Annabeth
Annabeth had been there before. She'd walked the halls gawking at the frozen beauty that peeked occasionally from the huge windows which flaunted crystals for glass. She had kissed Ethan there... in a garden hidden behind those walls. She had hoped to find something meaningful with him in that moment... maybe she'd just cooked up some fairytale... to fall in love with an uncomplicated guy and have a great future, it'll be one without washing machines, super fast computers, long time before air travel became an everyday thing again... but it would have been a safe haven in a country which was once hers or rather... which would once belong to her.
But I'll go back.
Annabeth was going to go back. She'd help the rebels one last time and then hop onto Leo's ship and go back to leading her old life.
"She's really missing?"
"Yeaaaaah... but I swear I had nothing to do with it!"
She knew Leo didn't. Somehow when she'd seen her sister's blood streaming out of her body like little red rivers, she'd known that there was someone more malicious and terribly heartless behind this.
And she suspected it was the Emperor. She'd have him dead. Also Khione... she had to be the one who had killed Percy. He had died here and this was her home.
She looked at Jason sitting across her. His brows were furrowed as he pretended to think deeply about the day's menu.
"I've been gone for too long it seems... how about the duchess's usual?"
He looked warmly at his overgrown wife and squeezed her hand.
Khione's icy cheeks unexpectedly flushed.
Annabeth almost dropped the goblet she'd been sipping some fragrant ale from.
She looked over at the duchess again. She was wearing a pale blue gown without a corset. A horde of sapphires glinted from the hem and the sleeves. The redness travelled down her neck and disappeared between her blue collar.
It must be the baby.
But Annabeth knew that Khione actually thought that she was in love with Jason.
She had heard what the duchess had done to every single one of his lovers. She could have just as well as killed him.
"What are you saying love? You'll never be able to stomach my soups!"
Khione's laughter rung like the bells of death inside Annabeth's head. Her grip tightened around the goblet's neck. How she wished it were Khione's.
A frail brunette pushed the silver tray of soups. The whirring of the wheels was like the loveliest song. Each squeak on the mosaic floor resonated with Annabeth's thoughts of blood... of murder.
And then, like a maelstrom a blonde woman crashed with the maid.
Khione jerked back in her chair and clutched Jason's arm.
"What on earth! Are you blind girl?"
The brunettes hand shook. She lowered her head and apologised between muffled sobs and shaking jaws.
Khione stood up hastily and struck her.
The girl crumpled on the floor and shook.
"It is quite alright my ladyship. She will be careful next time I hope?"
The pearly red lips of the noble lady quirked up, she nudged the girl's head with a foot and grimaced.
"I had heard your maids were... prettier."
Khione's eyes went icy for a moment but in the next she was laughing and moving her hands around in hysterical gestures.
"You heard so Mildred? So amusing! But you must consider my reservations as a wife to such an astounding husband like my Jasper!"
Jason smiled tightly and stood up to take the lady's hand and kissed her knuckles in greeting.
Annabeth could see the fake amusement slip past Khione's face even though her smile remained.
She clutched the lady's shoulder and pushed her back, almost being playful about it.
"Silly me, silly me. Let me be done with the introductions now."
Khione patted Jasper's back and smiled at her friend,
"As you might already know, this is my beloved husband, Lord Jasper Antonito Elliot."
Annabeth glared down at her hands, her pulse beating an angry staccato rhythm against her wrists.
How could their plans have failed?
"And this,"
Displeasure dripped under the sugary coating of Khione's cheery demeanour.
"Is Jasper's uh adopted cousin, Anabel Fuchsia Laverna Odell... she might be a princess but she's a bit, uh... "
She giggled and covered her mouth coyly while tapping her temple.
"Anyway. Jasper, Anabel this is my dear friend who has recently returned from overseas, Lady Mildred Atlas Titania."
Annabeth's head jerked up and started straight at the striking blue eyes of the lady.
For the first time since she'd fallen, a sharp and audible cry escaped from the maid Annabteh had been watching all this time.
Lady Mildred... had returned from overseas.
Or from the rebel camp where she'd been a maid, Percy's maid. Where she'd offered Annabeth her help for killing him.
Annabeth looked at Jason sharply. His eyebrows quirked in confusion.
She wished to be a telepath at that moment. She couldn't speak in front of the other women and blow his cover, but she had to tell him.
In that moment Annabeth remembered that Khione thought her crazy. She decided to act the part then.
