And So The Tale Begins

“What… the hell.” 

There really was nothing else to say about the dark chamber that Melia had just entered. It was a horror novel come to life. What was a beautiful ballroom filled with people and music and light not over two hours ago was now decimated. The train of tables lining the walls of three sides of the room were all overturned, their clothes ripped and covered with stains of the food they were carrying. The curtains and tapestries were pulled down and torn apart by what looked to be one of the ornamental swords lying in pieces all over the room. But that wasn’t what made Melia want to puke. It wasn’t the fallen silver throne that made her stomach turn, nor was it the chandelier that had fallen onto the middle of the dance floor and covered the room in a fine layer of sharp glass. 

It was the blood.

Blood coated almost every surface of the room. It was staining the tablecloths along with the food, spilled onto the walls, even congealed along the edge of the fallen throne. Painted, holy Queendom, almost artistically upon the large mirror that was mounted onto the wall behind the dais of the throne.

And Melia didn’t have to look far to find the source of all the blood, not with all the bodies sprawled across the room like discarded marionettes. The beautiful and well-polished bodies of the royal court, with all their finery half torn from their bodies. Every single one of them was sporting one gash across their bodies, if not more. They seemed to have bled out, all of them, and there hung a low red mist in the air from the amount of blood that had likely been sprayed. 

“Hey, Mel. Why’d you leave me alone—Gah! What in the Queen’s name is that?” 

Melia half turned dazedly to see her twin brother Kalin’s horrified expression as he took in the room. His face paled at the sight of all the dead royalty, and he strode into the room only long enough to grab Melia’s arm and pull her out of it. She hadn’t even realized she had drifted into the room, spellbound with horror at the carnage in front of her. 

“Are we supposed to… clean this!?” Kalin exclaimed, a hand still wrapped around Melia’s arm. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Come on, Mel. Let’s get out of here.”

But Melia ignored him and stepped back inside again. A horrible sort of calm seemed to have seeped into her bones as she strode up to the fallen chandelier and crouched beside it. Her twin’s call of warning faded as she caught a flash of sea green fabric that was hanging from one of the hooks on the giant light fixture. The Queen’s dress. Melia had spied the fabric fluttering in a phantom wind from the door, her mind immediately remembering a kind smile and elegant figure. The Queen was one of the few people that had seen Melia and not just the maid’s robes she wore. She had smiled at Mel and her brother the first time they had met on a dark night Melia had dreamt of repeatedly and feverishly. Laughed with them when Kalin had cracked a nervous joke and cringed as if he expected to be killed for it. And now… now she most likely lay under this chandelier, and the very thought of what her body might look like had Melia resisting sprinting to the nearest bathroom to empty the contents of her stomach. 

“Come on, Mel. It won’t be good for us to be found here,” called Kalin from the door. He was right; it would implicate them in so many ways, especially since Melia found herself covered in blood from kneeling by the remains of the Queen for so long. But still she stayed and stared at that scrap of cloth; still she remembered the Queen who was kind to everyone she met. 

“Melia! We need to leave, right now!” Kalin exclaimed. He stomped into the room and made to grab Melia’s arm again, but her next words—spoken so lowly he was unsure if he imagined them—stopped him dead in his tracks. 

“We need to clean this place up.”

Kalin stared at his sister incredulously. “Have you gone mad? Are you seriously thinking about cleaning now? I don’t think you’ve noticed, sister, but there are dead bodies here. And we happen to be the only ones alive. Should anyone find us, who do you think they’ll be pointing fingers at?”

“I know,” she whispered back. “I-I know, Kal. But look around you. Look at what’s left of the Queen’s court.” She rose onto her feet and found that tears were streaming down her face—tears she hadn’t shed when her own mother had been found dead in her bed. Tears for what was probably the only court in this unforgiving world that wasn’t built upon lies and deceit, but love and candidness. For the only leaders of a country that had never seen war under their long rule. For the mother Melia had never loved as much as she had loved the Queen. For the father who had threatened to kill them should they ever darken his doorsteps with their presence again. For the Queen who had taken the twin orphans in and allowed them to stay in the castle as servants when their family had deserted them. For the court who had smiled as one at the shy maid who had always been the first to volunteer for any task that they wished done. For the life Melia and Kalin had enjoyed for the first time in this palace, torn from them before they could grow into it. 

