"Look at them all... Like flies buzzing around a fresh pile of shit..." hissed the gruesome cadaver skulking in the corner of the shadows. He'd once been his grandfather, but now he was nothing more than worm food. Alexander knew better than to try to look at him directly. He wasn't really there—at least not in a physical sense.

"Look, pretty little things! Oh, poor pretty things!" said his aunt, who was just as goolish a sight—only she was tucked in the shadow beneath his chair, her wide bulging eyes watching everything from the level of a cockroach.

At one point in his life, they'd frightened him. But by now, he barely flinched when a decaying hand shot out from behind a bookcase to try and snatch the hair of a maid who passed by.

Her only reaction was to reach up and touch her hair as if expecting to find some bug or thread caught in it. Only Alexander could see his dead relatives—an affliction passed down to each generation. He really was cursed, as they say, condemned to listen to them his entire life until finally joining them one day in death.

But they did have their uses.

"She's coming!" One of his great aunts howled passing through the reflections in the picture frames from down the hall. "Here she comes! The queen of hell herself!"

"Eeee! Wretched bitch!" his aunt under the chair wailed, clawing at the fine rug like a rabid animal but not daring to come out into the light.

There was one voice that rose above them all, however, not in volume, but in conviction. "Here she comes... Look sharp."

Alexander closed the book upon his father's command just before the empress entered the library. He was one of the few specters that hadn't yet lost his mind to death, but his desires were still inline with all of the others.

Along with the tsarina were two maids who stood a few steps back to either side of her. Though she was dressed rather modestly for an empress, to signify that she was still in mourning, she was wearing a rather pleasant smile that didn't look natural on her. "Here you are," she said, folding her hands in front of herself as she came to a stop in front of Alexander. "You're not always an easy one to find. I'd like to ask a favor of you."

The shadows in the room writhed with his ancestors' whispered curses, but Alexander tried to focus on her words—not an easy task with about two dozen spectral onlookers. Even after a lifetime of living with this affliction, Alexander still couldn't boast having mastered the art of ignoring them. Their distraction was an ever present burden on him.

His father was less tiresome but the most intrusive—always by his side and always calculating.

"Of course, ask away," Alexander replied in a leveled tone.

Lisa seemed pleased with his directness. "It has to do with the wedding tomorrow. Traditionally, it's the father or the eldest son that gives away the bride."

"Ruslan has neither..." Alexander said, trying to block out the chorus of evil laughter that emanated from around them. He shared the departeds' hatred for the royal family, he really did, but when it came to Ruslan, he failed to find humor in the prince's suffering. At worst, he pitied him and his misfortune of being the tsarina's only living child.

Her face settled into something harder to read. "Correct," she said, "Which is why I'm asking if you would do it."

All at once the library fell silent for Alexander, free of the cackles and murmurs of the dead, but he could feel their many eyes on him—waiting.

"It would be my pleasure," he replied casually, and offered a brief smile to the empress, but said nothing more, as he was not a man of many words.

"Wonderful," she chimed, before glancing pointedly at his attire. "It will be a formal affair, as I'm sure you can imagine... Please do your best."

She had no other direction for him; no parting words, not a breath of a 'thank you', nor any other show of gratitude... Instead, she left the library at a pace that implied that the space, or perhaps even the books themselves, nauseated her, and her maids followed.

Alexander watched her leave but the silence had already been whisked away on a sea of disembodied chatter about how he could twist this to his advantage.

Again, he shut out most of it. After all, if they were any good at planning, then the task of avenging his family would have never fallen to him. Each of them had failed to end the royal line completely, and their punishment was their unrest. But while they all agreed that the royal family should suffer, each had different ideas of how they would go about it.

"Start with the daughter.." one of his uncle's hissed.

"Son," Alexander corrected. "And I'll do as please...since the task is mine alone to bear."

"You dare mock us?"

"I wouldn't dare...you're all incessant enough as you are," Alexander whispered into his cup to avoid any servants who might be nearby, but out of sight, seeing him speaking to himself.

"Where is Ruslan now..?" Alexander wondered as he lowered his cup and set it aside.

