The Crown's Obsession (WN)
chapter-181

Music Recommendation: Kill our way to heaven by Michl

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Her skin that had tingled earlier had turned cold now. Madeline's hand turned to loose fists on her lap, her eyes unable to look away from Calhoun. His words, instilled worry and fear in her body, the image vivid in her mind even though she didn't know how Calhoun's grandmother looked.

Madeline had no idea what Calhoun had gone through until now, while his time in the castle and before coming to the castle. It was the look in his eyes right now that scared her. A certain emotion of madness that passed at rare times. She could tell by the look on his face and words that he was satisfied killing the lady. Madeline wondered what else his grandmother had done for him to kill her like that.

To have one's mother to be used and thrown away later, she didn't know how much pain Calhoun would have felt.

"After she was gone, it was the King and the Queen's turn."

"Does Lady Lucy know about it?" asked Madeline. She remembered how the vampiress had mentioned that she would be visiting a person called 'nana' and her parents. Lucy had gone as far as to tell that she would pray on behalf of Calhoun.

"Not all the details. She's innocent, and I would rather have her not know every little detail that happened," replied Calhoun.

Madeline nodded her head. It was only right not to let Lady Lucy know, even though Madeline didn't know the details of what exactly might have happened in this castle in the past. She was stunned to speak or ask him any question. The information was not just heavy, but it was dark.

"Would you like to meet her?" asked Calhoun, his voice calm and somewhere back to the way it usually was. He stood up, placing the glass down on the side table and then looked at Madeline.

"Her?" she wasn't sure if she wanted to meet this person, not when she heard what had happened to the Hawthrone's family.

Calhoun gave his hand for her to take, "You must have already seen her, but it should be alright to make a formal introduction," he smiled at her openly, and Madeline's heart flipped.

Standing up, she said, "I need to wear the skirt back." This might be Calhoun's castle and his world, but she wasn't ready to step out half-dressed in front of people. She saw Calhoun move to where her skirt had been dropped. The King did something she would never have expected and saw him bent down to pick up the skirt that he had removed earlier.

"Don't look startled," said Calhoun, noticing the look on her face, "Raise your hand," he ordered and he put the skirt back on her, tying it by the side before pushing the lace inside to hide it.

"You are well versed when it comes to a woman's clothes," she commented, her eyes meeting his and he smiled.

Calhoun moved his hand to caress it on the side of her face, "Does it make you sad that I know, or is it the envy that's asking me the question? There are other things but let's keep that for some other time, shall we?" he asked before his hand slipped into hers and Madeline didn't take it away from his hold.

Opening the door which was closed, Madeline was greeted with light. She followed Calhoun, keeping her feet on his own pace, which was easier as Calhoun walked slowly so that it wouldn't have the girl to stumble while walking with him.

Madeline was still trying to absorb the story Calhoun had said to her. The first time she had asked, he had told how they had tragically died, which in the end turned to be a lie but right now. This story, she was worried.

'There are other things…'

She was more than curious, but at the same time, she wasn't sure if she was ready to hear it. A story could go anyways, and this being Calhoun, she decided not to ask and wait.

As they passed through the servants, it was easy to tell that they were instilled with fear over and over again, making them to obey the King's words. Wait, Calhoun had told her that he and Theodore knew each other for years. That only meant that Theodore was with Calhoun before he entered the castle.

When they reached the dungeon, she was welcomed with the smell of rusted iron and blood, the pungent smell in the air didn't leave the dungeon. The ground was made of mud and the walls made of uneven rocks. She had entered this place before, yet she felt uncomfortable to step inside in here.

There were passages that led to cell rooms where prisoners were held. Calhoun had let go of her hand that allowed her to hold the front of her dress. The ground wasn't clean. Madeline continued to follow him until they finally came to a much more narrowed path that led to a solitary room. She wasn't eager, but Calhoun was.

He took a key from his pocket to open the lock, pushing the door to step inside.

As she stepped into the room after him, the image that Calhoun had given her was the same as what she saw in front of her right now. Except that there was no flesh but only a skeleton body. The rod passed through the person's mouth and came from behind the head, where the other end was stuck to the wall.

Madeline's body turned stiff. The older woman's skeleton laid cold in dust and time.

"W-why did you not bury her?" whispered Madeline. Her eyes tore away from the skeleton to look at Calhoun.

"The sight brings me solace. I sometimes regret that her death was handed out too soon," replied Calhoun, his eyes smoothly moving to look back at Madeline, "She was the woman who broke my mother down, who drove her to her death. I wanted to make sure it was a memorable one," he offered her a smile, "You should have seen the look on her face. Her own son was the one to sentence her to imprisonment."

Madeline took a step forward to take a closer look at the skeleton, "What did she do?"

"She stood against me. A few years ago, the hunger for the power and the taste of the crown was maddening."

Madeline and Calhoun left the dungeon. She thought that the vampires were strong. They were only strong when it came to the humans, but it seemed like it wasn't so when it came to their own kind.

Madeline now stood in the balcony of her room.

People often craved for a life of royalty, wanting to have favours from the King and the Queen without knowing what outcome it would bring. She hadn't asked him too many questions as today didn't seem to be the right day.

It was told that everyone had their own way to handle grief. An unbearable pain which could tear a person. Either it broke the person, or it made the person what they were. In this case, Calhoun's mother had broken down, but Calhoun had turned to be the person he was, and there was more to him than met the eye. She remembered one of the paintings that hung on the wall. The one which was of a messy, crowded marketplace, she wondered if it was the place before he came to live in the castle.

Her feet firmly stood on the ground, her hands tightly holding the railings so that she would not fall-- not that it was high that would lead to her death, but it would leave small injuries on her.

Madeline felt sorry for Calhoun's mother because it seemed unfair that she was kicked out of the castle when the King was bored with her, before using another younger woman while still having a wife, a Queen. At the same thought, she wondered if Calhoun had painted his mother. She left the room, walking to the corridor where the royal portraits were hanging on the walls.

Her feet halted right in front of the many large portraits. She had walked and seen the portraits before but the way she looked at them, right now, it was different. The previous King and the Queen together with the grandmother who looked proud with her chin tilted up. There were Lady Lucy, Calhoun and some unknown people Madeline didn't know of. In the family portraits everyone looked happy, but it was hard to know what was behind those expressions.

The weather had turned dark like the story of the castle, water droplets starting to fall from the sky that picked up the pace for rain to start pouring.

Far away from the castle, a person walked in the rain. The black shoes picked up water from the surface of the ground as the person moved forward on the muddy ground. Carrying a rose with a long stem which was red, in hand, swaying back and forth as the person made his way through many graves.

Coming to a stop on a specific grave with an engraved name that read 'Constance Leigh'.

His clothes were drenched in rain and the water that had wet his hair stuck on his forehead and some at the sides, water dripping down his face. Calhoun raised his hand to place the single-stemmed red rose on the top of the closed grave.

When the rose touched the surface of the lid of the grave, the appearance of the rose changed to a black rose that looked crumpled.