Chapter Eight : The Root Of Rot
781 Words
Elira had lived in the castle for nearly a week when the dreams turned violent.
Not nightmares—visions.
Each night she was pulled from sleep like a puppet on strings, thrown into a memory that was not hers. And always the same beginning: she stood in a grand hall of white marble, beneath a chandelier of stars. A crown lay on the floor, cracked in half. Blood dripped from her fingers.
And Kaelen—whole, once—stood beside her, screaming without a voice.
When she awoke, her pillow was soaked with tears. Sometimes blood.
She needed answers. And the prince would not give them.
So she searched.
During the day, when the castle was quieter—less alive—she wandered farther. Past the west wing. Past the doors Kaelen had f*******n her from entering. She carried a small dagger in her boot, stolen from an abandoned armory. She didn’t know if it would help, but it made her hands shake less.
One hallway in particular seemed to resist her, always changing. It was built of gray stone veined with green, like the walls had grown moss beneath their skin. Doors rearranged themselves when she blinked. Once, she turned a corner and found herself back at her own chambers—despite having walked in the opposite direction.
The castle was testing her.
But eventually, it let her in.
She found it behind a bookcase that hadn’t been there the day before. A narrow spiral stair, descending deep beneath the bones of Draemor.
The air grew colder as she went down.
She lit a candle, though the flame flickered like it feared the dark more than she did.
At the bottom of the stairs, she found a door.
Iron. Sealed with ancient symbols. One of them pulsed when she touched it—recognizing her blood, or her soul. She couldn’t tell which.
The door opened.
Behind it was a chamber of roots.
Thick, black vines twisted through the walls and ceiling, pulsing faintly like veins. In the center of the room stood a tree—dead, yet somehow alive. Its bark bled. Its branches reached upward like skeletal hands, and nailed to its trunk were names.
Dozens. Hundreds.
All carved in bone.
All women.
Elira stepped forward, breath caught in her throat.
One of the names glowed faintly.
Elira.
Fresh. Waiting.
She staggered back.
“What is this place?” she whispered.
But something stirred behind her. Not a beast. Not a shadow.
A woman.
Or what had once been one.
She was draped in rotted silks, her face hidden by a black veil. Her fingers were long and clawed, tipped in gold. Her voice, when it came, was dry as paper and full of sorrow.
“You should not have come.”
Elira raised her dagger. “Who are you?”
“I was the first,” the woman said.
A chill passed through the chamber.
“The first bride. The first sacrifice. The first root.”
Elira’s voice trembled. “What happened to you?”
“I loved him. And I tried to break the curse.” Her veil shifted. Beneath it, teeth gleamed like broken glass. “But love alone is not enough. It must be fed.”
The tree groaned. One of the roots lashed out across the floor, brushing against Elira’s foot. It recoiled as if burned.
“You are different,” the woman murmured. “But the curse does not care. It only knows hunger.”
Elira stepped back. “How do I stop it?”
“You must find its heart,” the woman said. “But be warned—once you see it, it sees you. And it will not let you leave.”
A sound echoed behind them.
Footsteps.
The woman vanished like smoke.
The door slammed shut.
Kaelen stood there, fury in his eyes.
“I told you not to come here.”
Elira faced him, defiant. “You told me nothing. So I came to learn.”
He looked past her at the tree, the names, the bleeding bark.
His expression twisted—not anger. Pain.
“I wanted to spare you this.”
“No,” she said. “You wanted to control me.”
“You don’t understand what this place does. What I do.”
“Then explain it.”
But he only shook his head. “There is no explanation that doesn’t end in madness.”
Elira looked again at the glowing name on the tree.
Her name.
“I will find the heart of this curse,” she whispered. “Even if it kills me.”
Kaelen closed his eyes.
“It will.”
- Writer
