(Janelle POV)
The screaming started just after midnight.
I jolted awake in the servants' quarters, my heart hammering against my ribs. The sound echoed through the stone corridors, raw, animalistic shrieks of agony that seemed to pierce straight through my soul. Around me, other servants sat up in their narrow beds, faces pale with terror in the dim candlelight.
"What in God's name.." Clara whispered, clutching her thin blanket to her chest.
The screaming stopped abruptly, leaving behind a silence somehow worse than the sound itself. Then came the thunder of running feet, shouted orders, and the metallic clash of weapons being drawn.
"The King!" someone bellowed in the corridor outside. "Fetch the physician! Now!"
My blood turned to ice water. King Magnus. Something had happened to King Magnus.
