chains in two respective iron crosses, naked and with large portions of skin from the arms and legs removed.