Shadows Of Desire
Caged Heart

Caroline walked up to Rowan’s cell with a wicked smirk on her face. “How do you like your accommodations?” She asked him with mocking glee.

“They’re detestable.” Rowan grumbled from the spot on the floor where he was sitting. He didn’t move to stand or even look at her as she spoke. He merely sat, his back to the wall, and his knees pulled up to his chest, staring across the cell to the wall across from him as though focusing his attention on the many broken, and crumbing stones that made up the cells walls.

“Well, you won’t be here for long.” Caroline folded her hands neatly in front of her skirts as she looked down at Rowan with disgust. “I’ve just received word from the council. For your treason, you are to be executed tonight, at midnight.”

Rowan looked up at her now, his face a mask of hate and rage. “What treason?” He scowled at her. “I’ve committed no treason.”

“Oh, but you have.” The Queen smiled a devilish smile. Rowan could see how much his suffering pleased her. The very thought of his death amused her to the point that she was practically giddy with excitement. “Conspiring with the Elves to overthrown the Queen of Basmorte and claim the throne for yourself. Why, my child, that is the worst sort of treason. Had you bowed at my feet and sworn your loyalty to me, I might have been able to spare you but there is nothing that can save you now. You’ve dug your own grave and this time, you won’t be coming back.”

“You’re mad.” Rowan growled. “I’ve not conspired with anyone and I have no interest in claiming the throne. I told you already, I escaped Basmorte to live a simple life. A peaceful life. I have no desire to rule.”

Caroline narrowed her eyes as she took a step closer to the cell door. “You say that you do not ally yourself with the elves yet I hear reports that you have taken as a mate the elven Prince himself and, that you already carry his bastard child! Do you deny it?”

Rowan was on his feet in a second, grabbing the bars of the cell with such force that Caroline actually stumbled backwards to escape his reach. “I carry no one’s bastard!” Rowan hissed. “Thaden is my husband in all the ways that count. We have spoken vows before the Goddess herself. The child I carry is pure and good, created from love. Something you would know nothing about.” He sneered as he looked her over. “I pity you, my Queen.”

The Queen laughed at that. “You? Pity me? Whatever for?”

“The short time that I have been alive, I have experienced enough love to last several lifetimes. Thaden loves me fiercely, and unconditionally, and I have spent the sweetest moments of my life in his warm embrace but you, you have lived centuries, never knowing what true love is. Never experiencing a lover’s gentle touch, or knowing that there was someone who would gladly give their life for yours. I doubt you’ve even loved anyone yourself. How could you? You care only for yourself. You put your needs and desires above all others, even your own daughter. What a miserable, lonely, life you must have lived. So, yes, I pity you. I pity you because to live with such hate in your heart is no life at all. I may die tonight, but you, Caroline, have been dead for years.”

“You’re wrong, you know.” The smile faded from Caroline’s lips and the light went out of her eyes. For perhaps the first time ever, Rowan saw her true face as she let her guard down and allowed her emotions to flow freely. Rowan saw the pain behind her eyes. Centuries of pain that she had tried so hard to suppress. “I did know love once, long ago. His name was Callum. He was the stable boy at the estate of my first husband. I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone. He was everything to me. When my husband discovered our affair, he had Callum beheaded and his body burned. But, not before he tortured him. For days. I lay in bed listening to the sounds of his screams, helpless to do anything, to save him...”

Caroline placed a hand over her heart and for a brief moment, Rowan thought he saw the glistening of real tears in her eyes. “He died. Because he loved me. Anyway...” Caroline wiped the tears from her eyes as she turned her back to Rowan, refusing to allow him to witness anymore of her pain. “It was a long time ago and I have since learned my lesson. Love is a poison. It makes one weak and if you allow it, eventually, it will destroy you. Better that you die now than learn that painful lesson the way I did. At least I can spare you that.”

Before Rowan could respond, Caroline walked back the way she had come, leaving Rowan alone in the dark, waiting, as the hours ticked by. The longer he sat there, the further into despair he fell. If Thaden were searching for him, Rowan feared he would find him too late as he was now mere hours from his death.