"In the small dining room. Kill her. Kill her! No one would stop you." This time, Alexander was able to determine where his uncle's voice had come from. One of the library's side doors was standing open, and in the narrow, pitch black space between the back of the door and the wall, was a long, pale form—limbs contorted at odd angles, teeth and eyes glistening...

"Wrong! Wrong, wrong. Fool! That's not the way!" howled his great aunt. "He'd protect her. He's always listening. Always close. Watching."

His aunt gasped. "Yes! Yes, that's the way! Kill him first! No need to poison her or slice her pretty throat if she dies from heartbreak instead! Eeee-hehehe!"

Alexander tilted his head, another thin smile pulling at his otherwise aloof expression. "Tempting..." he mused as he stood and started down the hall in the direction of the small dining room.

The entire time his family followed him. Crawling along the halls in the shadows and reflective surfaces.

"Wait, someone is coming," one would say and Alexander would pause.

"The next hall is clear," another offered and he took it. He could make it in and out of the dining room without anyone ever seeing him...if he had wanted to.

When he reached the small dining room, the door was open only a crack, allowing him a limited view of his target.

"Very tempting..." he muttered to himself.

Ruslan was completely oblivious of his observer, but he did look up at the chandelier above his head. A particularly strong waver in a few of the candles had created the illusion of some large shadow darting past, and it was unnerving... Ruslan hated the small dining room.

It was nothing like the one the family usually ate in. It was an interior room, so it was often stuffy and dark, but more strangely, it had no windows looking directly outside, only a few on one wall that exposed a stretch of hallway—inaccessible directly from the dining room—that led to one of the galleries and smoking rooms, which had always bothered Ruslan. Even when no one was in that hall, he felt as though he may look up and see something there. So, he couldn't comfortably sit facing those windows.

Instead, he sat with his back to them, forcing himself to swallow down a few more spoonfuls of soup. Having cried so much had exhausted what little energy he'd recovered, so he sat there alone, trying not to think too hard—not to think of anything, really.

"What are you waiting for!?" Alexander's uncle growled. "He's useless," another muttered.

"Not entirely..." Alexander said under his breath as he pushed the door open. He could think of at least one use for the wayward prince.

"Your highness," Alexander greeted with a nod of his head as one of his hands settled on the back of one of the chairs. "Mind if I join you?" But he was already pulling the chair out as he spoke.

Ruslan had startled at the door's sudden movement, and swore under his breath as he used his cloth napkin to dab up the spoonful of liquid he'd inadvertently flung onto the table. "Not at all, Lord Sokolov, please," Ruslan replied, irritation plainly obvious though whether it was at himself, his mess, or Alexander was impossible to discern. "You'll have to forgive me for looking dreadful. I couldn't be bothered to dress for lunch today," he added.

"Easily overlooked, given that it seems you planned on dining alone," replied Alexander as he sat down across from Ruslan and folded his hands. "Your mother intruded upon me on your behalf, so I feel it is only fair that I may impose upon you, to the same end," the lord explained.

The prince rolled his eyes at the mention of his mother, but paused his spoon just against his lips before pulling it away to speak. "What would my doting mother ask of you on my account?"

"She wants me to give you away at your wedding tomorrow. I agreed up front, though if I'm being honest, I find it a rather odd time for a wedding... "

Ruslan gritted his teeth, and decided to relinquish the broth in his spoon back into his bowl. "I agree wholeheartedly," Ruslan said; his pale, mossy green eyes studying Alexander's features. He rested his elbow on the table and propped his chin up with his hand. "I haven't been having the best week, as I'm sure you can imagine, and or have already heard. The gossip hasn't gotten to me, yet... But I'm sure most of the family thinks I'm either insane, or possessed, or both." There was the distinct quiver of hurt in his words despite him doing his best to hide it.

Alexander's expression was grim and unchanging as he studied the surface of the table. He was starting to feel that his suspicions were correct, but there was only way he could know for certain.

His gaze lifted from the table to meet and read the prince's expression. "Ruslan, be honest with me, this marriage...." He needn't say more. The implication alone and how Ruslan reacted would be enough for him to go on from here.

