“The attack on the New Jade City Library and the tragic death of Viscount Reynard Woodard has left the borough of White Raven reeling and in deep mourning. The event’s attendees were taken hostage by dozens of masked men described as ‘not being from this city or even world’, all of whom were led by an enigmatic leader. ‘He wasn’t a man. He was death himself!’ exclaimed Lady Worthington when I visited her at her manor the morning after the attack. ‘He wore this ghastly reptile skull under his hood, and I’m not sure what happened, but he did something terrible to the Viscount. I saw his veins turn green and his eyes bulge from his face. I did not expect to leave the library alive.’ This hooded and masked man that some of the more sensationalising and less graceful heralds have dubbed ‘The Velociraptor’ is suspected to also have been behind the murders of Duke Hugo and Duchess Ada Barlet. He is also a suspect in the poisoning of Anastasia Aubrey, the city’s Arch-Alchemist, who died last week. This masked villain was not the only strange figure to be sighted within the library during that frightful night. Lord Byron, another surviving hostage, reported being rescued by a hooded archer in blue with ghastly black scratch marks on her face. This is not the first recently reported case of re-surging vigilantes operating in New Jade City as another masked assailant in a ‘black and sapphire helm’ was reported to have intervened and protected Duke Hugo Barlet from an assassination attempt in his manor. There have also been dozens of sightings of this supposed ‘Ninja’ at night in the Shards, Drakelyn, and Dorfchester boroughs. And what of the City Watch? What has become of them and why did they allow so many of New Jade’s brightest Royalists to die so horribly?”
Jacklyn Jacobs. The Jade Herold. 1311.
“I want the palace on lockdown,” her kingly father demanded furiously. “I want Elizabeth returned! I want Julian brought back here! By nightfall and not a moment later. Am I understood?”
The Palace Guards in jade green armour nodded sullenly, along with half a dozen city watchmen and watchwomen in their dark chainmail and kettle hats. Sheriff Redtower bowed grimly. His still galea was freshly polished into a silver sheen, and his stony exterior was impossible to read. “I have already sent an escort to retrieve them both the moment I caught word on the library’s attack,” the Sheriff assured.
“I hardly find comfort in that.” Her kingly father was not her father at this point. He was a ruthless ruler and his fury frightened Rosamund. “Your City Watch has made a pox of everything ever since the Duke was attacked.” King Sigismund was hunched over the throne room’s oaken council table. His nails were digging into the thick, dark wood, leaving deep scratch marks. “How can your escorts, nay, the entire force of the watch, be outwitted by one small group of people!” He stood and threw one of the chairs over.
Rosamund watched her father rage on from her smaller throne. She covered her pained ears to subside his piercing yells. Sir Dorian appeared beside her throne like a silent guardian angel and patted her reassuringly on her shoulder. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and felt her lip quivering uncontrollably.
“And where is your bloody deputy?” King Sigismund raged on. “A third Royalist has been murdered, yet she is nowhere to be seen!” He threw a gilded goblet at the Sheriff.
The goblet ricocheted off Redtower’s steel breastplate. His stone face did not move or flinch. “She was and still is out of town when the attack on the library took place. She informed me that she was chasing a lead out in the nearby village of Credence.”
King Sigismund raised his arms in the air. “Oh, by all means, that must take priority,” he said in a more upbeat tone. She thought her father had finally cooled his fury until he started yelling again. “My family is dying left and right, but surely Athena’s chase of a petty criminal is more important. She should travel to Crimsonaria’s Red Gardens afterwards. She deserves a break.”
Under his steel galea, Rosamund could see Sheriff Redtower gritting his teeth. She could not say for certain how truly angry the Sheriff might have been. “With due respect, Your Highness,” he said with iron courtesy, “she said that the lead had the potential to uncover the identity of the attackers. If we can find out who this ‘Velociraptor’ really is-”
“No,” King Sigismund cut him off with a sharp, dismissive hand gesture. “Do not call that madman by that name. The papers crudely coined that appellation. It only gives him more power over us.”
“Regardless, if we can find out who he is-”
The Sheriff’s retort was interrupted as Countess Elizabeth Woodard was ushered into the throne room by half a dozen city watchmen. She appeared chagrined. One watchman lightly pressed her shoulder to escort her closer to the council table, and she whacked it away with her jade-ringed hand. “Do not lay a finger on me, you filthy pig!”
