Katryna had so many painful questions racing through her head since her mother Mira had confined her to her bedroom almost a week earlier.
She had not heard a single thing about Trish after asking each and every servant who brought her food three times a day. She was probably locked away in the dungeon, all alone. The ache of the situation facing her was like a punch to her gut.
Sick with angst, she wallowed deeper into the water.
This was the first bath Katryna had been allowed to take all week. Despite not even wanting to leave the security of her bed covers, she had to admit that it felt good to finally wash herself. She savoured the warm sensation.
When will this all end?
Katryna closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the water. It was like entering another world. The silence was beautiful. All she could hear was the echo of the dripping tap and her heart beating like a drum through the water.
Take me away.
She resurfaced, inhaling a sharp breath. The pleasant scent of her burning lavender candles filled the air.
Katryna’s face, despite having healed, still stung from her mother’s strike the previous week. She had never been hit before. Her gums were still ulcered, and her jaw ached.
Katryna continued to wash, wiping her face one last time as a final tear fell from her puffy eyes.
The door to the washroom opened with a creak. Startled, Katryna covered her chest with her hand and spun around in the tub.
“Excuse me, I’m…” Katryna shouted to the intruder, but stopped upon seeing a familiar figure walk in with dishevelled hair and an old nightgown.
It was her mother, Mira. Katryna’s eyes went wide upon realising.
She turned back around, facing away from her as the woman made her way into the washroom without uttering a word.
Katryna felt petrified; what did she want with her now? She feigned ignorance and scrubbed her arms against the side of the porcelain tub.
Mira, still silent, shuffled over to the open window. She looked out at the view before her. Katryna could only see her silhouette. She looked nothing like the mother she once had.
She was untidy and walking around the castle in a nightgown.
A ghoul of her former, beautiful self. The Mira she once knew had always made an effort with her appearance; she would never be seen wearing such things.
“I’m… I’m so sorry, Katryna,” Mira said beneath her breath, bowing her head down as if about to sob.
Katryna sealed her lips shut, focused only on washing herself. Even if she could fight through the pain to reply, she had no idea what to say back.
Mira left the window side, approaching the bathtub as if floating like a spectre. Her pale face had the exact same expression of despair she had worn since Willem’s accident.
Mira sat on the edge of the bathtub. Katryna covered her chest with her arm, feeling awkward at the thought of her mother seeing her naked. Mira said nothing about it, simply staring at a random spot on the wall.
“I fear I have lost myself since your brother’s death,” Mira said solemnly. “The mother I once was, is dead, too.”
Katryna could not retain her tears any longer, feeling them welling up in her eyes. Still, she could utter a word back.
Mira ran her fingers through Katryna’s wet hair, before taking a cloth and soap and gently washing her daughter’s head.
Katryna had a stark feeling inside as she felt her mother’s soft touch. It reminded her of when she was a little girl and Mira would help her wash each night. She remembered the bond they had once had, the love she had held for the nurturing woman.
Yet, she could not shake an insidious feeling of fear and discomfort.
The warm water ran down the back of her neck. Mira helped clean Katryna’s long, brown locks, and then squeezing each strand dry.
“I am cursed with flashes in my head of his face, after we found him,” Mira whispered. “I struggle through sleepless nights, picturing his final moments.”
Katryna could not deny the primal instinct of nurture it brought her to feel her mother’s touch after so many years. Existing after Willem’s accident with her mother there, but not really there, was like losing two family members in one single event.
Mira had never said a loving word or given her daughter a motherly embrace again. Not once since Willem died.
Yet something still did not feel right to her.
Katryna sensed goosebumps rising on her dripping skin. “I’m going to get out now,” Katryna said softly.
As she went to stand up from the bath water, Mira grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and forced her back down rather roughly.
“Not yet, you aren’t. I’m trying to help you,” Mira said before going back to wash her daughter’s hair.
Katryna began to cry. “Please, mother.”
Katryna attempted to get up again, but Mira held her down. She gazed up at her mother’s lifeless face, seeing her grimacing. Her lifeless eyes.
Katryna felt Mira’s hands strengthening their grip on her shoulders.
“You took my son away from me,” Mira uttered coldly. She refused to make eye contact with Katryna.
Her bony fingers pressed harder into Katryna’s skin.
“Don’t, you’re hurting me!” Katryna said.
“You will suffer as he suffered. I will free you of this burden.”
In a single moment, Mira slammed Katryna’s upper body down into the bathtub. Her eyes were still open as her head sunk under the water. She accidentally inhaled a mouthful from the suddenness of what was happening.
Katryna felt panic kick in as her mother held her down beneath the water. She tried coughing out the water she had breathed in, but more entered her throat.
She pointed her head face up, gasping for air with the surface barely an inch from her mouth. A burst of bubbles rose from her lips.
But Mira’s grip was strong and gave her no room to rise.
Katryna’s stinging eyes went wide as she watched her mother’s ghostly, distorted figure above her through the sloshing water.
Mira did not move. She remained on the side of the bathtub with her arms extended into the water, keeping Katryna beneath the surface.
