SELENE POV
The Queen held the locket in her hands like it was a piece of glass that would shatter if she held it any tighter. The guards were glancing at each other. Eve and Katherine scooted closer to me.
"Where" she paused and started again. "Where did you get this?"
"My mom gave it to me," I replied.
"That's a lie, you're lying." She said, confusion and anger creeping into her voice. "She would have come home a long time ago, if she was still alive."
I looked at her in disbelief, she was trying her best to remain calm, but the trembling of her fingers betrayed her. I could understand how she felt. The pain—that your loved one had been deceiving you.
"I don't know what happened, but I'm telling the truth. She is my mother" I said softly.
"She is telling the truth," Kathy muttered beneath her breath.
"How can I believe you, when you could have found this and decided to use my sister's name?" she said, inhaling sharply to calm herself.
Well now I'm pissed, does she think I want to be here? Look at me, I smell and look like a homeless person in the streets. I felt a string in my head snap. A tired, bitter chuckle slipped through my lips. "You've got to be kidding me."
Her eyes squinted. "What did you just say?"
I met her gaze, all the exhaustion, grievances and fear from the past few days bursted out. "Do you think that I also want to be here? That I'd go through that hellish tunnel to get to the palace. We almost got eaten by a snake. I had to slice my own palm cause apparently, my blood happened to be the password or may I use the word you might understand—--key" I paused to catch my breath. "And let's not forget we almost got crushed by a psychopath gold statue who uses people for entertainment." My voice cracked. "A few days ago I didn't even know my mom was a princess…that you exist or any of this existed. And now you're accusing me of lying about her."
The silence was overwhelming, swallowing everything.
"You said you took the tunnel" the Queen asked, slowly.
One of the knights shifted. "That can't be true. Nobody outside the royal family and their escorts has ever made it out alive"
The Queen's eyes dropped to my twisted arm. "Show me your palm."
The knight released my wrists.
I awkwardly stretched my palm towards the Queen after being held in that abnormal position for a while.
"Ahh" I hissed as her thumb caressed the thin, fresh cut across my palm.
Her eyes stared at my palm as if the answers to all the questions going through her mind were written on it. She slowly opened her lips and asked. " How did the three of you escape from the statue?"
"I read the inscription on the platform."
"How were you able to read it?"
I hesitated, biting my lips. "I don't know.''
"Show me the drawing my…s..sister gave you."
I quickly pulled out the crumpled paper in my pocket and handed it to her.
She glanced at the paper and me, her eyebrows raised in a perfect arch. Her expression clearly asked how did it get into this condition. Well there's nothing I could do about that.
She carefully unwrapped the paper, a small painful smile creeping into that cold face for a second before evaporating into thin air. "She is still good with her brush it seems" she said without expecting an answer. "What's your name, child?"
"Selene Aelyn," I muttered.
Her eyes still remained fixed on my palm for a long moment. Then she slowly released my hand and straightened, the gold locket and the crumpled paper held like national treasures in her other hand. "I believe you." she said at last, her voice quiet yet firm through the hallway with effortless authority.
She does!
"Phew" Katherine and Eve exhaled, leaning on each other, as if they had just escaped the devil's door.
The little girl in my head was practically dancing right now. I wish I could just shout out loud. To scream it out.
One of the knights stepped forward immediately. " But your majesty—"
"Enough Cedric" the Queen cut him off, her tone sharp, leaving no room for argument. The knight fell silent at once.
That was oddly... very satisfying to see.
I let out a shaky breath, the knot in my chest loosening like untangled strings in seconds. " Why?" I asked softly, unable to stop myself. " Why do you believe me now?"
The Queen's gaze locked onto mine. The air around her wasn't that suffocating anymore. Her black eyes, which had been freezing cold a moment ago, had dropped a bit and now held something raw—deeper. She lifted the gold locket slightly. "My father gave this to Mariam on her sixteenth birthday. It was meant only for her---but that is not why I believed you." she paused, her fingers tightening around the locket until her hands turned red.
"It's because you survived the tunnel."
Her voice dropped, becoming quieter and more intimate, as if she were only speaking to me despite the eyes watching. "Nobody outside the direct royal bloodline has ever made it out breathing. The serpent would have devoured anyone else alive. And even If, by some miracle you were able to escape its fangs. You would have been trapped there till you die because the only key that opens the final part is the blood of a direct descendant. Not a branch family. Not a distant cousin. Only the true blue blood."
She glanced briefly at Eve and Katherine, then back to me. "If you weren't carrying that blood the three of you would either be digesting in its stomach or had starved to death. The tunnel does not tolerate imposters. The statue was the final test—--it was designed that way to protect the throne and test the foolish ones who lay claim to the throne."
A faint, sinister smile touched her lips for half a second before vanishing. "Brutal, yes. But effective. Used for thousands of years to keep people's greed in check."
I swallowed, my body turning pale. What the fuck is this?
So in other words the tunnel was also used like a lab to conduct a DNA test. A twisted, disgusting one. Eve and Kathy gaze met mine in horror. Kathy's eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets while Eve's mouth was opening and closing. This isn't just brutal. This is so damn SICK.