The Midnight Queen strode through her Tower until she came to the winding stairs leading down toward the lower cells. It was finally time to show her prisoner her new prize. She had been waiting until the princess had lost all hope before showing her Princess Ruby’s body to break her will entirely, but the Midnight Queen’s patience had run out. Maybe then she could use the princess for what she had planned next.
One last string to pull and I can initiate my scheme to sow corruption in the core of Crystalia.
As she descended the stairs, she smiled as she imagined the crushed hope in her defiant prisoner’s face. There were many things she could do to undermine the royalty in the Castle and make it crumble from the inside, but having an heir to do it for her would be greater than anything she could do on the outside. Being a youngest child herself, she knew the girl would have little chance of gaining such influence unless she killed or found a way to manipulate the others.
Yes, having a corrupted princess inside the Castle would be far more influential than any army I could possess.
She arrived at the bottom and walked across a balcony; it led to an old portrait that had been shattered to reveal a ragged frame. She pulled down on the hook the frame hung from, and a secret door slid aside in the wall. Entering the shadows, she glided down a narrower set of stairs that led farther down into the cold Tower, eventually coming to a tight corridor at its end.
There were spiderwebs and several large spiders in her way, including a few Shadow Spinners and a massive crawler. She waved at them and they scuttled away, afraid of her powers. Spiders’ nests could be found all throughout the Tower, and for people of the light, they could be very dangerous.
The corridor widened to a long row of cells; magically enchanted bars that could not be broken were welded to the rock walls. She gazed at her various prisoners. Most of them were turncoat Riftlings that had gone against her command and Heroes who had failed in their task to destroy her. There was a Paladin among her prisoners, his hair matted and his shoulders slouched in his lost hope—the crown jewel of her collection.
“Hello everyone!” she called with a flourish of a hand.
There were only groans and shuffles in reply.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “Of course you are! Don’t worry. Daemonus will be around soon with dinner. Guess what it is tonight?”
Another set of groans and mumbles.
“That’s right! Slops again, with watery gruel for dessert!”
She eventually stopped at a dark cell, the one she had come to inspect. She squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see its occupant. Panic filled her and she lifted her scythe, making the green gem engraved into it glow with a spell before pointing it through the bars. She gasped in horror upon seeing that the cell was empty. Then she spotted dents in the floor, one of which was connected to a crack. It had created an obvious hole at the base of the wall—a hole big enough for Princess Citrine to have crawled through.
“Oh my, you crafty, little girl,” she said. “Guard!”
A Dimwit prison guard came to her side and let out a noise that she assumed meant it was ready for orders.
“Gather the kobolds and search for her. We cannot allow her to escape.”
The Dimwit grunted in assent and moved off. The Midnight Queen stormed down the corridor and back up the stairs, sliding the hidden door shut behind her. As soon as she returned to the inner stairs, she looked over her shoulder to find a Nether Elf standing behind her.
“We have visitors on the outer rim, mistress,” he said.
“Of all times!” She whirled on him. “I can’t send the kobolds to take care of them; they’re finding the princess!”
She ground her teeth. “Oh, very well! You take care of them. Gather an army of Nether Elves and bring our visitors to me.”
“Very well.” The Nether Elf turned to leave.
The Midnight Queen sighed in frustration. “Everything just has to happen all at once, doesn’t it? Oh, well. Maybe I will have more people I can show my prize to by the end of the night.” She grinned as excitement filled her from the idea, glad she had told the elf to take them prisoner. “That’s right! Let me break all of their wills at once!”
With a brief laugh at the brilliance of her plan, she climbed the winding stairs once again, heading up to the Moon Gallery.