Katryna fought and kicked as she realised she was drowning. She tried to stand but slipped. She tried to climb but was forced back down. She flailed about like a dying fish.
She was not weak, but her mother’s sudden strength could not be overcome. She clawed at her mother’s arms like a wild animal, drawing blood and scratching strips of skin away.
Still, Mira held her down.
Katryna felt her lungs screaming for air. Her chest grew tight. She began to gag and splutter, choking on more water.
She swung her arms and legs about, trying to get a foothold or grab something that wasn’t slippery. Anything at all. The tub was too steep and too wet, too smooth to grip.
Her vision began to diminish. Her head spun and everything slowly began to fade.
The silence began to come back.
Her muscles lost strength as she continued to fight, but Katryna could not catch a breath of air no matter how hard she struggled.
As she grew weaker, Mira pushed her down all the way the bottom of the bathtub.
An icy cold embrace began to consume her entire body.
Then from out of nowhere, another silhouette appeared above Katryna’s sightline, colliding with Mira. Her mother’s tight grip on Katryna’s shoulders was released, and the drowning girl was pulled from the water.
Someone had managed to stop Katryna’s mother from killing her.
The silence disappeared as Katryna fell to the floor, dripping wet and naked. She threw up all the water she had swallowed, taking huge breaths in between the bouts of vomiting. The floor became slick with puddles of water and sick.
She could hear screaming. A woman. It was her mother. And then she heard a man’s voice. A familiar one.
He must have stopped mother, Katryna realised, before going
straight back to her breathless huffing.
Katryna slumped onto the slick floor, coughing and gasping. Her blurry vision slowly returned as she caught sight of the man who had managed to save her.
He wore silk clothes and had a stocky build. He was yelling at Mira who was pinned against the wall. The look on her face was one Katryna had never seen before. Her mother stared so menacingly, so wrathfully at her daughter that it gave her chills.
The man holding Mira back … was her father, Giliam.
Katryna came to her senses as tears fell from her eyes. She curled up into the foetal position on the wet floor, crying, staring at her parents.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Mira?! Have you lost your damn mind?!” Giliam screamed at her.
“I only wanted her to feel how Willem felt,” Mira said coldly, unblinking. “I wanted all this to end!”
Katryna continued to uncontrollably cough up water, shivering. Her entire chest was spasming.
“You could have killed her!”
“She deserves to die, the murderous bitch!”
Smack.
Giliam had struck Mira with all her might in the side of her face. His arms were shaking and his eyes bulging from his head with fury.
Yet, he did not speak another word.
Katryna stumbled to her feet, trying to flee the insanity before her. She could not think. All she could do was get away.
As she staggered naked towards the door, she realised Trish was standing in the corridor outside. Katryna realised that her father must have finally released her.
Trish’s eyes were filled with tears, her hands holding back screams over her mouth. She was in just as much shock as Katryna was.
Katryna fell into Trish’s arms, looking up at her friend’s scarred face, begging for help.
“Please,” Katryna whispered, unable to gather the energy to speak any louder. “We must leave.”
But Trish could hear the desperation in her voice. She wrapped her coat around the naked princess, before helping her back to her feet and running for her quarters.
Katryna put her arm around Trish’s shoulder for aid. She staggered from the bathroom, cold and in shock.
They were followed by the sound of her mother’s screams of agony. Why Mira was screaming and crying, Katryna did not know, and did not care.
Katryna’s heart pounded from her chest. Her mind was set on running as far away as possible, away from the woman who had nearly drowned her.
Under Trish’s supportive embrace she felt an ounce of security return, yet the thought of being in the same home as her mother was filling Katryna with dread.
“If I stay, she will kill me,” Katryna said as they stumbled for her bedroom. “She… she will kill me.”
Trish nodded, flicking her golden hair from her face as she continued to help Katryna walk. “Then we will leave. Tonight.”
“Th…thank you, Trish.”
“Don’t worry, I will protect you, m’lady. We will get out of this cursed place for good.”
Chapter 38 - The Two Assassins
Katryna Bower could not make sense of the storm raging inside her head.
It was Trish all along. What have you done? How can this be?
The thought was almost too difficult to comprehend. Her best friend, a woman she had grown up with, run away from home with, experienced so much with… could this woman really have orchestrated the assassination of her parents and aunt?
It wasn’t even the how of the situation that bothered her so tremendously. It was asking herself why.
Why had Trish done this?
Katryna marched towards the war room in Castle Bower. An Infinity Guardsman had informed her that Trish and the servant boy Edrick had last been seen there.
At her side was her brother Finnigan and the High Sword, Arthus Medonia. The wall-mounted candles made his armour glitter spectacularly, sheening of gold and silver. He had his gauntleted hand hovering over the pommel of his sword, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.
Behind the trio were a couple of Infinity Guardsmen for the altercation they were expecting. Katryna was taking no chances- if Trish had been capable of killing her parents and aunt, who knew what else she was capable of?
