It was her own screams that woke her from a deep sleep the next morning. Cold droplets of sweat rolled down Melia's forehead as she drew shallow breaths rapidly, sitting straight up in her bed. The adrenaline that had spiked in her body, jolting her to a waking state, continued to course through her veins, feeding the anxiety that clung to her brain like a parasite. She felt on fire, as if she needed to run for her life. Her eyes darted around the room, scrutinizing each piece of furniture or decorative object for any signs of an intruder or an imminent attack. But a quiet voice whispered in the back of her mind that there was none. That it had all been a dream. That she was safe in her room in the villa.
Safe until she left the walls of her suite.
Taking a deep breath, Melia fell back onto her pillows, feeling the adrenaline ebb away and her heartbeat slow to a normal pace. The dream had been fuzzy at first, but then shockingly vivid and violent. At the beginning, the Empress had been running away from Alcamoth, her clothes torn and her wings bleeding. The Homs Entia had tripped, and fallen several feet into a hole. After several moments of weightless falling, she landed in the darkness that led into a tunnel. Unable to climb out, she ventured into the black, using a fire spell to guide her. Its light had only been enough to help her put one step in front of the other without tripping and falling. The dread of something lurking in the shadows sent a cold shiver down her back. As she turned a corner, she came face to face with Camille, who lunged at her, tackling her to the ground and bringing the knife down into her chest as she screamed. At that point, Melia woke.
Remembering the crazed look in Camille's eyes, Melia rolled over, facedown in her pillows. She wanted to scrub the disturbing expression from her mind; as if it had never been there.
Melia heard the doors to her bedchamber open, but she did not sit up to see who it was. She already knew.
"Your Majesty, are you alright?" Elrich demanded.
"We heard screams and came right in." James added.
Melia raised her hand to dismiss them, embarrassed to meet their eyes. "No, no. I'm quite alright. Just a terrible dream this morning. Thank you for your concern. I'll just try to get an hour or two more of sleep."
"As much as we'd like to leave you be, your Majesty, your presence has been requested." Elrich said.
Sighing, she pushed herself up and turned her body to face them. Her silver silk pajamas glinted in the slivers of sunlight that had filtered between the openings in the curtains. "What's going on?"
"There seems to be an issue with the prisoner." James answered.
Melia cocked an eyebrow. "What is the problem?"
"It's best if you come see for yourself."
"Alright. I'll be ready in ten minutes." The guards exited and Melia willed herself to rise from her bed, wash, and change into clean clothes. All she wanted was to crawl back under the covers and sleep peacefully for another eight hours. Then she would feel refreshed. But it was not meant to be. As she sped through her morning routine, the Homs Entia's thoughts drifted towards Dunban, and their interaction the previous day. Certainly she hadn't meant to pour out her emotions in a moment of weakness, but he had been a wonderful listener. There was something freeing about sharing her internal dialogue with someone else. Though she knew she wouldn't be able to do it again. Then she remembered the feeling of his hand on hers. Melia felt the heat rise to her cheeks as she pulled on her pinstriped slacks and white button down shirt. That was also not something she would think about in depth, or allow herself to analyze. It it was meant as a friendly gesture, nothing more. She knew that.
Though he's never been one for physical affection, unless it was for Fiora, another internal voice said as she tied her hair up into a bun.
Now was not the time to indulge her girlish self. Pushing these thoughts aside, the Empress exited her suite, and with Elrich and James in tow, made her way towards the room where Camille was being held. Outside the door to the cell were four Homs Entia guards. Two for the daytime shift and two for the previous nighttime shift she assumed.
"What's the problem, gentlemen?" Melia asked as she approached. "Where is Camille?"
"Erm, well, your Majesty—" one began.
"It seems as though..." another interrupted but trailed off. None seemed to be able to offer up an explanation as to why she had been summoned from bed earlier than she would have liked. Instead, they moved from the entryway, allowing her passage inside.
As she walked into the cell, Melia found herself staring a few feet away at Camille, curled up in the embryonic position. Her right arm was outstretched, trying to grasp something. Cautiously, Melia took a few steps forward and saw it was a dagger that lay a few inches from the hand. In the harsh neon white light of the cell, the Empress could see the glint of blood along the sharp edge of the blade. Her breath caught in her throat and her hands began to sweat as she circled the body silently. When she came face to face with the Entia woman, Melia saw the deep slash along Camille's throat, from one end to the other. Blood seeped down the front of Camille's blue shirt, staining it a deep purple. It appeared the wound had continued to gush, after Camille had fallen to the ground, pooling around her, catching her torso, arms, and hair in its sticky substance. Swallowing, Melia studied the dead woman's face. Her eyes were closed, though her mouth was slightly open.