She opened her mouth to scream, to yell in hysteria but the noble lady beat her to it.
"Spy! She's a spy! She's a rebel!"
Khione's face paled. Her head jerked around the room frantically.
"Guards! Guards!"
Jason took a step towards her but Annabeth shook her head. Her cover might have been blown but his was still intact. The duchess clearly would never have her word over her friends.
She grabbed hold of his other arm and jerked him away from Khione.
"Noble scumbags! Today I am going to kill you all!"
Strong hands grasped her from behind and pulled at her. One of the guards got a hold of her hair and yanked.
She screamed but dug her nails into Jason's shirt.
"She's a spy. They know our plan. The food wasn't an accident."
The last whisper had barely left Annabeth's lips before a plate came flying at her face.
Annabeth let go of Jasper with a gasp and broke her fall with her arms. Blood dribbled down her chin and trickled to the ground.
The guards grabbed her and dragged her away.
Annabeth remembered to scream at some point.
Jason patted Khione's shoulder while looking after Annabeth's disappearing form.
At that moment she hadn't understood that crestfallen look on his face.
But when the guards dumped her across the rotting corpse of Rachel Dare she understood what it had been.
He thought he'd failed a friend... again.
Luke
Mildred was hastily strapping up her corset.
They'd had had a small interlude in the brooms closet. He just hoped he hadn't gotten her pregnant.
"So Jasper isn't the one who was the spy?"
Mildred patted her sweaty hair and smiled at him seductively.
"Yes. It was that girl... Anabel."
Luke stood up straight. Anabel huh. A common name it the early times.
"What did she look like?"
Mildred gave him a quizzical look.
Luke smiled at her and grabbed her hand. She glided towards him with a soft giggle and crashed against his chest. His fingers went to her stays and started unlacing them automatically. Luke had grown used to Mildred's ways. This always got her talking no... singing like a bird.
Mildred giggled again and clutched his shirt,
"like all nobles. Blue eyes, blonde head."
Luke wanted to throw the girl across the room in frustration and dissaointment.
"Are you sure she had blue eyes? I mean since you think she was a rebel..."
Mildred pretended to think for a minute then wound her arms around Luke's neck,
"I'm pretty sure."
Luke looked down at her blushed cheeks, golden curls and clear blue eyes. Her skin had tanned from all the labour the rebels had put her through. She wasn't short for the era and definitely was cunning and beautiful even if she was a whore.
But of course she didn't think of herself in that light. She was a lady who had apparently seen the whole world in her long overseas voyage and had fallen in love with her companion Luke Castellan, a boy of noble decent and had brought him along with her to Kyte to wed and start a family.
Or so the story went. That was how the Emperor had devised to include Luke into the noble society.
It seemed as if Mildred wanted a family before becoming an honest woman though.
After a couple of hours when Luke finally pried himself from her clutches. She pulled on her shift over her head and sighed at the sight of her yellow gown,
"What a mess you have made of me Luke."
Luke chuckled and nudged the golden gown sewn with yellow sapphires. He could just run away with it and never have to worry about working another day at that miserable courier company.
She opened the door quietly and looked around when a question suddenly popped into him mind.
"Where did you see her in the rebel camp?"
Mildred already had a foot out of the door, apparently she'd decided that being seen in her shift by a dozen horny guards was better than stooping to the level of a lowly servant and putting on her own garments.
"At the rebel camp? At that bastard's house I think."
A malicious glint made her blue eyes look electric.
"He was quite the looker though I must tell you, Tall and broody with green eyes and dark hair."
Hair stood on the back of Luke's neck. Green eyes, black hair. That description sounded awfully familiar.
Luke gave Mildred a careless smile and stretched his hands above his head.
"Were they lovers?"
Mildred snorted.
"Certainly. The gal blew up when I suggested slaughtering that bastard."
Luke gritted his teeth. This better not be her.
"Are you sure her name is Anabel?"
Mildred blinked at her,
"Something like that, I'm not sure though. Why? What else might it be?"
Luke looked around casually and rolled his shoulders.
"I don't know... maybe Arabel, Annabella, Annabeth-"
"Yes!"
Luke's head jerked up.
Mildred grinned at him and snapped her fingers,
"That's it! Her name! It's Annabeth! Or..."
"Or what?"
Mildred had missed the sharpness of Luke's words, she seemed to have drifted off to some dream place.