“We need to bury them, Kal. We need to at least give their bodies the rest they deserve. Please.”

Melia was fully sobbing now, one hand reaching out to grab the piece of torn fabric from the Queen’s beautiful gown while the other stretched out toward her brother in a silent request.

And Kalin, Queen bless him, took one look at her teary face and understood why it meant so much to her. Why they couldn’t just leave the bodies to be buried by guards or whoever found them next. He understood her the way he always had, with one hand taking hers—and the other rubbing his forehead with a resigned finality. 

“Alright then,” he sighed. “Let’s start with the walls.”

*******************

It had been at the stroke of midnight that they started to clean the wreckage. It was the crack of dawn when they finally finished everything. The ballroom wasn’t back to its splendor—it would most likely never be back to its splendor again—but at least it didn’t look as if an army had trampled into the party. While Melia cleaned the mess on the walls and the blood seeping from almost every surface — her stomach barely contained — Kalin carried the bodies out to the royal garden and dug up a burial trench for them. He dug 48 holes into the garden, one for each member of the court that would never see the upcoming sunrise. The last grave he dug at the helm of all the rest, a reminder that even in death, the Queen would get the respect her status called for. 

They were both busy enough to not question why the entire palace seemed deserted. They never wondered where all the guards were, where all the other maids and butlers were, and why they hadn’t found them yet. 

By the time Kalin carried out the last body—Melia had removed the chandelier from on top of the Queen piece by piece and had shoved that little green fabric into her pocket—the stars were winking out in herald of the sun. Melia trailed him as he took the Queen’s broken body towards the last grave waiting for her and leant against the north wall as Kalin dropped onto his knees in front of the grave before her. Her heart constricted at the sight of the hastily dug up mound of earth waiting to cover the face of one of the kindest people Melia had ever met. Kalin had done his best, of course, but the Queen deserved more than this. She would tell the guards, Melia decided, where the party-goers were when she saw them again. 

But when was the last time she saw the guards? Melia froze as she realized what she should have done so long ago—there was no other person in the palace. Not a single living soul other than her and her brother, who now was gently setting her Majesty down into the hole, her gentle features facing up. 

“Kal,” Melia called out, then froze. Kalin hummed in reply, hands busy covering up the Queen’s body with the earth he had dug out. When Melia said nothing else, he glanced up at her. 

“What?”

But she had no more attention to give him. She had planted her eyes on something behind him, wide and filled with a fear unlike anything he had ever seen on her face. Kalin slowly rose to his feet, back still exposed to whatever it was. Most likely the guards. They had seen them burying the bodies, and now they were the prime suspects of the massacre.

But Kalin froze before he could turn, because the growl that ripped through the night couldn’t have come from any guard. It couldn’t have come from anything remotely human. Kalin whirled around and almost crashed into his twin sister as he staggered back.

Any theories that might have been chasing their tails in his mind about the death of the court members, any suspects he might have had, they all vanished as a Shadow Leopard stalked toward them from the far south gates with murder written in its eyes. 

Shadow Leopards were called so not because of their midnight black skin that was spotted with smoky grey, nor their nocturnal nature. No, Shadow Leopards were named after the dark and obscure mist that hung around them, an intangible fog that froze whoever breathed it in. It wasn’t a swift death that awaited the victim of that blackened air. The pain of being savored by a beast and the inability to due anything, even scream was told of in legends and myths, even though the Leopards were very much real. The giant creatures were the nightmares of many people in the Far East continent; they haunted the forest-ridden kingdoms there and picked off civilians by the dozen whenever they attacked their villages. How one made its way here in the Northlands was beyond Kalin, but there was no place in his mind to wonder that now. The beast was prowling slowly, with the air of prey savouring its treat, but it was nearing them too quickly for Kalin’s liking all the same. He had half a minute at most before it was upon them. He wouldn’t hesitate to push Melia towards the nearest exit out of the garden. The East gate. It was right in front of where the leopard was, but he would distract it. He would draw its attention away and anger it enough that it went after him first, which would give his sister time to escape.

