[WARNING:
The following chapter includes mature themes and unsettling imagery. Please read with care.]
They say a severed head lives for a few seconds. Long enough to blink, to see, to regret.
One could argue that wasn't true, while others would bring science to the table. But Solenne was sure of it, based on her experience.
It happened sometime around Fall of 991 of the Imperial Calendar.
The night was unusually cold, shrouded in an unnatural darkness. Thunder resonated from a faraway distance, and lightning flashed through the thick clouds that heralded a terrible storm. How ironic, considering the festivities—in celebration of a royal marriage—in the La Lucretia stronghold had lasted from the break of dawn until the hours of darkness.
But now, only the wind rattling the windows could be heard.
Standing by the open door of her room, another clap of thunder echoed in the sky. Light flashed through the window behind her, and in that instant, Solenne saw the maid outside her quarters.
There, slumped in the hall across from her, was a servant in her own pool of blood.
"What?"
Her eyes widened in shock, and her complexion turned ashen. Taking a step back, her knees wobbled, causing her to tumble down onto her bottom. The second she touched the floor, something sticky clung to her palm and white nightdress.
She raised her hand to see it and then realized the maid's blood had already crept beneath her door. She looked back at the maid, her expression contorting as panic clawed at her chest.
"Ca—Callista!" she shouted, reaching for the knob to pull herself up. "Callista!"
Despite her body shaking in shock, panic, and fear, Solenne stepped over the body and hurried out the door. She rushed to where Callista—her maid-in-waiting, and also a dame for protection—should have been.
Thunder echoed through the sky, shaking the castle walls. A flash of white lit the windows—just enough for Solenne to find her way through the dark.
Much to Solenne's dismay, when she reached the mezzanine of the palace, all she saw were bodies. Five, to be exact. All dead.
"An intruder," she whispered, taking a careful step back. But then, a possibility crossed her mind. "Or... had this been their plan all along?"
Was this a plan concocted by the La Lucretia—by her damned husbands—to put a halt to this absurd marriage of four, once and for all?
Solenne felt her entire body shiver in anger, more convinced of that possibility. Her three husbands despised her just as much as she loathed them; they disapproved of this wedding because of the family she came from. And she? For too many reasons to count.
Her family had forced this union to secure peace between fractured kingdoms. But peace had always demanded a sacrifice—and they'd offered her.
"Hah…" Her russet eyes burned. "How dare they—"
Her voice was cut off by a faint, rolling noise coming from behind her. Solenne gazed down, and her eyes went wider when she saw a severed head rolling to her feet. When the head stopped, her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
"Lucien," she whispered, recognizing the brown hair that was now covered with blood and the pair of golden eyes that were still open.
Lucien La Lucretia. Her second husband.
"Solenne Drevante."
Suddenly, a cold whisper caressed the shell of her ear. She froze and her breath hitched as the cold presence behind her sent a strong wave of chill down her spine.
"Congratulations on your wedding."
Her swallow echoed loudly in her ears, and out of instinct, she jumped away and turned around; a mistake she would only realize a second later.
"Who are you?!"
Another bolt of lightning revealed a vile grin beneath the hood of their black robe, which was then followed by a deafening thunder. Her subconscious immediately told her to move, screaming at her to make a run for it, only to realize she no longer controlled her body.
Nor, horrifyingly, her head.
For a moment, time slowed down for her until all she heard was her own body falling on the floor with her head still in the air.
"What?" She blinked... staring at the person's grin, and then darkness.
***
Spring 991
That nightmare didn't happen just once. Solenne had relived that nightmare of a wedding night three times now.
And today, Solenne woke again in the early spring of 991—three months before her own murder. For the fourth time. Fabulous.
"Callista, what about you?" Solenne lifted her russet eyes to the mirror, eyeing Callista's reflection behind her. "Do you believe a person maintains consciousness for a few seconds even after they're decapitated?"