My dear, we are slow dancing
in a burning room
-unknown

-----❅-----

- Cephas -

-----❅-----

I had my eyelids down, breathing deeply in and out.

When I opened my eyes again and found myself in Tenebris' witch room, I smiled. "Good job, Xerxa."

Because of her, I could be brought back to Tenebris as quickly as possible. It would take my remaining army a few more days to get from the mountains to here. But that was nothing to worry about. After all, very soon I would have a crueler, even more powerful army.

The witch, whom I heard breathing heavily behind me, did not answer me. Instead, I heard her walking toward me.

"Do you have it?" she groaned out from beside me.

"Of course I have it," I replied. What a question. I was getting everything I wanted. I was so powerful that soon the whole world would be at my feet.

Slowly, I pulled out the bloody organ. Since it had left the body of the primordial witch, it had been motionless and silent.

Xerxa seemed to float towards the heart as if hypnotized. Her deep black eyes fixed on it, her hands with the long fingers greedily reached out for it. The sight disgusted me. Witches were truly wretched. Spawns of hell.

"No," I objected, removing the heart from her sight. "We've discussed this. You need to recover first. The last few days have taken a lot of magic out of you."

It wasn't that I cared about her life. It was just that she was the only witch far and wide who was willing to go against her own kind. All the other witches had been loyal enough to die rather than betray their sisters.

Xerxa had even done so with joy. Because she wanted the heart of the original witch. To be the most powerful of all witches.

And whoever ruled the most powerful witch in the world was the most powerful man on earth.

"Farther, we will wait for few days," I ordered. "Then we will insert your heart, Xerxa."

-----❅-----

- Nicolas -

-----❅-----

"It's just like Clara said," Victorine whispered, leaning a little toward me as she walked so I could understand her words without taking my eyes off the city streets. "This is just Cephas Kingdom now."

The streets were so old, chapped, and potholed that workers could barely move their wheelbarrows without constantly getting stuck somewhere. Skinny, scrawny children sat on corners of houses begging. People maimed by wars lay on scraps of blankets along the roadsides.

The shutters of the crumbling houses were pulled tight, and some windows had been completely nailed shut.

Victorine slowed down. Looking back, I noticed that a small, skinny girl with dirt on her face had tentatively pulled her by her dress. I recognized pain in Victorine's face. The king's daughter had no choice but to keep walking.

We continued to head towards the castle in the distance, which could not be missed due to its enormous size.

We had not been able to take weapons with us, that would have been too risky. But if everything went well, we wouldn't need them either. Today, we weren't going into the castle to kill Cephas. Not yet.

We didn't even know if Cephas had returned from his journey yet. Normally it took a few days to travel from the heart of the mountains to here. And furthermore, we were just going to use Victorine's skills today to do a little spying.

We had to be damn careful. In order to kill Cephas we had perhaps only one possibility, in which I could not fail under any circumstances.

When we were almost at the castle walls, the surroundings changed. The houses became larger, the streets wider and smoother. Here lived the people who earned a lot. Who, in contrast to the rest of the population, were obscenely rich.

Then, at the castle walls, we caught sight of other nobly dressed people entering the castle courtyard and then joining the long line to be admitted into the castle.

I looked at the lush dresses of the women, the tight pants and loose shirts of the men, and compared them with our own clothes. Clara had done a good job.

Victorine wore a wig with long, dark blond hair and waves that hid her wound at the nape of her neck. My dark hair was hidden under a wig whose half-length light brown hair was tied into a braid.

When we got in line, we didn't chat happily like the other couples. As inconspicuously as possible, we observed our surroundings and surveyed the castle courtyard. At the huge entrance gate of the castle, I could spot four armed men checking invitations. At some regular intervals, guards stood distributed around the courtyard, keeping a watchful eye on everything.

We moved forward. I offered my arm to Victorine, whereupon she accepted it and put her hand on my upper arm. On and on we advanced. Through the fabric of my long, loose shirt, I felt the king's daughter's hand begin to sweat.

I approached her, put my mouth to her cheek, and kissed her lightly as camouflage for the public gaze. "If you run to the dungeon, then we will die," I then whispered in her ear, again reminding her of reality.

When I looked back into her face her jaw was tense. She looked like she wanted to kill me.

"Now smile," I ordered her, pulling my own mouth into a fake smile as well, and led us to one of the guards at the front gate. With proud posture, I showed him the fake tickets.

Fortunately, Clara's imitation was so good that apparently you really couldn't tell the difference. Or it was the guard who waved us in without a closer and proper examination of the tickets.