"Or was. Khione surely would have wrenched her innards out by now! What a sight! I must have a look!"
The door banged behind her.
Luke hastily grabbed his clothes and started dressing. Mildred was right. Knowing Khione she would have probably done that by now. But she was pregnant. There was a slim chance that she would overlook such unpleasantness for her motherly instincts.
It was not something that he would expect from Khione but he hoped...
The door to the broom closet banged shut again and dust floated and settled down on the floor again.
Annabeth
Annbeth was in a nightmare of nightmares. She's been curled up in a corner, the one farthest from Rachel's body which was ridden with insects, because... she couldn't tell. All she could think about were the spatters of intestines and blood on the floor around the poor dead girl.
Annabeth had wanted to puke her guts out the moment she'd been hit with the smell of rotting flesh.
But she'd held it back. She knew it wasn't the time to be thinking about food and water but the rational part of her brain had begged to defer. She couldn't lose what little she had in her belly, because that's all she'd have for as far as the foreseeable future went.
Keys jingled against the iron door as it opened with a deafening.
Three guards entered the room.
Annabeth hastily got up and looked around for place she could use to sneak out of. But the cell was a small bricked room with a small bulb which she was sure had been left aglow for her favour.
One of the guards stayed back at the shadows of the door, probably to stand guard while the two leered at Annabeth.
Both of them were blondes with varying shades of brown. One of them grabbed her wrist.
Annabeth jerked her hand away and bumped against the wall.
The guard nearest to her laughed and wiped his mouth. Annabeth tried to cringe away, all the way into the wall if she could. The long grisly beard of the man closest to her was specked with what appeared to be dried blood.
The other man grinned at Annabeth. He was quite large with huge abs and hands the size of plump ham. The foul odour of urine and precipitation and sex oozed from their dirty brown shirts and trousers.
"Now now dearie! There isna need to be scared."
Both of them laughed.
Annabeth raised her chin and glared at them,
"I'm not afraid of you... bloody rascals!"
Both of them tipped their heads back in laughter.
"Tas the best ya can do?"
The bulky one grinned and advanced towards her.
Annabeth tried to turn the other way and run.
But the other man was waiting for her. She tried to kick him but he dodged and lunged for her legs. Arms like steel wound around her calves and brought her down. Annabeth screamed and flailed at the bearded man. The other man grabbed her wrist and with another bark of laughter sat on her chest.
All the air left Annabeth's lungs. She couldn't breathe. It seemed as if someone had pummelled her lungs along with her rib cage with their meaty fists.
Annabeth thrashed and rasped for breath, occasionally letting short screams escape her throat.
But after a while her body started to grow limp. Those men were still holding her down with their bodies which weighed like cows from Jersey.
"Wos ganna take firs turn?"
Annabeth's mind recoiled at the thought. Treacherous tears leaked out of her eyes, making her already heavy eyelids heavier. It was becoming harder and harder to see straight while starving for oxygen.
I don't want this. I'd rather die. I don't-
"Me."
The voice was strong but calm and young.
But it was as if the third guard might have spoken from top of a well. His voice travelled down to reach Annabeth at the rock bottom but it wasn't quite like his anymore. It was altered by the depths of Annabeth's stark terror and lack of sense.
"Not fair boy!"
The bearded guard sounded amused.
The bulky one wasn't quite so happy with that suggestion.
"Here kidda! Grab the bish's neck. I should get the firs bit."
Grabbing both of Annabeth's thin delicate wrists with one hand, he rubbed her long tanned neck with the mud caked index finger of the other.
"My plan after all."
Annabeth thought of any possible root of escape. What could she do in such a situation before it was too late? She couldn't fight, couldn't run, couldn't scream... couldn't even move a single tissue.
The bulky man's patchy face came closer to her half lidded eyes.
The smell of cheap liquor and foul breath assaulted her nose and jerked her awake.
She screamed obscenities, and thrashed and shook with all her might. Her efforts only seemed to amuse the men.
And then when they grew bored of it the bulky one, deciding to not wait for the third guard to approach, dipped down and thrust his tongue inside Annabeth's mouth.
She bit down as hard as she could.
The guard cursed and struck her. Annabeth's cheek stung hot against her tears.
The guard glared at her.
And then they started shedding their clothes.
Annabeth shut her eyes and listened to the clangs of metal, cotton and wool hitting the bloody floor of her cell. She envied Rachel. At least she was gone now. She won't have to go through anything anymore. All her senses were dead... unlike Annabeth's which were heightened and shivering with fear and animosity.