How had she gotten the weapon? Whirling around, Melia demanded of the guards, "How did she get a dagger? I though she had been thoroughly searched before being interred here."
Eyes darted between the four guards, an unspoken question of who was to answer the Empress' question. Finally, one met her eyes and said, "We did search her. She had nothing that was hidden. In fact, she hardly struggled as we put her away."
"When did you find her like this?"
The guard trembled as he replied: "This morning at the change of the guard. We came in to see how she was and bring her bread..."
"And no one came in or out all night?"
"No, your majesty. We were at our posts all night."
The Empress closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, feeling the migraine that was imminent. So Camille had committed suicide somehow. They must've missed the concealed weapon...But it still irked her; Melia wasn't satisfied with that explanation. If the guards had searched her and Camille did not have a weapon on her person when she was locked away, how did she get a knife to cut her own throat? Melia looked at the four guards and they shrank back, unnerved that the interrogation was not over. "If any of you know something, please say so now. It'll only be worse if I find out later that you had anything to do with this."
There was a moment of silence. No one spoke.
She was about to turn away when another guard stepped forward and blurted out, "I'm sorry, your Majesty."
"Faber!" The other guard hissed.
"Silence," Melia spat. The guard's eyes went wide and he scuttled backward, bowing his head. She turned towards the guard named Faber and nodded for him to continue.
"Your Majesty, I know not what it was. We were just standing by the door, watching as we should have been. Then everything felt fuzzy, and it all went black. When we came to, everything seemed normal. We checked on the prisoner, and she was in that same position. We called out to her and she didn't respond, so we thought she was sleeping, and only when our shift was up did we see she was dead…"
The gross negligence made her stomach turn, but Melia kept it to herself. There would be time later to reprimand them. Instead, she said, "Go to the clinics. Get yourselves checked out. See if the medics can find anything as to why the fainting spell ocurred." Grimly, Faber and his companion nodded and left. Next, the Empress turned to the guards who had been assigned the daytime shift. "As far as we know, this was a suicide. Please contact our coroner to collect the body. See if she had any family that would like to decide what to do with her remains." They nodded and departed silently.
"Your Majesty. You don't think that this was a suicide, do you?" James asked.
Her eyes met his and she shook her head. "Possibly. I do not believe Camille had the knife on her person when she was placed in the cell. Someone came and gave it to her and she decided to kill herself. Or someone came and killed her. Either is a possibility at this moment."
I'm not sure which is worse. The thought floated through her mind. So much death in such a small amount of time. It saddened her.
"Let's see if we can determine which it is." Elrich said. As he and James began to examine Camille's wound, the proximity of the knife, and the position of her body, Melia's mind ruminated on the identity of this supposed mystery visitor. Very few had been privy to the location of Camille's cell. Given that the palace and its inhabitants had been placed on lockdown after the assassination attempt yesterday, it was logical that this person was someone who had access to the palace. Her blood went cold. There weren't many that fell into that group. Restrictions had been enforced on those allowed in and out of the palace after the first assassination attempt. Now it was limited to those governmental members, guards, staff, and her family. If it were true, there was someone working against Melia in the palace, that someone was very close.
"Her eyes are shut." James said to Elrich.
"Yes, I noticed that," Melia said as she leaned against the wall of the room, looking up at the ceiling. She wanted to look anywhere but at the body.
"If she killed herself, there's a high chance her eyes wouldn't have been closed."
"And the position her body is in...it doesn't necessarily make sense with how she would have fallen if she drew the blade across her neck."
They fell silent, waiting for her response, but none came. Nothing was certain, but it seemed highly possible that someone had come in the dead of night and killed Camille.
Paranoia threatened to seep through the grooves of her brain and inundate her senses, causing her to see villains where there were none. But the Empress knew that giving in would be dangerous. Hyper vigilance was important, but she couldn't live every second of her life looking over her shoulder. She had to continue doing her job of supporting her people. A flame of rage ignited in the pit of her stomach as she thought of the terror this person had brought upon her. What did they think she would do? Step down? Leave her people without guidance? Without hope? She was Melia Antiqua, the Empress of the High Entia; she would never allow her fear to consume her and force her to turn her back on her people.
No. Melia would not run. She find the saboteur in the shadows. She would find this person and drag them into the light.