With an almost painful grip, Victorine clutched my arm as we entered. The floor shone as if the fine white marble had just been polished. We followed the other slowly walking couples and formally dressed employees showing us the way down a long hallway adorned with countless candles and paintings.

Then it opened up in front of us: the throne room, the size of which I had never seen before. Unlike the one in Sanguis, this was a pure display of power and wealth.

The floor was so pure, smooth, clean and immaculate that one could see oneself reflected in it. The same was true of the mirrors, which were attached to the ceiling above in decorative shapes and formations combined with painted images of forests.

Gem-studded chandeliers hung from the ceiling and, together with countless sconces and long, thick candles, illuminated the entire room.

The hall was full, but far from crowded, with people slowly dancing and twirling around to the music played by a music-making group in the center of the room. On almost all sides were long tables with loads of delicacies and small glasses with liquids in them.

We walked down the stairs almost conspicuously slowly, because we wanted to take as long as possible to get an overview at the same time. But no matter where I looked, Cephas was nowhere to be seen. Not even on the side of the hall that was clearly set apart. The mighty throne guarded on all sides, with its red-colored leather and dark, shiny wood, was empty.

Then we reached the bottom of the stairs. I pulled my arm from Victorine's grasp, bowed to her, and held out my hand to her. "May I ask you for a dance?"

Victorine, who only hesitantly grasped my hand, apparently wondering about my formal salutation, looked distinctly tense.

I knew she could only be thinking of her sister. But we needed information first. We couldn't sneak around everywhere in the castle. If we did, we'd probably get to her sister sooner than we'd like - and in the dungeon in a dark and cold cell.

Gently, I pulled Victorine onto the dance floor with me, positioned her hands properly on my body, and slowly led us through the dance.

But Victorine's mind was obviously not in that throne room. It was as if she felt she was closer to her sister than before during our trip. I could only hope for her that Crescentia was still alive at all.

When the dance was over, I pulled her to the side where fat men were helping themselves to food on the long tables. While they talked, they stuffed small sausages and cheese into their mouths. They were smacking so hard that it was hard to miss the chewed remnants in their oral cavities.

An employee scurried between them, refilling the food, gathering dirty dishes and used napkins.

At an appropriate distance from the men, we approached the tables. I approached Victorine and put an arm around her waist. "My lady, what does your palate crave?", I asked in a raspy voice.

"Alkohol," she replied dryly, without hesitation and not exactly seductively. She reached out her arm for a glass and downed the contents in one.

I struggled to keep my smile up. She was a king's daughter! Wasn't she supposed to be able to behave herself?

Or maybe her mind was just clouded by the thought of her sister. My plan to have Victorine admit in a high and shy voice that she couldn't make up her mind had failed. For then I would have disappeared, hoping that any of the men would want to help her choose.

"Don't," I improvised a new plan and smiled to keep up the facade. In addition, I tried to signal the nearby men to Victorine with my eyes. "There are rumors going around. That your clothes will fall off quickly if you drink a lot."

Victorine, who now also seemed to finally understand, emitted a slightly too loud, embarrassed giggle. "Still, I'm afraid I can't resist," she fluted. God, she really was a horrible actress.

"And I, my lady," I said in a firm voice, "cannot resist you. However, you know I am a decent man, so I have a wife and children at home."

With one step the king's daughter was with me. She placed her index finger in the middle of my chest and then slowly ran it down my torso. "No one has to know," she whispered in my ear in a dark voice that sent a chill down my spine. Her index finger sent an honest shudder through my body, so I didn't even have to fake flinching. 

"I can't," I groaned out. "I'm sorry, my lady." With those words, I turned and walked away, crossing the dancing crowd until I reached the other end of the hall.

I took the time to wander around the room a bit, politely declining questions about dances from single women off the dance floor.

I then stopped some distance away to look at the huge throne. Inwardly, I tried to contain my anger, although I would have loved to have a dagger to slash the throne. Cephas did not deserve to sit on it. To be a king and to rule over a kingdom. This man was a monster.

I quickly turned away before anyone else noticed my stare. I meandered back to the dining tables and noticed that Victorine had apparently successfully struck up a conversation with two of the men. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary conversation, even though the men were adopting a somewhat officious posture. No one suspected that Victorine was currently searching her soul from front to back.

I took the opportunity to slowly walk around the entire hall. There were doors everywhere, seemingly leading to other rooms. And only three opened and closed the entire time. Apparently, firstly, the door for the employees and secondly, the guests who wanted to visit the bath. Unobtrusively, I leaned against a wall and waited until there was no guard in sight. Then I tried to open the first of the locked doors, but in vain. When I had finally circled the entire hall, I let out an annoyed sigh.