The bulky guard leaned down on her again. This time she could feel the murky heat of his hairy chest rolling off her face.
He grabbed her neck and squeezed.
Annabeth made a gurgling sound.
"Try an bite me naw bish!"
A last thump of metal reverberated through the cell. Annabeth kept her eyes shut. She vowed to keep them shut till the end. No matter what they did to her, she won't be the witness of her own rape.
Her heart raced and hit against her ribs. Her lungs had given up on breathing and all her muscles were trying to break free of her restraints but to no avail.
And just when the smell of decay from the mouth of the man above her hit her nose and a pair of chapped and bloodied lips caught on to hers, three familiar words were uttered, quietly.
The men didn't seem to notice though. They jeered and tugged at Annabeth's flimsy grey silk, running their hands across her feet and thighs.
But Annabeth heard him. As clear as the first time she had.
They were the same three words that had been the first clear ones to have cut through her foggy mind when she'd landed in that strange chaos.
And they tore through her fear then.
"Say your prayers."
Jason
Jason had thought that everything had gone down the hill permanently when that Lady Mildred had crashed into their lunch tray.
But an hour later, Khione had gone into labour.
"Don't worry so much! it'll be alright."
Jason glanced down to his right outside the window and glared at the monstrous peaks of Freezing, they were still mostly covered in snow and beauty.
He was standing outside Khione's bed chamber in her tea room.
He could hear her anguished screams and the soothing and comforting whispers of the hand maidens who were tending to her. He had sent for Dr. D and had been told that he was on his way.
Long, neatly manicured fingers lightly wrapped around his arm.
Jason forced himself to look down.
The fire burned bright on the hearth and played across her face in shadows and light. It made her look the part of the vicious creature that Jason had come to assume she was.
"Don't worry yourself too much love. Today is a good day, that rebel spy was caught."
Jason staged a sigh and surreptitiously moved away towards the hearth to get her hands off him.
"It's not that."
The fire burned and spit coal inside the beautifully carved fireplace. The ornately carved dark metal depicted the fall of angels. Jason ran his fingers along the cravings of Satan and thought of his grandfather.
"With the ball tomorrow night and Khione and the child I..."
Mildred made a humming sound,
"Well in that case my lordship why don't I see to the remaining arrangements? It's imperative for you to be beside your wife."
Jason forced himself to smile at the sight of the spy. Her hair was dishevelled and her gown hastily put together, a loose woman of sorts most probably, a perfect one for pulling secrets out of her lovers.
"You're too kind lady but..."
Mildred quirked an eyebrow.
Jason chose his next words very carefully.
"I think Khione needs a friend at a time like this."
Mildred nodded, making a few dusty curls slip out of her untidy bun.
Jason hoped he'd said the right thing.
"I'll see to the leftover arrangements then but send for me as soon as my child is born."
Mildred stretched her pearly red lips and smiled,
"Certainly!"
Jason marched out off the room.
The emperor might think that their plan was dead but he didn't know that the duke of Freezing was a rebel leader.
Jason nodded at the guards outside Khione's rooms bowed at him.
It was time to appoint new palace guards.
Two more chapters and an epilogue! I'm so close to the ending! Please tell me if this chapter was okay. I'll post the next chapter within ten days as promised! Please keep reading!
IIII Winter Wolf IIII : Thank you soooo much! Yep I'm on wattpad! My pen name is Astarte. I spelled it right there xD
AnnaUnicorn : Wow! Thanks so much for reading! There are a lot of typos I know! I'm a bit of a downer at editing. I read it right even if it's wrong most of the times and it kind of ruins my efforts of editing. And about Percy...
Guest : I swear I'll update this story withing ten days till it ends. Don't worry!
Sava : Hey Sava! You can call me Aster! I'm so happy you took your time and wrote to me! I'm not that great though but I'm trying every day. Luke isn't a monster yes, but he's done terrible things. There are many people out there like him you know. And Rupi Kaur! I absolutely loved one of her poems that I'd read a while back. I hope I can be as good as her one day.
Maya : Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! As for Percy...
frostfeatherthewriter : Dr D huh? I wonder...
The Whispering Words Of Death : I know right! Me too. The craziest two years of my life and I'm glad they're over. I'll update within ten days now on for this story. Please keep reading! And Percy...