The Countess lifted her scarlet dress as she strutted towards the King. She had a ruby necklace draped around her slender and pale neck and a crimson ribbon wrapped around her coifed snow-white hair. The dark freckles around her cheeks narrowed as she frowned. “What has become of you, Uncle?” she asked indignantly. “All the nobles that I was dining with thought I was being arrested.”
“I assured the Countess and everyone she was breaking fast with that it was not the case,” a watchman with a thick black moustache said. He was the same one that attempted to foolishly lay a hand on Elizabeth Woodard’s shoulder. “I told her that she had been urgently summoned by the King-”
“-and that I had no choice but to go with the watchmen like a common criminal,” the Countess furiously finished for him. “That sounds like the pure definition of an arrest.”
King Sigismund sighed and looked at the moustached watchman. “Malborne, where is Lord Julian?”
The Watchman simply shrugged his shoulders. “We couldn’t find him. He wasn’t at the Velvet Willow nor at his manor in Drakelyn.”
The Countess scoffed. “My brother perhaps knew you were coming to arrest all of us and had the good sense to flee the city.”
King Sigismund approached the Countess and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Elizabeth,” he addressed her softly. It was the most softly he had spoken all morning. “Reynard is dead.”
Rosamund didn’t believe that Elizabeth Woodard’s face could turn paler than it already was. The Countess’ lip quivered. Her eyes flickered wildly in disbelief. “Father?” she questioned with a tremble.
“It was a foolish mistake for me to grant you both freedoms,” King Sigismund said sorrowfully as he held the Countess tight. “Elizabeth, for the sake of your brother, tell me where you think Julian could be.”
The Countess’ sobs and wails echoed across the throne room. Elizabeth sounded like a wounded animal, alone in the forest. She howled in agony into the King’s breast. The watchmen, the palace guards, the Sheriff; all they did was stand to attention in silence as the weeps persisted. Rosamund found it all too overwhelming to watch. She grabbed Dorian’s gloved hand. “I want to return to my chambers,” she whispered.
The Knight obliged and escorted her away from the throne room and through the Jade Palace’s winding maze-like corridors. Even the hallways had a tense atmosphere about them. Palace guards were rushing across different directions, barking orders at one another.
There were watchmen, far more than usual, looming around corridors, patrolling sullenly. Every chambermaid they passed kept their head down low as if they were moments away from an angered beating from any disappointed superior. “What’s going to happen to Julian?” she asked the Knight.
“We’ll find him,” Sir Dorian said confidently.
“You said we were safe,” Rosamund blurted out. Her legs felt wobbly, and she thought she might faint. “You said everyone would be protected, but so many are dead.”
Dorian stopped her frantic pacing and knelt to her eye-level. “Reynard was foolish enough to leave the Palace,” he said resolutely. “You won’t be, nor your father.”
She hugged Dorian and didn’t let go. She hated him for lying to her and hated the feeling of her cotton sleeve grinding against the steel collar of his jade armour, yet she would be adrift without him. “The outer world is closing in on me,” she whispered with a tremble.
Dorian smiled gracefully and arose. “These walls were built to withstand an army of crimsonarions. I think they can handle a small group of ninja assassins. The palace is impenetrable.” He ruffled Rosamund’s hair playfully. She hated it when he did that, but had not the heart to ever tell him.
Rosamund remained within the safe embrace of her bedchamber until the moonlight blared through the window and across the forest-green carpet. She still could not sleep. For the first time in her life, she felt the walls begin to close in around her. To her dismay, she almost felt relief when she heard a banging at her door. When she opened it, she was greeted by a small man in resplendent finery of jade, black, and bronze. He had a finely cut moustache and a plumed beret. Sir Dorian was standing beside him, his gloved hand resting comfortably at the hilt of his sheathed sword. The elegantly dressed man bowed at her with great enthusiasm. “Your Jade Majesty, the illustrious Countess Elizabeth Mary Woodard, invites you to her fantastical banquet.”
Rosamund was often confused by people, but this was particularly puzzling. “We’re not to leave the palace,” she told the well-meaning envoy.
“The party is downstairs,” Dorian said with a reluctant countenance. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Is this a wake for her father?” she asked, still not quite understanding the situation.
“No,” the Knight answered. “The Viscount’s body hasn’t even been delivered to us yet. I don’t understand it either Rosamund, but if it eases the Countess’ grief, then we best oblige.”
Rosamund wanted to escape her room. She felt suffocated there, yet she hardly wanted to venture into the crowds and rabble downstairs. “Maybe I could show her my sympathies after?”
“The Countess would strongly appreciate your presence,” the Envoy said grandiosely. “She asked for you by name! A high honour.”