Drawing a deep breath, Ruslan offered the lord from the Hallows a small half-smile. It was disarmingly kind of Alexander to be so delicate in regards to his situation, but the fact that he'd addressed him so informally hadn't escaped Ruslan either... It'd flustered him, and it took him a second to collect his thoughts so that he could pick up where Alexander had left off.

"...Was my mother's arrangement for me, though I suspect Nikolai had a considerable hand in it as well." His smile slowly vanished as he sat up straighter. "I can't just remain living here once you're crowned tsar... This will be your home, then. I'll have no proper claim to it."

The tall lord nodded. "This is true," he agreed frankly. "...Then would you stay if that were not the case?" he wondered in the same grey tone, that sounded neither sympathetic nor condescending. Rather, his questioning seemed to come from some earnest curiosity.

Ruslan raised a brow. "If...you weren't crowned? I don't believe I have much of a choice. The empire will have a tsar—whether he's of our blood or not. Where I am by that time will be determined solely by whoever I'm married off to." Ruslan set his spoon down. He couldn't really bring himself to eat more right now. In some ways, he still stubbornly wanted the throne, and yet he knew in his heart he also desperately wanted out of this palace... With Bernard, certainly, but that admission riled up an anxious ache in his stomach. Even if they managed an escape, what dark things from within these walls would cling to them, no matter how far they fled?

"Interesting..." Alexander hummed as he stroked his chin.

"What is?"

"Nothing... Only, when I first arrived you looked every bit the part of a prince, but now you speak as though everything can just so easily be taken from you... And I wonder; if a man cannot defend the things he loves...does he deserve to keep them?" Once again Alexander's words teetered neither near maliciousness nor compassion, but somewhere closer towards an icy indifference.

Regardless, they'd gotten the wheels in Ruslan's head turning. Aunt Raya was dead... Grandmother was feeble, and wouldn't live forever... Aunt Oksana only really turned against him after his father had passed... His mother, however...

She was the orchestrator of his torment.

Ruslan leaned in closer to Alexander, voice hushed, despite them being alone in the dining room.

"Because I was born a princess, nothing short of death would stop my mother from seeing me denied my birthright. When I defend myself, or anything meaningful to me, she retaliates—punishes me for it tenfold. She'll never allow me to be happy, so long as she's still drawing breath and has any say in anything at all."

Ruslan sighed, slumping back in his seat. "Now, I'm terrified of putting the only person I care about at risk if whatever I plot doesn't work...and furious that I didn't drive that knife into her last night at dinner." He finally peeled his gaze from Alexander, staring instead into the beet-red broth of his soup. "I truly think I could've done it in that moment..." He chuffed, flexing his cold fingers. "...Do you believe regretting such a thing makes me a monster?"

"Many would say so... " Alexander theorized as he examined one of the fine silver forks. "But that is only because they don't understand that there are no heroes... In the end, there are only monsters and victims..." He placed the fork back down in the place where it had been before.

"Then I wonder," Ruslan said, gaze finding the fork, then Lord Sokolov's hand, then climbing up his arm back to his needlessly handsome face. "...Which does Alexander Vissarionivich consider himself?"

"A monster—for certain. After all, I am here to take your throne and your home. What else could I possibly be?" Alexander replied smoothly with a mirthless smile that faded back into a more serious expression as he stood. "Though to be honest, there are many people I would see never set foot here again. But you... You are not one of them."

Ruslan questioned the nervous flutter in his stomach, but didn't have long to consider it before the servant's door opened. He turned his head to see Bernard, who stopped just past the doorway, looking both startled and concerned.

"...Why was he in here?" he asked, while tentatively placing the pitcher he'd brought with him on the table.

When Ruslan turned back to look, the lord from The Hollows had already slipped out through the other door, vanishing into the dark stretch of hall beyond.

When the prince failed to answer, Bernard stepped closer. "...Ruslan?"

The reply he received was short. "I've finished eating."

What do you think? Does Alexander really see the ghosts of his ancestors or is it all in his head? 👻 👀

Is he a potential friend 🖤 or a foe to be leery of 🔪? 

Thanks so much for your support!!