Truls reached back under his tunic to draw a large dagger and thrust it at lightning speed into Bashaa's neck, spewing blood onto his wrist and forearm. Bashir screamed in terror as his bleeding son fell to the ground.
Truls began to step over his writhing legs and knelt on top of his chest, as his eyes glared with hatred and his knuckles were white due to his grip on the dagger. He began to sever the dying man's head off and danced in the blood that spilled forth from it.
In absolute horror, Bashir turned and ran out of the door as quickly as he could, calling his men out to flee the castle as bile crept up his throat.
Fulco quickly re-entered the hall after hearing the scream, and immediately fainted at the sight of Truls dancing in blood, holding the head in one hand, with the dagger in the other. Truls looked about him and noticed his servant on the ground, feeling nothing but pure elation after slaying the worthless cur.
His guards hadn't moved an inch; after all, there was nothing they could have done to stop it from happening. He chuckled to himself, and his laughter increased to a fit of maniacal laughter until Leona rushed down the stairs to see what the scream was about.
Her face paled at the sight of him dancing in the pool of blood, chopping the corpse up into pieces and flinging them around the throne room like some kind of macabre confetti. She let out a blood-curdling scream, which prompted him to turn on her immediately. His face was spattered with blood, and the rest of him was now covered in it.
She held back bile as best as she could, and bolted back up the flight of stairs she had just come down. She ran through the hallways and finally found what she thought to be a sanctuary in the confines of her room, slamming the door and bolting it in fear of her husband.
"Where did you go, my sweet?" she flinched as she heard his voice come from behind the door. "Why did you run from me? Why did you do this to me?" his voice turned from sing-song to unbridled rage in the span of his two questions.
Bile rose in her throat as she pressed her back against it, hearing his heavy footfall thud against the stone steps. "Your Majesty!" Thorsen's voice called out, giving her a small flame of hope. "Ahhh, Thorsen, my ever-loyal giant. Fetch Commander Gorm and tell him to go after Bashir. I will not allow that fucking pox-ridden rat to live another day if I can help it," Truls growled, reverberating the door Leona was leaning against.
"And what of the body?" Thorsen asked, his tone suggesting he was wildly uncomfortable with everything that was going on. "Bashir couldn't have gotten far. Put the pieces of his son on spikes along the exit of the Palace. Make sure that bastard knows the price he will pay when we find him," he replied, spit drooling from his mouth.
"A-As you wish, Your Majesty," the sound of his armor clanking, letting Leona know he'd rendered a salute and moved away.
No, please! Please come back, she held a hand to her mouth as tears streamed down her face.
"Now, where were we, my sweet?" Truls' voice came from just behind the door, sending a ruthless chill down Leona's spine as a cold stone of ice sank in her stomach.
Just outside the palace, Thorsen did as instructed, bundled up the pieces into the dead man's robe, and dragged the chunks outside. He ordered the guards to give him their spears, and they did so without question, save for the ones about what was left of the Harutian prince.
When he arrived at the front gate of the main palace, he unraveled the pieces, planted the spears in the ground, and skewered the body parts. The head faced outward with its lifeless, gaping expression portraying a silent scream. A few of the guards who had been posted just outside that gate had their breakfast coming out of the wrong hole in a flash.
Making his way back inside, he found Gorm already riding out with his war party to hunt down Bashaa and, possibly, his men. He nodded and continued on his way towards the palace.
What could have prompted him to carve the Harutian prince into so many pieces? I didn't see Leona, but I know I heard her scream, which is why I went there in the first place. Where could she be? Thorsen rubbed a blood-soaked glove on his thick beard pensively.
Back inside the palace, Truls slammed the handle of his dagger firmly against the heavy door to Leona's room. "I know you're in there, my love. I just want to talk," he used a lighter tone of voice, but all it did was make her shudder and press her back to the door even more firmly.
Tears continued to stream down her face as she held her mouth to keep from screaming. "Open this fucking door, Leona! You would be nothing without me and what I've done for your family, and you know it! I own you, and I command you to open up!" he shouted, his voice hardly muffled by the heavy door.
What do I do? She shuddered, looking around the room for any means of escaping her personal hell.
The small iron screws that held the bolt in place already strained under the repeated impact from his banging, coming increasingly looser after a few more kicks and bangs from the enraged king. Unfortunately, even the iron screws couldn't survive a full body-weight assault from the heavy man, giving way and knocking her to the floor as she received the impact.
Hurriedly, she got back to her feet and ran to the corner of the room. Her eyes were swollen and red from the tears that streamed, but they opened widely at the sight of Truls' blood-soaked visage and wolfish smile.
"Ah, there you are, my dove," he said in a disturbing tone. She could barely breathe at the sight of him. "You murdered him!" she said breathlessly, struggling to mouth the words racing in her mind.