So, in order to explore the castle further and get more information, we would have to go back up the stairs and walk the way we came. Which was clearly way too dangerous. Here, I could have still gotten out of looking for the door to the bathroom.

When I went back to check on Victorine, she was no longer there. The men had also disappeared, and in their place were now a couple of women drinking. I thought I remembered turning some away to dance earlier.

With my heart beating faster, I looked around. My scalp was itching, it suddenly got way too hot under my wig. Trying to stay calm, I watched the dancing crowd and was glad when I finally caught sight of her light blue dress and blonde waves.

The musicians were playing a fast song, changing dance partners several times. Which meant lots of chances for eye contact with lots of people. Clever King's Daughter.

As if noticing my glance, she suddenly looked over at me. Although she was dancing with another man and repeatedly turning in circles, she kept glancing at me.

After the last bar of the song, she seemed to apologize and then hurried over to me. I handed her my arm, which she grabbed. I smelled alcohol coming from her mouth and detected light sweat on her forehead. Judging by her good stamina, this was certainly not from dancing, probably more from the constant use of her skills.

I elegantly steered us through the dancing people and headed for the stairs. As we went up, I pretended to prop Victorine up a bit to make her look drunk. Leaving the party so early for no reason would have been too conspicuous. Without a word, the guards let us pass.

Apparently all the guests had been let in by now. We were completely alone in the corridors. Slowly we walked along the marble floor, while Victorine still leaned lightly against me.

I didn't know if I could ask for results here. On the one hand, I was burning with curiosity, but on the other hand, we couldn't risk anything. The walls in castles always had ears of some kind.

"That was a very enlightening evening," the king's daughter covertly tried to tell me the yield of information.

"That's nice," I smiled, honestly this time.

As we continued walking, Victorine slowed down. I noticed she was looking toward a turnoff that was barely lit and obviously not the way out.

Before we could discuss it, she yanked me along and hurried toward it. Cursing inwardly, I tried to hold her back. That was too risky, even if there were no guards around. They could reappear at any time.

But Victorine pulled me forward so firmly that I began to doubt. Did she have a plan? Did she know where this passage led? What information had she been able to gather?

At the end of the corridor was a large door, whose handle Victorine grasped. She pushed it down and jiggled it, but it remained locked.

"What are you doing?" I whispered with a slight hiss in my voice.

"I thought we were going to search the castle," she replied just as quietly.

"Damn, are you crazy?", I cursed. "This is way too risky. We discussed this."

"Then why did you lead us out of the hall?" Victorine's gaze seemed even angrier in the shadows than her normal angry look.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me to leave that hallway. "Because I thought you were done or needed a break."

Jerking, Victorine pulled her hand free and stopped. "You thought I was done? I needed a break? Nicolas, my sister is here somewhere! If I have to, I'll search every soul in the hall for the rest of the night."

After the end of her words, I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. Footsteps that grew louder and louder. From several people.

"Damn," it escaped my mouth. Victorine was frozen motionless beside me, fixing her eyes on the end of the corridor, where we were about to be discovered.

As the pounding from the guards and the clanking sounds from their metal armor grew louder, I pressed Victorine against the wall and pressed my lips to hers.

I looked into her wide eyes.

"What are they doing?", I heard someone at the end of the hallway speak.

Victorine's physical proximity made my cheeks heat up. My heartbeat quickened and quickened. Slowly, I raised a hand and gently pressed the back of her head against me. As my lips explored the taste and softness of her lips I realized I really had my damn eyes closed.

Another person from back there laughed. "What does it look like, Alpheus?"

"I'm already aware of that! Only they're not supposed to be here," the guard continued to argue, but apparently not confident enough to send us away himself.

However, I cared precious little about that right now. A wave of heat ran through my body as the king's daughter returned my kiss and reached into the fabric of my shirt with one hand behind my back. During the kiss, I opened my mouth a bit to feel the moist heat of her lips even more intensely.

"Oh, leave those two alone. Let the poor man have his fun," spoke another. "My wife hasn't been doing it with me for weeks." His last sentence came out of his mouth shared with a deep sigh.

I now put my second hand to Victorine's cheek. When she opened her mouth too, a quick breath escaped me. I leaned even deeper into the kiss while her hands clasped at my neck, trying in vain to push my head further toward her. But two faces could not get any closer. More hot breath could not be felt on each other's skin.

"Besides, the door is locked anyway."

And then I heard the guards disappear again.