***

The Queen moved through the darkened halls as though the devil were at her feet, hurriedly navigating the corridors, pushing servants out of her way, and doing her best to avoid contact with everyone she saw. She couldn’t allow them to see her in the state she was in. She couldn’t show them her weaknesses. Finally she had made it to her chambers, rushing through the doors, she ordered her ladies to leave at once and once she was alone, she slammed the doors closed then leaned her back against them and let the tears that she had been holding back fall freely.

“Damn him!” She cried out into the empty room. “I should have killed the little bastard with my bare hands.” She took a moment to compose herself then moved to sit on the edge of the bed, cursing herself for allowing Rowan’s words to affect her so. The child knows nothing. She thought. He certainly doesn’t know me, where I come from from, or what I’ve suffered through. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress, certain now that her face paint would be ruined but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything, or anyone. Rowan had been right about that. She only cared about herself. She had to. That was the only way she had survived this long. Caring for others hurt. Caring for another had almost destroyed her. Never would she allow that to happen again.

Caroline remembered the day she had learned that hard lesson. She wept and cried, clawing at the door, demanding she be set free but her husband, Baron Risteard Benneit, had ordered her locked in their chambers. Callum’s screams had ceased and Caroline knew that could mean only one thing, he was dead. The one man that she had ever truly loved was dead. The pain of that day had never left her. Not really. She carried it with her, even after all these years. To lose it would be like losing him all over again. The Baron had never been kind to her. Though they seemed to have the perfect marriage on the outside, behind closed doors he was cruel and sadistic.

The first time he had taken her, when she was just a servant in his house, it had been by force. Caroline should have killed him that night. She’d thought about it, but then she thought about where that would leave her. Penniless, alone, and living on the streets. Or worse, if her crime was discovered, she’d be put to death. As much as she hated her life, she didn’t want to die. Especially when she discovered that she was with child. Instead, she played the hand she been dealt, gaining her masters favor until he agreed to marry her. In the beginning she was content in her life as the lady of the manor. Despite her husbands cruelty and his lustful appetite, she remained the ever dutiful little wife.

It wasn’t until he’d murdered her lover that she really grew to hate the man. That hatred festered and grew into something dark and evil. Every night she would fantasize about killing him and each time it was more gruesome than that last. But killing the man wasn’t enough. She wanted to make him suffer. She wanted him to lose everything that he loved. She wanted him to know what it felt like to watch the ones he loved suffer, wither, and then die. That was when she devised her plan for revenge. First the children.

One by one they would be taken from him. Stricken ill and he would be made to watch them suffer. When the children were dead, she would turn her attention to him and oh how he would suffer then. Her cruelty knew no bounds. Perhaps he would be proud of her for that. After all, she learned it from him. Everything that she was now was thanks to him. His darkness had seeped into her very soul and corrupted her, creating the cold and calculating woman that she was now. She was a far cry from the innocent and frail young girl that had been sold into servitude so long ago. That girl had died with Callum. He had taken her heart with him leaving nothing behind but a hollow, gaping, hole in her chest. Perhaps she should thank the old Baron. She wouldn’t be where she was now if not for him.

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The Queen sighed as she turned to look to the side where she caught of glimpse of Risteard, sitting calmly at her vanity. His flesh was pale and sickly, his eyes, sunken and dead. Oh, how she grew weary of these intrusions. Why could the dead not stay dead?

“If I am.” She answered him, her voice sounding tired and cracked. “It is because you made me so.”

“Now, now, my dear. Do not blame me for what you have become. I did not create the monster, I simply uncovered what was always there.”

“Why are you here, Risteard?” She asked him. “What is it you want from me?”

“I want to see you fall.” He rose from the vanity seat and walked towards her. The stench of death clung to him, filling the air with a noxious cloud of poison that assaulted her senses and burned her nose. “I want to see you destroyed, writhing on the floor, screaming and spitting as your own blood fills your mouth, choking the life out of you. I want to watch you die, miserable and alone. I want my revenge.”

“If that is all.” She laughed bitterly, “You’ll have to wait your turn. You’re not the only one who wants to see me suffer.”

“No, I suppose not.” Risteard said, stopping to stand beside her. “The castle is filled with the ghosts of those whom you have wronged. It seems as though your sins have come back to haunt you.”

