Chapter 194: The Chamber Of Stitched Necks
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[Music recommendation: Secession Studios - Violin Music - Lucifers Waltz]
She was so disturbed by what she had witnessed that she had forgotten to keep her senses open to the outside. Then she heard a click, and her bewildered eyes snapped to the door.
That’s when she noticed the turning of the doorknob.
Not waiting a second longer, she clocked herself back in the shadow patch and moved to the far corner of the room beneath a shelf.
A moment later, she saw who had entered. High heels struck the cold, dark floor with crisp, echoing clicks, each step announcing the arrival of the newcomer into the chamber.
It was then that Cece saw a familiar face and froze. The figure who stepped into the room was none other than Queen Viva herself.
Viva glided forward effortlessly, with her black gown hugging her slender frame like a shadow coming to life. In one hand, she carried a lantern, its dim glow shooing away the darkness and casting distorted silhouettes across the chamber walls.
She moved toward the rows of dead women, and Cece watched in revulsion as Viva’s pale green eyes drifted over each corpse slowly with fascination, filled in her eyes. That sickeningly pleased smile curled across her lips, as though she were admiring her prized collection.
A cold and violent shudder ran down Cece’s spine at the sight.
Viva sashayed into the room as if she were taking a stroll through a museum, admiring pieces of art rather than the dolled-up corpses of women. As she moved along the row, she stopped in front of one of them and lifted her long-nailed hand to caress the cheek of a woman with long blond hair.
"Ah...the newest addition to my collection." Her voice dripped with satisfaction. She smacked her blood-red lips together, which sounded grotesquely loud in the silence. "Truly exquisite." Her hand continued its slow, perverse caress.
"You are just so adorable..." she whispered, before leaning in too close and pressing a lingering kiss onto the dead woman’s lips.
Cece’s stomach twisted violently; she really thought she was going to hurl again. She was so aghast at Viva’s actions that her mind failed to make any sense of it.
"Mmm...still so soft." Viva inhaled deeply, as if savouring the scent of the corpse. "It’s always the fresh ones with the most supple skin," she purred, her tone sickly sweet that dripped with madness.
She finally released the woman’s face and glided to the next chair.
Cece’s eyes, however, stayed locked on the blond woman. Her features...they looked familiar. Like Cece had seen her somewhere before.
Even in the midst of this nightmarish scene, Cece forced her mind to search. Then a memory flashed vividly before her.
A little girl with the same blond hair...the one she had met at the bakery yesterday.
Heidi!
’Oh dear gods! Is that Lucy? Heidi’s missing sister?!’ Cece’s eyes widened in realisation. It felt as though the air had been knocked out of her lungs as she understood that the poor girl’s sister had ended up like this.
Cece, who rarely grew emotional, felt her eyes well up at the thought of how heartbreaking it would be for Heidi to learn that the sister she had been desperately searching for was no longer alive. And worse....Lucy hadn’t even been given the respect of a proper burial. Her body had been reduced to nothing more than a prop, used to satisfy the twisted obsession of a deeply disturbed old woman.
And it wasn’t just her. The same fate had befallen dozens of women, all arranged like lifeless dolls. Cece still couldn’t comprehend how or why someone could do something so monstrous. This queen...surely she had no soul. Or perhaps she truly was the devil herself, taking pleasure in treating people as if they were nothing.
As if they hadn’t had families waiting for them to return. As if they hadn’t been someone’s daughter, wife, sister... and so many roles a woman plays, so many lives she touches.
Yet here they were....being reduced to nothing.
Cece trembled with rage at the thought of giving this woman nothing more than death. But the moment that idea crossed her mind, she grew even angrier with herself, because death was far too much of a mercy for someone like her. Especially after what she had done to Ivan. Her own brother.
No... death would be far too easy for such evil!
While Cece shook with barely contained fury, Viva continued caressing and inspecting "her dolls." Her pale green eyes drifted over their slowly decaying skin. She clicked her tongue in displeasure and muttered, "Hmm... maybe I should tell Jareld to have something applied to their skin...they’re getting a bit rough."
