She raised her gaze again to Dante but his attention was already taken by something else. He was looking through a door crack as the voices of servants were fading, echoing from the walls downthe stairs. Taking a step, he carefully squeezed through the door as if he was scared to interrupt something. Or someone.
Two voices, one soft and gentle, and the other – deep and much sharper, slipped through the doorway. Violette followed Dante to the room and unlike her curiosity, his face was drawn with surprise, however he'd tried his best to not show much emotion.
“I don't like it,” the man in the chair said. His short brown beard was already streaked with silver strands and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes suggesting he was old enough to live half of a human lifetime. His appearance, his clothes, his voice, everything about him was regal and quite majestic. The same goes with a woman whose beautiful deep brown hair to the waist cascaded down her back. Her sumptuous long cobalt dress embroidered with a gold tracery over the trim and sleeves, mirroring the tracery on the man's coat, swept behind her as she crossed the room.
“Quite the opposite,” her hand approached the man's shoulder, “it's a perfect time to show everyone that our family is doing alright. People are lost, we have to show them that we are still there for the kingdom and not afraid of new…issues.”
“Throwing a ball while there's a monster outside killing innocent people is madness!” He stayed unbreakable.
“People already have questions, Ornard.” The woman's tone turned sharper. “They want to see their King and Queen and to see the prince. He is anheir to the throne, we have to show whatever happens – he will take care of the kingdom.”
The man wearily drew a sigh, leaning deeper in the chair. “It's a terrible idea and you know it.”
“Everything will be alright. I will take care of it. We have to bring hope to people and this ball is a nice opportunity for it. Please, stop overthinking it. We must pretend we have everything under control.”
“But we don't!” he seethed from the chair. “Everything is falling apart, Orienela, our family already did.” His shoulders slumped, brows wrinkled above his eyes, tired and hopeless.
“But they don't need to know that. That's it, I have to prepare things for the ball. Please, try to look at it as I see it.”
He shook his head in despair and closed his eyes, lost deep in his mind.
Violette's gaze, meanwhile, followed the woman leaving the room.
She jolted her head to Dante.
“Are you going?” she asked, raising a brow.
Dante stiffened on the same spot, eyeing the old man. His gaze was disturbing, she wished she could read his mind but there was no time to ask unnecessary questions.
“I'll catch up with you in a minute,” he said thoughtfully.
Pursing her lips, she rushed to the door. Since others cannot see her, she could assume that she could pass through the walls.
A moment later, without even feeling anything, Violette again found herself at the entryway. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the cobalt dress eloping above and she hurried in that direction, hoping to not lose the witch. Or rather to say…the Queen? It hit her just now that the woman they saw wasn't just a witch but a queen, the same one on the portrait with a beautiful graceful crown, the same portrait she'd seen in the crypt.
It was always right under her nose but she'd never really thought about it. It gave her a new perspective to the situation, what Dante did to theQueen? The one answer begged to escape on the surface and she didn't like it at all. Anyway, she should pay more attention to the memory and look for the clues.
Steep steps led her up to a spacious room. Crossing the threshold of the royal chamber, Violette carefully scrutinized the premises as if danger could lurk in its corners. Her presence has been greeted by bright moonlight pouring from the open balcony.
Reach your eyes to the moon,flowed through her mind like a light breeze, reminding her why she was here.
Her eyes followed the radiance, but it only led her to an empty spot on the terry cobalt carpet. She scanned the room from the gray walls to a grand bed with a dark blue canopy studded with stars. Fresh flowers – blue bells, on a luxurious chest of drawers with gold handles. Nearby stood two bottles of magic powder. Shelooked closely, trying to take one of them, but her hands went through it.
“Oh, right,” Violette murmured, remembering that she was only a ghost in these reminiscences.
She leaned closer to eye the vials. Though it turned out the symbols on the yellowed labels were completely unfamiliar to her. Her lips pursed as she turned her head in the other direction in search of at least some clue, instead she caught a living silhouette against the opposite wall.
Violette quickly trod towards the Queen at the desk and peered over her shoulder. She was writing something but the words coming out of her pen were not like anything else, again these incomprehensible symbols that Violette saw a minute earlier on the vials. She scoured the scroll with her eyes trying to find something she could understand, but alas, there was nothing useful.
A feather swayed – the final dot. The Queen picked the scroll up, admiring her work. A whisper came out under her breath and Violette realized that what she wrote was nothing else but a spell.
“Great. Hope it will not come to it,” the woman murmured, folding the parchment in a wooden box painted with blue lupines.
A frown warped Violette's face. If this memory was supposed to help her dilemma with Dante, why did everything around her seem useless? The Queen was writing spells unfamiliar to her, in a foreign language, and spoke only in riddles. The royal family behaved strangely,throwing a ball while there's a horrid monster walking outside the castle, and Dante…Dante from the past was here, completely different from the one she knows. During all the time she'd spent in this dream, she only came across more questions than answers.
At least that she knew for sure – the magic Queen Orienela used definitely cannot be found in the ordinary books about sorcery, and since she doesn't know the symbols, it was most likely because it was a forbidden type of magic she couldn't see before. Considering the fact that they found the Hegga's book in her crypt, it meant she'd practiced their magic, though it was unlikely that she was Hegga herself; she looked too young and beautiful to be called a crone.
And although, unlike most of the wizards, Violette didn't find conversation about black magic scary or forbidden, she didn't like what was happening. A vampire was enough for her to deal with, and now she had the queen who practices dark spells…What else should she expect? This little adventure acquired new colors and the worst of it – it only attracted her more. The unknown. Secrets. Her treacherous nature radiated curiosity and she didn't try to shake this feeling off, though it was necessary to direct it in the right way.
