Amidst the Sleeping Castle
By Liam Q. D. Hall
The black figure’s footfalls resounded off the paving stones, echoed off the white walls of the castle, carried his arrival to the denizens. Bodies crowded the court, dressed in the colors of red, blue, and purple. They wore the emblem of citizenry in patches upon their shoulders, on brooches on their bosoms, and on buckles on their belts.
Only the soleil clad solein exile in black moved among the reposed crowd. Sighs and snores could be heard in the quietude. Some chests rose and fell, eyes flitting behind lids on sweating faces dreaming of spring while trapped in winter. Other’s stared sightless from grinning skulls, their bodies opened, the ribs white upon the clean white stone.
The Exile’s recusant blood refused to slumber under the spell. He walked through the immaculate arches and marmoreal colonnade, avoiding the sprawled bodies with ease. He approached the keep which gazed down with ridicule in its tall and slitted oculi.
He went to the quatrefoiled door of bronze, the porter a skeleton at his post. He entered the maw, steps calling to its inhabitor.
Clack, clack, clack through the passages, the Exile wended. The light hushed like evening sunshine, silencing the grave stillness already present.
Crossed spears in stiff grips, the owners desiccated but still standing sentinel heralded the throne room.
Within sat a queen arrayed in yellow, her terrible eyes hidden beneath a hood at once ancient but opulent. Jewelry adorned her chest, great chains of platinum and gems, their luster seemingly dimmed in shade. Her arms were bare and as stark as a corpse’s. They were covered in scratches as if some unsatisfiable itch was beneath the skin. They ran to wrists covered in simple but regnant bands. She licked her cruor crusted lips as the Exile entered her hall.
With rusted nails upon long and beautiful fingers, the gyden of the citadel gestured and her pet from beyond the throne came forth. Its scales were tarnished electrum, a paucity of xanthous beneath. Cinders were in its lambent gaze, expectation in its regard and in its taut musculature; a roar ready to blaze forth.
Energy built in the angsty room long unaccustomed to pregnant moments.
"Welcome to the feast," the queen said as she motioned the Exile forward with ringed finger. A frisson shook his frame but he advanced, loosening the shroud upon the irregular bladed cross on his back. The hame of dubious origin fell to the cold stones. The Exile smiled, his fangs glinted. The Queen, fiendishly buttressed, stood and pulled back her hood, the red maligning stress of her eyes an apocalypse.
