Blood Moon's Paroxysm

Chapter 5

There were thundering footsteps around the palace, marching down every hallway just to search and hunt down the prisoner that'd escaped.

Casteel saw one of the groups of guards passing by and shouted a question, "Where is she?"

They bowed in unison and one man answered, "We heard that doors are opened and corpses of the guards left on the fourth floor corridor, your majesty."

My study, he thought, concerned that she may have already tramped into his study and broken most of the stuff.

Another guard added, "We are guessing that she's around the third floor right now."

They're currently on the first floor after Casteel browsed through the lower floor where the prisoner's cell was. There were only a few needles left in the cell, those bloodstained needles that he'd used to interrogate her with.

Without a second hesitation, he darted up the stairs to the fourth floor, where his study was. He clenched his grip on the sword tightly though he saw no enemies in sight. His pupils were bouncing left to right, attempting to catch a figure or someone as he sprinted by.

When he got to the fourth floor, he saw bodies lying on the ground from afar. Three guards dropped dead before his father's painting room, and another guard died by the corridor of his study.

His gaze scanned the hallway as he arrived before the opened door of his study. He cared not for the dead bodies' smell but his study and the stuff he kept there.

When his gaze turned back to his own room, his gaze widened. The prince's study has been rummaged, it'd never been this untidy and messy before.

The quills were thrown on the ground, books and unused papers were spread across the room. The bottles and ornaments scattered all over the floor.

As he walked further into the study, he saw pieces of wood chips on the ground, wondering where it could've belonged. Then, something sparkled in his mind, reminding him of a crucial yet secretive place in his study.

He ducked under the table abruptly and checked the extra block attached underneath the last drawer.

To his shock, it had already been ripped apart. A hole was drilled by the side of the drawer, revealing that an extra drawer was hiding underneath the last. There were wood chips everywhere around the desk, signifying whoever got into the room found out about the secret drawer.

His secret drawer was empty.

The prince dropped to the ground with dilated pupils.

My scripts, he thought but then shook his head to correct himself, the kingdom's deets.

He pushed himself up from the ground in despair mixed with fear. He didn't know what his father would say and how the other councils would react. He didn't want to have a bad reputation in his name as the future king.

As he was preparing to leave again, hoping to bring the bad news to the king, he saw a figure passing by the doorway.

The figure was soundless, its silhouette flew by so quickly that all he could see was a piece of beige colored cloth whirling by. There were no footsteps at all, which was what made him recognize that figure.

It drew him back to the moment when he first met her.

"Rebella," he called after her, rushing to the hallway briskly with the sword in his hand, "get back-"

He broke off as the sudden realization came to him that the figure he saw was just a hallucination. The prince had been so frightened and worried about meeting his rival that he began to hallucinate her appearing in his sight.