“But I’m the Princess?”
“Rosamund,” Dorian cut in softly. “I think we’d better go. I’ll be right there with you.”
The Princess hung her head low and solemnly sighed. When she agreed, the Envoy’s bright hazel eyes beamed. “Magnificent! I will inform her of this joyous news!” He bowed like his life depended on it, swiped his cloak behind his back, and strutted down the hallway with determination.
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Before she had a chance to descend the stairs to the great dining hall, half a dozen chambermaids pounced on her. They sat her down in her bedchamber, vigorously brushed her hair and powdered her face. She hated the feeling of her golden tangles being ripped and parted; her scalp being scratched. The feeling of different fabrics scraping against her skin made her teeth grind as they dressed her in a white dress with embroidered emeralds patterned down the sleeves and across the waist. They wrapped a golden necklace with ruby amulets around her neck. The necklace felt cold and the links of the chain pinched at her skin. On her sleeves, the feeling of cotton and silk scratching against each other induced a long and unpleasant wince every time her arms moved. She tried swiping Woodard’s servants away and resisting, but it was no use. “The Countess requested this herself,” one of them said stressfully. Rosamund noticed the purple around the chambermaid’s eye and with a sudden cut of guilt she allowed herself to be dressed and pampered into something she wasn’t.
Rosamund felt like a prized horse being displayed for everyone’s amusement as she was ushered across the Jade Palace’s many corridors and down the marble stairs. When the two gilded doors opened into the dining hall, a hundred eyes fell on her. She hated the attention, the judgement. She saw two noblewomen by a nearby table goggling at her and whispering to one another. They broke out laughing, not taking their sight off the Princess. Instead of one giant feasting table, there were dozens of small round ones that noble lords and ladies were all occupied. The dining hall felt more akin to an extravagant tavern, with servers frantically buzzing around with bottles of wine and elegant dishes. Rosamund scratched her arm and looked to the floor as if that would hide herself from the sea of scrutiny. She wanted to turn and flee. It would be fruitless. She thought it likely that the Countess would have her physically forced to attend if she had to. Even Dorian appeared helpless to rescue her out of this one.
The chambermaids ushered her to the Countess’ table. Elizabeth Woodard was regally dressed, in a dark green dress and adorning a jade amulet that was wrapped around her slender neck. Her snowy hair was half-braided into a ponytail with a flower crown placed above. She looked angelic and somehow, despite everything, happy? She gleamed as she saw the Princess approach her. “Rosamund, darling!” she called as if she had not seen the Princess in years "Sit, sit.”
Her tone was polite, but Rosamund felt as though she had no choice.
The chambermaids swarmed around her as they pulled a chair back and delicately placed her there as if she were a fragile vase. The Countess shooed them away with a hand wave as she took a deep gulp from her goblet. She swallowed loudly and chuckled to herself. “This could be poisoned for all I know.” She took another gulp from it.
Rosamund watched her in confusion.
“Not that I give a shit.” Countess Woodard whistled. A server appeared from the crowd and topped up her drink without saying a word. The wine was a dark purple. A rare vintage.
“Where did all these people come from?” Rosamund asked.
“I invited them,” the Countess said chipperly. “Your father and that idiot Redtower didn’t say anything about throwing a party inside the palace now, did they?”
Something about the way the Countess spoke made Rosamund feel uncomfortable. She turned her head back to see Dorian resting against a nearby wall. The Countess noticed and clicked her fingers at her.
“When you become Queen,” the Countess said sharply, “you’re going to need a better attention span than that.”
Rosamund scratched her arm and averted her gaze towards the chandeliers that hung above the many tables of the dining hall. “I don’t want to be queen,” she murmured. Rosamund could feel her heart race as she said the words. She could not bring herself to meet the Countess’ gaze.
Elizabeth Woodard snorted and laughed. “I didn’t want to be a Countess,” she said, swaying her goblet about, purple drips flickering from the sides and splashing against the draped table. “My father forced me into it. Now I’m burdened with land and titles that require far too much responsibility and those who have not earned the riches themselves demand I give them a slice of my pie.”
She took another gulp. “They call me a villain in the papers,” she said bitterly. “The common folk say I’m part of the reason why so many people are dying in the Shards. What am I to do? We were working on a cure before our Arch-Alchemist was slain. The other one is nowhere to be found.” Her head popped upwards and scanned around the hall as if she were in search of something. “Hideo didn’t even accept my invite.”