Then she poked another lifeless body. "Or perhaps have finer hay stuffed into them to keep them supple," she mused, as casually as someone discussing fabric.
She then glanced toward the other side of the room, her lips curling into a vicious smile. "Ah! I cannot wait to have my latest one added to the collection. My soon-to-be daughter-in-law will be my most prized piece of all," she rasped, almost in ecstasy at the thought of turning Eve into one of her dolls.
At those words, Cece felt as if she had been jolted out of her mid rage, and her eyes widened.
’Daughter-in-law? Is she talking about Evelyn?’ she thought in utter shock.
As Queen Viva turned to look around the room, it was then that her gaze landed on the open curtain that revealed the bloodied bathtub. She suddenly rushed over and yanked the curtain fully aside as she frantically scanned the dimly lit chamber for any sign of an intruder.
"Is there a rat in here?" Viva murmured, her narrowed eyes sweeping across the shadows.
As she searched, Cece held her breath, cursing herself for being careless enough to leave the curtains open. But could anyone blame her after witnessing something so horrific? She absolutely could not afford to be caught by the queen....not now. Not when she needed to tell others as soon as possible about what she had discovered.
So she remained perfectly still, pressing herself further into the darkness beneath the shelf, willing herself to disappear.
When Viva didn’t see anything else out of place, she began to relax and returned to the bathtub. "Hmm...maybe I left it open," she murmured.
She dragged her fingers along the dark, bloodied rim of the tub, as if she were handling something precious. "Mmm...I wonder what her blood will do for my skin," she crooned.
"A single bath might peel twenty years off me...perhaps even take me back to my teenage years." At that, though, a slow, feverish smile stretched across her face. "Oh, that would be divine."
She threw her head back and burst into a jagged, deranged laugh that bounced off the dark stone walls, making Cece want to shut her ears at the horrible sound.
Then abruptly, the laughter died down, and her lips tightened into a contemplative thin line. "Only if my son uses her enough first and then gives her to me," she murmured, voice dripping with casual cruelty. "But considering how obsessed he is with her right now..."
A low, displeased hum slipped from her throat, "I have a feeling he’ll cling to her far longer than I’d like."
Her pale green eyes gleamed with hunger and frustration as she imagined it.
She let out a long sigh, "Ah...young people are so easily enchanted by their shiny new toys." The hint of disdain strongly laced her voice.
With that, she drew the curtain, hiding the blood-soaked tub as if it were nothing more than an untidy secret. Picking up the lantern in her hand, she walked toward the door, only to pause once more to let her pale green eyes sweep over the rows of corpses in admiration.
Then, finally, she turned to walk out and shut the door with a quiet click that felt louder than a scream.
For a long while, Cece didn’t move, or she couldn’t move. She remained fused to the shadows until she heard the soft creak of the upper door opening. Viva’s voice drifted down in a hushed, commanding tone, ordering the guards not to let anyone enter, before her footsteps faded into the distance.
It was only then that Cece dared to breathe again.
But the moment she realised she was finally alone, terror jolted through her like lightning. She didn’t want to be in this room for a second longer! Not with those bodies or the stench of dead and blood. Sensing this was her opportunity, Cece bolted out of the dreadful chamber as fast and silently as her trembling limbs would allow.
Once she made it out safely, she realised the sun had already set, and it struck her that the others must be worried sick about her. Her thoughts went first to Edward...then to her brother. She hurried off, determined to inform them as quickly as possible about everything she had discovered.
At the back of her mind, her worry for Ivan and Eve didn’t lessen....if anything, after witnessing just how truly sick the queen was, her fears had increased tenfold. Before she could set out to find them, she needed to return to the dungeon in case the queen decided to check on them.
With the intention of heading out again afterwards, Cece quickly slipped into the familiar routes leading back to the dungeon.