So he waited with bated breath for the Leopard to pass the East gate, running a soothing hand up and down Melia’s form behind him. She was shaking with silent tears; her fear going straight to Kalin’s heart. 

“Don’t worry, sis.” he murmured, crouching down and grabbing a handful of dug up earth with his free hand. “I’ll get you out.”

Melia started. The Leopard was less than two steps away now and heaved another growl that sent both their bones quaking. “What? But you—”

Kalin shoved her towards the door and threw the dirt straight in the beast’s eyes. “Run!”

********************

Stupid Kalin. Stupid, stupid Kalin.

Melia slammed into the metal bars of the East gate and slid down in a daze just as the Shadow Leopard let out a pained and furious howl. It stopped advancing and swiped at its eyes with its front paws, roaring as if to announce the grim reaper himself.

“Run!” Kalin yelled at her, already scrambling in the opposite direction. Towards the West gate. He would never make it in time. The Leopard would kill him with one swipe of its claws.

“RUN!” Kalin screamed again over his shoulder. And then Melia did run—towards him. She skidded to a stop just long enough to shove a handful more of dirt into the Leopard's face, her breath catching at how close she was to death if it opened its eyes. She rushed for her brother as the creature growled in agony again. Kalin was staring at her disbelievingly, the gate standing open behind him.

“What are you waiting for, idiot! A parade? Get going!” It was Melia’s turn to scream at him now. Kalin blinked and turned on his heels, making a mad dash for the gate. Behind them, a howl of pure fury let them know the Leopard had finally gotten his eyes to open, and found that his prey had disappeared. They didn’t wait around for it to track their scents; they hauled ass out of the deserted palace and fled out the gaping gates. 

Melia’s heart seemed to have firmly lodged itself somewhere between her lungs and throat, and every breath was harder to get down than the last as her mind struggled to process all that had happened for the better part of last night. A Shadow Leopard had attacked the palace in a party and killed every single person. Holy Queendom.

But what Queendom? The Queen herself was dead—without a single heir to speak of. This was a catastrophe. And all of her court was gone, all the people she trusted enough to rule in her stead should something ever happen to her. All of them were dead. How this Queendom would survive without them, Melia didn’t know.

“Mel!” Kalin shook her roughly. “Get your head back on your neck, please! Have you already forgotten than a freaking Shadow Leopard is chasing us!? It has our scent, we need to get across a body of water as soon as possible.” 

Melia blinked at him. “The Floating River,” she replied in a tired voice, referring to the river that separated the capital in two. But Kalin shook his head, eyes bright despite the horrors of the night.

“Remember that favor we planned to ask her Majesty? To let us travel West to Verion?” he smiled. “Let’s go. Now.”

Melia stared at her brother for a long moment before smacking him, ignoring the concerned looks the first dregs of the morning civilians passing by were giving her. 

“Idiot! And how do you propose to do that without the letters we were supposed to ask the Queen to write?” she whispered. “In case you haven’t noticed, the Queen lies in a shoddy grave in the freaking garden!” her voice broke. “How are we supposed to do anything now?”

But Kalin’s grin only turned fiercer. “I already got everything last night.” He grabbed Melia’s hands. “Don’t you get it, Mel? We can go to Verion with those letters. We can go straight to the castle and inform the Verian Queen that her sister lies murdered. Because there is no way,” his face darkened in fury and the first traces of the grief that was sinking onto him. “No way that a Shadow Leopard crossed oceans to attack the palace on its own. Someone sent it, and only Verion can help us find out who.”

Melia stared at Kalin once more through the tears that were making their way down her cheeks. Kalin let her scan his face in that unnerving way of hers, as she often did when he surprised her—a rare occurrence. Whatever she found on his face seemed to have been enough, because she smiled a watery smile and leaned into him.

“Alright, Kal.” she turned towards the city—and the docks looming beyond it. “Let’s go to Verion.”

Hand in hand, they started the long journey to avenge a Queendom that had given them little in return.

And high above them, on a slanted rooftop dark even as the rays of the morning sun flashed across it, an old man ran his fingers through the fur of his Shadow Leopard. A golden crown glinted at his brow, a smaller yet no less intricate version of the one worn by the Queen Melia and Kalin had just buried. 

“And so the tale begins.”

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