Chapter 2 So Cruel

Chapter Two: So Cruel

Pain wasn’t new, but this sensation was different. It wasn't the hardness of a car bumper or the stinging hunger of a missed meal. It was a strict, explosive crack against her jaw that sent her spinning into the dark.

Jessica’s eyes flew open, but her eyes seemed like an invisible, weak mess of flickering gold and deep crimson. 

Before she could gasp, a heavy hand fisted into her hair. The scalp-searing pressure forced her head back, exposing her throat.

"You miserable, pathetic creature," a voice of a man, vibrating with a hatred so pure it turned her blood to ice hushed. "Do you have any idea what you have done? To embarrass me in front of the Emperor? To ruin decades of planning with your clumsy tongue?"

Jess tried to speak, but her mouth filled with the metallic tang of blood. She wasn't on the asphalt anymore, but being dragged across a polished marble floor that felt like frozen glass.

"Please!" a woman’s voice shrieked. "Valerius, stop! You’ll kill her before the ceremony is even over. Think of the gossip!"

Jessica blinked through the haze. A woman in her late forties was a few feet away, her face seemed partially obscured by a delicate lace mask. She wore a gown of heavy, midnight-blue velvet, her fingers trembled as they clutched a fan.

‘Foster father?’ Jess thought, a flash of her old life sparked in her mind. ‘No. He’s wearing... silk? And gold?’

The man, Valerius, didn't stop. He threw Jessica against a stone pillar with a force that knocked the wind from her lungs. He loomed over her, his shadow was so big, it swallowed her whole body. 

He wasn't the rum-soaked man from her childhood; he was a tall, imposing aristocrat with a face like a knife. He drew a rapier from his hip, and that steel was singing as it caught the light of a thousand candles.

"I should end this now," Valerius hissed, the tip of the blade pressing into the soft skin beneath Jessica’s chin. "A daughter who cannot hold her liquor or her secrets is a liability I no longer wish to fund."

"The guests are watching, my Lord," the woman whispered in a desperately- cracking tone. "Look at them. They expect a dance, not a slaughter."

The poor girl’s head whipped around. She was in a gargantuan ballroom. People in extravagant, historical gowns and weird suits surrounded in a wide circle. One thing Jess noticed first was how their faces were hidden behind ornate masks of birds, lions, and demons. 

They weren't helping, but smiling behind gloved hands, glinting with a sick, bored curiosity of their eyes. This wasn't a hospital, but it also wasn't a dream.

"Get up," Valerius commanded as his foot connected with her ribs. "Go home and then to your chambers. Wash the blood off that expensive silk. If you show your face again before I give the word, I will ensure the executioner is the next person you see."

Jessica didn't wait for a second invitation. 

Oh, how this terror was cold and sharp, acting like a shot of adrenaline to her heart. She scrambled to her feet, her hands started shaking so violently Jess could barely gather the heavy fabric of her skirt. 

This black dress was a nightmare of fabric, weighing her down like a cage.

She turned and bolted. 

‘Whe-where am I?” Her lungs filled with fire. 

To Jessica, every move or sound felt like a hand reaching out to grab her hair again. She pushed through a set of heavy oak doors, bursting into a long, hardly lit hallway lined with suits of armor that looked like silent sentinels.

"Where am I? Where am I?" she whimpered, but the sound repeated off the stone.

She turned a corner too fast, her slippers slid on the floor. A hand suddenly shot out from a darkened alcove, grabbing her arm and swinging her around. 

“Aaauch!” Her back hit the wall with a thud, and a man in a black dragon mask got closer. 

His eyes were invisible behind the slits, but his presence felt like a physical pressure next her chest.

He leaned down, his lips brushed against the shell of her ear. There was a scent of sandalwood and cold iron drifted off him.

"This is only the beginning, Neria," he hushed into her neck.

The sound of her name…this new, cursed name…made her skin crawl. The man's grip was strong and very possessive.

"Who are you?" she gasped out, shoving against his chest. "Let me go!"

The man let out a slow chuckle that sent an electrical vibration down her spine. "Run while you can, little bird. The cage only gets smaller from here."

He released her as abruptly as he had caught her. Jess didn't stay to ask questions. She sprinted in the opposite direction. 

No time to look back, out of fear-this poor lady took stairs she didn't recognise, descending deeper and deeper into the bowels of the building. The energy turned harder and it smelled of old earth. 

“Plants?” Jess looked around. 

The gold and silk of the ballroom were gone, obviously, but now she was looking at the stone walls and old torches. 

Jessica was in a dungeon.

But seeing that one word craved on the wall: 

~Aurelian~

“No…no!!!!!” 

She heard the hard-loud beat coming from her chest. There was also an annoying singing in her brain, and then…then, this awkwardly bad realisation touched her feet. 

"I'm going to die," she sobbed, clutching her chest. "I died and went to a worse place. I'm in the book. I'm actually in the book. This has to be a dream…no!!!”

Cold sweat covered her neck, and air struggled to leave her lungs. 

How could this be? Why was this poor girl in such a horrible place? And why exactly here?

“Is this a dream? It has to be!” Looking down, Jess pinched her skin and immediately felt how the heat covered that part. 

“It is not a dream…bu-but, I have to get out of here!! Neria! If this is me! I’m doomed! Why here?”

The questions flooded her brain like an old tsunami. 

“Relax, Jess…relax, think! Think about how to leave this place?”

Jessica stopped by an iron door, clearly gasping. Just as she was about to collapse, a sound reached her. 

It was a cry? But who would cry in such a place?

It was high-pitched, warbling, and full of a desperate, lonely terror. It sounded like a child, or perhaps a small animal, trapped behind the thick wood.

"Hel-hello?" Jess called out in a stuttering voice.

The crying increased, sounding more dramatic at the. Jess looked back at the dark hallway. Valerius could be coming. The man in the dragon mask could be right behind her.

"I'm coming, hold on," she muttered, her foster-care instincts eventually kicked in. She knew that sound. It was the sound of something that had been forgotten in the dark.

Fumbling with the very much heavy iron latch, her fingers slicked with sweat. With a groan of rusted hinges, the door was finally open.

This room was small and circular, lit by a strange, pulsating violet light. In the center, resting on a bed of dry straw and jagged rocks, sat a massive egg. It was nearly as tall as her torso, its surface was as black as the midnight sky but shining with a weak, inner glow.

The crying was coming from inside the shell.

"An egg?" There was a step closer. "A glowing... egg?"

She reached out a trembling hand, the memory of The Twisted Story finally clicked into place. This wasn't just any room…

This was the hidden vault of the Blackmoor line. And she, the clumsiest girl in two worlds, had just walked right into the middle of the one thing that would get her killed faster than any villain.

"Oh, no," Jessica breathed, her eyes widened in horror. "I really am unlucky…”