Chapter 65 - Echoes

Alexa tried to hold on to something, but her hands found nothing, and she slid in the darkness, in despair.

The damsel felt a firm hand grab her wrist, when all her body was in the air and plummeting to an unknown and probably lethal end.

The sudden bump hurt and almost dislocated her arm, but she grabbed the savior hand with her other hand promptly. A miracle! The maiden was hoisted, and even before she left the hole, Alexa knew it was Prince Magnus' hand.

How was that possible?

The First Prince put Alexa on her feet, and reaching for the torch again, examined the maiden thoroughly,

"Are you hurt?"

Instead of answering directly, she came close enough to look him in the eye, even in the semi-darkness broken only by the flickering light of the fire,

"Someone pushed me. Was it you?"

Magnus stared at the maiden as well, analyzing her expressions. Apparently the alcohol effect was gone. He looked perfectly sane and alert, Alexa noticed. But if Magnus was there, how could he be threatening Cordelia in his quarters?

"Alexa… Why would I have saved you if I had pushed you myself? Where is Cordelia? Did she fall into that traphole?" It was his exactly same questions.

"Magnus… Hurry! Let's go to your room!" she wouldn't waste any time explaining, and turned to make her way back, hurriedly. Magnus followed suit. The maiden was confused by what happened, but at that moment Lex knew two things: she could not trust the man who had just saved her. And she had to get to Cordelia.

It was so fast that the maiden was surprised, as it seemed that she had wandered in the darkness through those corridors for an eternity. When they were coming to the secret door of the room of the Prince, the First Prince grabbed her arm, and asked,

"Why did you leave Cordelia and why have you gone to that place alone?"

"Let go of me! Don't you really know what happened in your room?" with a jerk, the damsel broke free, and went in before him. The connecting door between the jack's room and the master bedroom was still locked. Alexa punched the door in fury,

"Cordelia?!"

There was no sound on the other side. Magnus pushed her gently aside and broke down the door using force.

Alexa barely waited for the door to open to pass through Magnus and enter the room. The maiden encountered a frightening scenario. Furniture and textiles were fallen as a sign of struggle. Cordelia was unconscious on the bed, with bruise marks on her arms and face. Her neck was clearly strangled and bloody.

Cordelia was alive, relieved Alexa could feel even before touch her.

The maiden ran to the bed to try to help the poor girl, but the Prince stood still, watching the scene.

At this moment too, the guards entered, attracted by the loud sounds of the break-in. Alexa shouted for a doctor to be brought.

"What the fuck is this?!" said Prince Gutard, entering just behind the guards.

Neither Magnus or Alexa could explain.

°°°

"I said it already, I went to my aunt's room, to talk to Lady Saskia and apologize to her. I was a little drunk, and a little sleepy. Cordelia knocked on the door, and Lady Saskia thought it would be inconvenient for us to be seen together, and insisted that I hide. Although I disagreed, I accepted, but I ended up dozing off and didn't see the two of them leaving the room. I woke up suddenly, hearing a knock on the safety passage door. I figured the two of them had been stuck there by accident. I went into the hall behind them. I saw the silhouette of Lady Saskia and tried to reach her. Which was good, because she was falling into a trapdoor or something," that was Prince Magnus' report to his father, in the Royal Office.

The next statement would be Cordelia's. When she could speak, that is.

Sitting in the chair next to the Prince, the Greek maiden evaluated each of his gestures, trying to understand that man of many facets.

At this moment, she was considering whether Magnus would have had time to go out the front door of his quarters and, through the Countess's room, to meet her in the secret passage. But, if the First Prince did it, why not kill her at once? Why save her? Professing a carnal desire for her was enough reason for doing such a stupid thing? She was a witness to his lack of control. And why didn't Magnus kill Cordelia? Was it a thoughtless act that he regretted?

And… who pushed her?

Alexa could have sworn that all of this had been the work of one of the Queens and their Shades. The Black Queen, perhaps, indignant at her son's fate?

The maiden, however, would like to know how conscious and conniving Magnus was with the activities of his mother's powerful Shade. One initiated in ancient dark cults. Did Magnus have anything to do with the attack on Cordelia at the villa, as she had originally thought? And when did she stop distrusting him?

The Sovereign Prince's snapping of fingers brought the maiden back from her unanswered assumptions.

"So as you said, Lady Alexa, you only heard a man's voice, because you were locked in the jack's room. However, Magnus denies that he was there. And you never actually saw Magnus in his bedchambers."

"Yes, Your Majesty, it was just like that. But the words I heard made me believe that it was Your Highness, the First Prince. Lady Cordelia seemed to treat him as if he were Prince Magnus."

"This is ridiculous!" Magnus muttered, quite annoyed. The Prince had already stated several times that he had not done anything that Alexa reported.

"What threats were these?" Gutard asked, puzzled.

"Horrible things like 'Because you tried to kill me, I'm going to watch you bleed the way you wanted me to bleed. I will see your flesh eaten by worms and your eyes gouged out by crows, and I will enjoy your misfortune! I hate you and your money! Why didn't you die? It would have been better that way! ' Horrible things," Alexa reported, feeling terrible for replicating those words. "Cordelia asked for clemency and said she was 'devoted' to the Prince ..."

The maiden halted her report at this point, with an enormous doubt falling on her head. Those voices ... Could she say with any certainty that they were the voices of Cordelia and Magnus? Magnus's voice was undoubtedly similar, and filled with emotion, but ... Cordelia's voice ... There was something wrong about that in her memory.

In any case, the startled expression on Prince Gutard's pale face upon hearing this part of her recounting was noticeable to the young maiden.

'But what's going on here?' Alexa wondered, questioning if, like her, the Prince knew why the ghosts attacked Cordelia. For now, this was the only explanation.

It wasn't the First Prince attacking Cordelia in the bedchamber. Even if Magnus were an excellent liar, would he have had the cold blood to rigidly fragile evidence of his innocence, after strangling the bride?

Furthermore, Alexa had the impression that Prince Gutard seemed to recognize a pattern, although he remained silent. Tapping his fingers in the usual rhythmic way, he thought for a while, while Magnus and Alexa remained silent and apprehensive.

"Magnus, get your Bride's father here. We will postpone this wedding."