Caroline straightened herself, sitting rigidly on the side of the bed. Her muscles tensed and she worried her hands in her lap. The room became cold, despite the fire burning in the hearth. It was like all warmth had suddenly been sucked out of the room. If Caroline breathed, she was sure she would see a cloud of her breath forming before her.

“You feel it don’t you?” The Baron whispered in his spectral voice. His voice, so unnatural, sent chills down the Queen’s spine and she shivered. Her hands began to shake, her entire body trembled. “They’re closing in on you, Caroline. All those souls whom you have sent to their deaths. They’re coming for you.”

“Shut your rotting mouth.” Caroline hissed. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him, trying to appear strong and unaffected by his words but in truth, she was terrified. Her chambers, once warm and safe, felt like a crypt. A cold, damp, crypt. All around her was the scent of death. The mournful wails of the dead pierced her ears. They sounded distant at first but slowly, gradually, the sounds became louder, echoing throughout the halls just outside her chamber doors. “You don’t frighten me.” Caroline lied. “You have no power over me. You, nor any of your ghouls. You are not real.”

“Oh, I’m real.” The Baron told her. “And so are they.” He pointed towards the doors and slowly, cautiously, Caroline turned her head to look. She gasped suddenly, moving her hand to her mouth to silence the scream she felt rising up her throat. Through the doors she saw the face’s of three young children. The Barons children, whom she had poisoned long ago. The girls hair hung down, partcially concealing their hideous faces. Their eyes, too large and sunken into their skulls, glared menacingly at the Queen. The skin was drawn so tightly and so thinly over their faces that she could see the bone beneath.

Bony fingers reached through the door, next a foot, then another. A moment later they pulled themselves through, almost melting through the wood and appearing on the other side. Their tattered gowns dragged the floor as they moved towards her. Blood poured from their opened mouths. One of them tried to speak but the only sound that came was a soft gurgling and a sputtering of blood and saliva. It was the final sound they had made before death had taken them. Their last attempt at calling for help. Perhaps calling for their father. Caroline was the only one who heard their pleas though and she remained cold, and uncaring, as she watched them perish.

More ghoulish figures began to emerge all around her. Some coming through the walls, others rising from the floor beneath her. Some had the appearance of translucent specters with hair like cob webs and faces twisted in a mask of agony and rage. Others were like rotting corpses, bone and torn flesh showing through beneath torn and rotting robes. Caroline stared, her eyes wide with terror as the apparitions closed in on her. It was as though all of hell were rising, threatening to drag her down to the abyss with them.

“They want blood.” The Baron told her. There was no hint of sympathy in his voice, no comforting tone. His words dripped with venom as he spoke. “They want your blood.”

“H-how do I escape?” Caroline asked, through trembling lips. “How do I stop them?”

“There is no escape.” He answered, “Only death.”

“No.” Caroline turned her face away from the Baron, hiding the fear on her face and the tears in her eyes. She refused to show her weakness, even in the face of death. “I won’t die like this. I can not. I am the Queen! I refuse!”

“This is your only chance to escape your fate.” The Baron told her as he pushed something cold, and hard into her hand. Caroline looked down and saw a silver bladed, gilded dagger. She wrapped her fingers tightly around it then looked up into the emptiness of the Baron’s cold eyes. “Die by your own hand.” He told her, his face void of emotion. “Thrust the blade into your chest. Pierce your heart. You’ll die as the silver enters your blood and poisons you but at least you will die with your dignity in tact.”

“Kill myself?” She sneered at the specter. “Did you honestly think I would give up so easily?” Caroline rose to her feet, her grip on the dagger tightened so much that the jewels lining the hilt cut into the palm of her hand. Blood dripped down the hilt and down her wrist as she held the dagger up and slashed through the air. The specter of her late husband vanished but his laughter echoed throughout the Queen’s chambers. “Demon!” She screamed out into the room that was now filled with spectral faces. “If I die, I’ll die fighting!”

The ghosts closed in on her. Skeletal hands reached for her. Their wails reverberated throughout the chambers, echoing in her head as she screamed at them to leave her alone. Again, she sliced through the air. The blade cut through the ghostly invaders as through cutting through mist and fog. Their forms dispersed, only to reform, again and again. The Queen fought her way through the crowd of spirits, slashing and striking with her blade but only cutting through air. How could she kill what was already dead? In a panic, she rushed through the cacophony of cries and moans, waving her arm and slicing through the air in frantic, frenzied movements.