Anger and hurt seethed through her tense muscles. She clenched her fist by her side as she reached the mighty closed doors of the war room.
She had not been back there since the day she and Trish had explored it, before being caught and punished by the queen. The red glow of the oak doors was not an easy visual to forget and seeing those iconic doors again after so long filled Katryna with some difficult feelings.
As Katryna reached out her arms to barge through the doors, Finn pulled her back.
“We do this together, remember?” Finn said with a tilt of his head.
Katryna took a deep breath in, acknowledging the pit in her stomach but forcing it down. She had to remain in control this time. She nodded to her handsome younger brother- she knew he was right. This would be dangerous.
Finn gestured for the two Infinity Guardsmen to stand back and guard the door, before motioning for Arthus Medonia to follow them in.
Both Finn and Arthus took the lead, hands at the ready to draw their swords if needed.
The two men took one door each, pushing them open together. The oak wood groaned open and the three carefully entered Castle Bower’s war room.
The chandeliers hanging high above were lit with dozens of candles, bathing everything in an elegant glow. Wax slowly melted away down the candles’ sides. Yet nothing felt warm about the war room.
The sparsely used area was coated in a layer of dust, from the floor to the banners, bookshelves, and even the enormous map of Alyria atop the table in the centre of the room.
The weapons hanging on their racks made tiny clangs as they steadily swayed against each other. The standing suits of armour guarded the room, motionless sentinels in metal.
There was a coldness to the room that transcended temperature, as if no one had entered it in years.
Katryna immediately locked eyes with Trish who was across the room, leaning against the massive painted table with her arms stretched out to either side, looking as if she owned the entire world beneath her fingertips.
Trish’s crimson red dress was slim as usual, and she wore her blonde hair covering the scarred side of her face.
To her side stood Edrick, her lover. The servant was barely old enough to be a man, yet his posture signified a confident and carefree attitude.
Neither of them appeared alerted by the sudden intrusion. In fact, it almost looked as though they were expecting the company.
“Kat, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Trish said with a slight hint of sarcasm.
Katryna, Finn and Arthus stepped up to the other side of the massive table, gruff-faced and anxious, refusing to break eye contact.
Trish stared with stars in her eyes at the grand painted table, gesturing out over the Kingdom of Camridia with her petite hands.
“I was just showing Edrick here the kingdom we helped you obtain,” Trish stated.
The words were painful to hear. Katryna grimaced. “What did you do?”
They were the only words she could mutter, trying her best to keep a lid on the bubbling rage within.
“We gave you back your kingdom, Kat,” Trish stated matter-of-factly.
“You murdered my parents. You murdered my aunt!” Finn shouted, his anger rising from deep within his chest.
Trish glared at Edrick, and then back at Katryna. “We did what we had to, to guarantee your sister’s rightful place on the throne.”
“That doesn’t make you innocent of your crimes!” Arthus said in a booming voice, just as angry as the prince and princess.
“I never claimed to be innocent.”
“We are here to arrest the two of you for the murder of King Giliam, Queen Mira and Rashel Bower,” Katryna said.
“Come peacefully, and you won’t be hurt,” Arthus said, t
aking some manacles from his belt.
Trish smirked. “And what about that poor stable boy’s mother? If you arrest us now, he will never see her again.”
Katryna raised a hand to Arthus as he stepped forward with the shackles, instructing him to stop. In the heat of discovering the truth, she had forgotten about Sniff’s mother who had been taken against her will.
“What do you want, Trish?”
“All I want you to do is listen and see all the good we have done for you. Then maybe you will change your mind. The death of your parents, while unfortunate, was the greatest thing to have ever happened to you.”
Katryna clenched her jaw. “They did not deserve to die.”
“They did, and you know it.”
Finn grunted with anger, leaning in to Katryna’s ear. “Let me kill this bitch,” he hissed, the words dripping from his tongue like poison.
Katryna had to ignore her brother, for the sake of Sniff’s mother. “Where is the boy’s mother?”
“Some place safe,” Edrick said with a disheartening sneer.
What does that mean?
“Tell me where she is, and we won’t have you executed,” Katryna said boldly.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious about how we got away with regicide?” Trish boasted.
“It isn’t hard to figure out. And to be honest, I won’t stand here another second to listen to you brag about killing my family,” Katryna snapped.
She waved for Arthus and Finn to move ahead and arrest the Trish and Edrick. Edrick shot up in a sudden panic, but Trish did not even flinch. She remained leant across the painted table, expressionless.
“Take another step and the bitch dies,” Trish warned.
Arthus and Finn froze mid-step. No one wanted an innocent victim to die. Too much blood had already been shed.
“Tell me where she is, now!”
Trish ignored Katryna, reaching down to her waist and pulling a unique dual-bladed dagger from her belt. The ornate weapon had a bright red stone in its grip. Katryna was sure she had never seen it before; she would have remembered such an eye-catching dagger.
Trish stabbed the dagger down into the table, picking out little pieces of wood from its surface like a fiddling child.
Starfall (The Fables of Chaos Book 1) Page 45