Elizabeth slumped back into her chair and took a long gulp from her goblet. “Now we have to start the damn process all over again and yet I am the one being blamed!” She slammed her goblet down and took Rosamund’s hands. “Look at me, Rosamund. It is uncouth to avoid eye contact.” The Princess begrudgingly obliged. Elizabeth Woodard’s eyes were emerald and fiery. “When you become Queen, eventually they’ll hate you. No matter what choices you make, one half may love you, but the other will always detest you. You will never not be detested.” Rosamund could smell the warm alcohol on her breath and the fumes made her eyes water. She glanced at Dorian with desperate eyes. “I see that you want that backstabber’s company. Sorry- I meant knight.” The Countess waved at Dorian, summoning him with her ringed fingers. The Knight approached the table silently. “Sit, sit,” she said, giving out the exact same order in the exact same tone she gave the Princess.
Dorian pulled out a chair and relaxed into it. Without beckoning or request, a server appeared from nowhere and placed a wine goblet with ruby encrusted gems on the table. Dorian nodded approvingly and gave the Countess a reproachful look as he supped. “Perhaps you should drink some water instead, My Lady? You’re making Rosamund uncomfortable.”
The Countess’ emerald eyes narrowed on her new dinner guest. “Don’t play the whole chivalrous knight act with me, Dorian. I see through your pathetic facade.”
“Elizabeth,” Dorian said softly, leaning forward in his chair. “I know that things are scary right now and I am truly sorry about Reynard-”
“Don’t address me that way,” she hissed. “Do not bring up my father. This is meant to be a happy occasion.” She leaned back in her chair and swirled the thick purple pools within her goblet. The Countess started chuckling to herself. She broke out a smile in the Knight’s direction. Rosamund was utterly confused.
“We used to be happy,” the Countess said. “Then you grew cold and distant.”
Dorian frowned. “We don’t need to talk of this in front of the Princ-”
“Then it all became clear when I found you humping some redhead harlot in your pavilion.” An emerald eye turned away from the goblet’s purple waters and beamed at the Knight.
Dorian sighed. “Nothing happened, you misconstrued events. We were clothed, Elizabeth.” He gesticulated around the dining hall and the dozens of attendees staggering around and drunkenly yelling. “It’s these kinds of delusions you have that caused the rift in the first place. This is not the time for merriment. You need to grieve.”
A watchman emerged from the rabble, lightly pushing himself past a group of rowdy noblewomen. It was the moustached one from earlier. Malborne was what her kingly father called him. He knelt beside the Countess and spoke gently in her ear. “We have the carriage ready and the venue is being prepared as we speak.”
Elizabeth Woodard’s freckled face morphed into a delighted smile. “Excellent, I’ll be there shortly.” She waved her hand at the watchman. “Now shoo. You’re making my guests uncomfortable.”
As the moustached watchman took his leave, the Countess took another victorious sip from her goblet. Dorian watched her with reproach. “Carriage?” he questioned the word.
“I’ve been preparing this masquerade ball for most of the year and I’ll be damned if I let Sigismund or some assassins ruin it for me.”
“You will be bloody-well damned,” Dorian protested in a furtive, harsh whisper. “Your father thought he would be safe at the library and look what happened.”
“I’ll have undercover watchmen keeping an eye on things inside. Malborne will be overseeing it.” She leaned forward, twirling her goblet, and gave the Knight a playful grin. “Perhaps I’ll knight him after. He’s obedient, trustful, and doesn’t question everything that I do. Wouldn’t it just be exquisite seeing him standing amongst the Royalists in your stead?”
“You can’t leave the Palace, Elizabeth,” Dorian said sternly, ignoring the blatant threat.
“Oh?” she questioned haughtily. “What are you going to do? Strike me down with your sword? Tattle on me to the King like a child?”
“If you leave the Jade Palace,” the Knight cautioned, “you won’t be coming back.”
“I have watchmen stationed around here, under my payroll. If you intervene with me leaving, I’ll have you thrown into the dungeons.” The Countess stood and took one last, lingering gulp from her goblet.
Rosamund felt tears welling up in her eyes. Elizabeth was mean sometimes. Ana was mean sometimes, but she didn’t deserve to die and neither did the Countess. “Elizabeth, please,” she pleaded with a tremble. “Stay...”
The Countess looked down at the Princess and tilted her head. She knelt down and took her hands again. Rosamund hated how cold her rings felt. “Your mother treated me well as a child,” Elizabeth said kindly. “I will return the favour. I will teach you, just like Ana did. A daughter needs a mother.” The Countess kissed her on the forehead.