She managed, somehow, to reach the door and quickly grabbed the handle with her free hand. She tore the doors open then froze. Standing before her was a corpse. Not a ghost like the others, but a corpse, rotting, with maggots falling from it’s festering body. The corpse had the same ghost like pallor as the others, and the white, dead eyes Caroline had seen so many times before, that stared back at her every time she’d taken a life and, watched that life drain from her victim. This creature was no specter though. She could reach out and touch it if she wanted. She could smell the putrid stench of the grave wafting off the thing, and she could hear it’s bones crack as it reached out for her.

“No!” Caroline screamed. She brought her arms up to her face to shield herself from her tormentor. The corpse opened it’s mouth to speak and as it did Caroline could see the flesh around it’s lips rip and pull apart, revealing the bones beneath. A patch of torn skin hung from it’s jaw and, out of it’s mouth came an ear shattering shriek that would bring the devil himself to his knees. “Please!” Caroline begged, her entire body trembled with fear. “Forgive me.” She cried. “Show mercy, please, I beg of you.” The lifeless eyes of the corpse showed no emotion as it continued to stare, it’s mouth fixed, opened, as though frozen in place. Again it reached for Caroline, grabbing her by the shoulders and again came that terrible sound as it screamed at her, letting loose with an outcry of pain and rage.

In a desperate attempt to save herself, Caroline thrust her arm forward and plunged the dagger deep into the chest of the creature before her. The blade cut through the tattered rags it wore, through bone, and flesh, until the blade was buried to the hilt in it’s decaying body. The corpse gave one last shriek as it looked down in disbelief at the dagger sticking out of it. It stumbled backwards, then crumbled to the ground in a heap of torn and broken limbs. It’s face contorted into a mask of shock and pain. A strangled groan escaped it’s parted lips and then, it fell, dead, on the stone floor beneath it.

Insane laughter filled the space as Caroline reveled in her triumph of destroying the thing that plagued her. “You see?” She exclaimed as she stared at the body on the floor. “I am Queen! Nothing, and no one, can touch me!” She wiped at her eyes, brushing her tears aside as she did her best to calm herself. The fog that had clouded her room began to clear and with it went the many faces of her victims. She looked back to the place outside her door, expecting the corpse to be gone as well but it wasn’t. She closed her eyes, but when she opened them again, it still remained. Taking a step closer, she realized that what she was looking at was indeed a body but, not the mangled corpse that had attacked her.

This body was fresh and new. It was laying on it’s side, it’s hand still clutching the hilt of the dagger that it had tried so hard to remove from it’s chest. Dark, red, blood pooled around it, seeping from the wound caused by the dagger. Looking over the body, Caroline could see that it was a woman. She was dressed in an emerald gown with gold embroidery on the hem and front of the skirts. A mess of dark hair covered it’s face. “No.” Caroline whispered as she stared in horror at the body before her. She took another step towards it then knelt down and, with a shaky hand, gently pushed the hair away from the face.

Her eyes went wide as her brain finally registered what it was she was looking at. Who it was, that she was looking at. “No!” She screamed in rage as she balled her hands into fists and beat them against her thighs. “No! Gods, please, no!” Her anguished cries shattered the deafening silence of the night. She reached out, scooping the lifeless body into her arms and drawing it close to her chest as she wept, shaking the body, calling out to her. “Please, Emilia, please!” Caroline pulled the dagger from her daughter’s chest and tossed it aside. She pushed more hair from Emilia’s face and looked down at her. Her eyes were opened, staring up at Caroline with an expression of absolute horror and confusion. Blood dripped from her ruby lips and trickled down the side of her pale, white, face.

“Please, my darling.” She wept, rocking Emilia’s body back and forth as though she were a small child and merely sleeping in her mother’s arms. “It will be alright.” Caroline whispered to her. “All will be fine, you’ll see.” She pulled Emilia’s head to her breast and hugged her tight as she howled in rage and despair. “Everything will be fine, I promise. Mother will fix everything. Don’t you worry. Mother will make it right.”

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