Rosamund felt profoundly forlorn watching the Countess slip away into the crowds. Dorian slammed his goblet down on the table in frustration, purple water splattering across the white cloth. “Fool of a woman,” he said.
“Stop her!” the Princess implored.
“You heard her. She outpowers me. I’ll be the one getting punished if I intervene.” The Knight sat back in his chair, his gloved fingers pattering against the stained tablecloth. He looked at Rosamund and pointed at her. “At least you won’t be foolish enough to leave the Palace, where you’re safe.”
Rosamund nodded. “Can I leave this party now?”
The Knight relented a chuckle. He stood from the ruined table and offered his hand to escort her up.
When she returned to her bedchamber, the walls were no longer closing in. She felt safe there again and the cool chill welcomed her. Maybe the Countess was right. Perhaps no harm will come to her under her escort’s watchful gaze. When she would be next permitted to speak with her kingly father, she would warn him of Elizabeth’s plans. He will bring her home safe. Everything would be ok. It had to be.
*
She awoke in the dark to a frantic banging on her bedroom door. Rosamund lifted her head up from the pillow. The night was at its zenith. It was too dark to see anything. “Dorian?” she asked shrilly as she woke.
The door opened, and the Knight walked in holding a candle, the orange hue illuminating a troubled look. He closed the door behind him and walked up to her bed. “Rosamund, we need to leave.”
The Princess rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Dorian appeared so blurry. Everything did “Leave where?” she asked as she sat up, dazed and struggling to process what was happening.
“The Palace,” he said dreadfully. “It’s been compromised. We have an intruder. It must have happened when Woodard was throwing that damn party-” As Dorian spoke, Rosamund saw something crawling across the grey wall behind him. Black mould started to seep through rapidly, the dark blotches beginning to take the shape into something. Rosamund opened her mouth to speak… but no words came out. She felt her jaw become stiff. She tried moving her arms. All they did was nudge agonisingly slowly, as if she were underwater. The black mould continued to crawl and expand across her bedroom wall. It dripped and seeped as it morphed into the form of a slender, faceless shadow. Rosamund’s eyes watered as she struggled to release her voice. She felt her throat burn, and her chest tightened. She wanted to scream. That was the worst part. Do not even be able to yell or cry out.
The Knight was oblivious. Dorian was moving his lips, desperately explaining something to her. His voice was muffled in her ears. All she could hear was a screeching white noise, which began to ring louder and louder. White blotches seeped around the shadow’s inky face. Two black dripping eyes curled into form, a scattered mouth of black and white teeth aligned. Dorian was taking notice of her frozen state. She could read his mouth, calling out her name in bewilderment. He grabbed her arms to try to move her, but she could not feel it.
She tried to move her legs, but all they did was twitch. Her arms were paralysed, and her jaw was locked. A shadowed hand pried itself away from the grey wall followed by a leg of blackened mould. Then the head detached itself. The face was white and milky, with long and stringy black hair. One dark blotch of an eye was throbbing larger than the other. An inky trail was left behind with every contorted step the Shadow took towards the Knight. Inside, Rosamund was crying out and pleading. Her eyes wept and the cold tears down her cheeks were the only thing she felt. Her body was unresponsive. She was a statue, and all she could do was watch.
The shadow creature wrapped a moulded arm around Dorian’s neck, and the Knight began to struggle. He gripped the thick and inky limb, unsuccessfully prying it away, drops of darkness scattering into his auburn hair and across his fine jacket. The Knight’s eyes bulged and flickered around the room in desperation. He was screaming and shouting, but Rosamund could not hear his words, the cries. They were drowned out by the ringing white noise.
With the other moulded arm, the white-faced shadow lifted a curly and drooping finger up to her sharp teeth and raised it around her inky lips. “Shshsh.” The hush sounded frantic and incomprehensible. The moulded arm around Dorian’s neck jerked and there was a snapping sound. There was no light in the Knight’s eyes. His head hung loosely as the shadow dragged his body towards the wall like a rag doll.
She could not scream. She could not cry. She could not move. She helplessly watched as the blackened wall consumed the shadow along with the Knight that promised to protect her. The mould dissipated across the wall, evaporating into nothingness, leaving a clean grey surface as if nothing were ever there. Rosamund could still not move. The Palace is safe; she heard Dorian’s words repeated in her mind as her caged body remained fixed towards the wall, waiting for something to emerge from it again. It has always been safe…