"Yes, I did; Ridding the world of yet another vermin in the process," he replied. "How could you do this after saying what you said at the feast?" she asked. He paused for a moment, appearing to be deep in thought. "Because I wanted to," he replied.
"You see, my dove, a man does not defile another man's wife without paying for it one day or another. He defiled you, the rumor spread like wildfire, and now the whole kingdom thinks that I'm a fool, and that you are a worthless whore!" he shouted the last five words.
Leona was shocked, and her face contorted in disgust as her hatred for the man she had once married grew exponentially. "Prove me wrong," he said, noticing her countenance. "Tell me that you didn't let him have his way with you, and that I have just made one of the largest mistakes of my life," he said.
He'll kill me no matter what I tell him, she thought, accepting the possibility of her death.
"I won't prove you wrong," she said after a moment to allow her mouth to catch up to her thoughts. "What?" he asked, darkening his tone. "I won't prove you wrong, because it wasn't he who had his way with me. In fact, it was the other way around," she said.
"He tried to charm me with his worthless wit, but deep down all I wanted was a good fuck because you can't even keep it up. Not even when you force yourself on me as you have so many times in the past, you prickless pig," she spat, landing a wad of thick saliva on his face.
He flinched with the impact, but when the wolfish grin grew on his face again, he wiped it off with his bloodied thumb and licked it off. "You filthy bitch!" he shouted the last word, smacking her with the back of his hand across her face. She fell across the bed, but quickly scrambled away from him to the far side of the room where she kept her easel.
"I have given you everything in my kingdom, everything you have ever wanted, and this is how you repay me? By shoving some wart-ridden prick up your snatch? I will see you pay for what you've done as well," he said with fiery eyes, walking towards her. He smacked her again, this time sending her head straight into the corner of her easel, forcing her to blindly reach for it to keep her from going to the ground.
He smacked her across the face once more, forcing her to turn around, as he began to lift up her dress while she was too stunned to resist.
"Help!" she cried out as tears streamed down her face. Truls quickly covered her mouth, muffling her voice. "No one is going to save you now," he seethed in her ear while undoing his trousers.
"Not Bashaa, nor anyone else in this fucking place. You're in my kingdom. My rules are the only thing that apply here, and currently, my only rule is that I don't have any rules. I don't have to be careful of what I do to you, since you're nothing more than my property," he said in her ear through bared teeth.
She glanced down through her tears and saw a thick paintbrush on the easel before her. She bit into Truls' finger, and he reeled with the pain as blood poured from the bite.
"You fucking whore!" he lurched toward her, but before his blood-soaked hands could reach her throat, she grrabbed the paintbrush from the easel and drove it beneath his jaw with a grunt of exertion. His eyes widened in shock as he glared at her, but quickly rolled into the back of his head as she pushed it deeper, piercing his brain.
Blood ran down her hand and wrist just before she ripped it out and let his body slump to the ground in a pool of blood, wriggling and writhing like a beheaded serpent.
The king was dead, and her trembling hands slowly began to steady themselves as the realization of what she'd done took over.
"The nightmare… It's finally over," she whispered in a shaky voice as the tears streamed down her face, not borne from sadness, but relief. As she allowed the paintbrush to fall, the paint that had soaked the bristles flecked a handful of specks across her face from the impact, but she could hardly flinch.
The king's body finally ceased its writhing, and within the silence that followed, she heard armored footsteps coming from beyond the broken door. "Y-Your Majesty?" Thorsen's voice came from beyond the threshold. His eyes widened when he realized that it was not her lying on the ground, but the king.
"Are you alright?" he rushed in, putting his comparatively massive hands on both her shoulders, staring into her blank eyes. "I'm fine, Thorsen," she said in a dreamlike voice, prompting him to glance down at the body again, then back to her. "Are you sure, Your Majesty?" he regarded her seriously.
"I promise I'm fine, Thorsen. I just need a moment to catch my breath," she used her sleeve to wipe away a string of snot. "What happened here, Your Majesty?" he kept his voice low and steady. "I…" she cut herself off before tears welled in her eyes again. "I couldn't take it anymore, Thorsen. The abuse, the name-calling, the absolute tyranny over my body," she shook her head. "I can't say that I understand, but I'm glad you're alright," Thorsen said calmly.
The pair looked down at Truls' lifeless body for a moment in silence, before Leona pulled away from Thorsen's hand, reaching for the dagger still clutched tightly in her former abuser's grasp. With a grunt of effort, she tore it free from his fingers, nearly staggering back as it came free. "What are you doing, Your Majesty?" Thorsen regarded her curiously since he knew better than to try to stop her now.
"The people outside the palace will have heard about Bashir's son by now since you put his pieces out on display," her eyes fixed on the body beneath her. "I did as I was commanded, Your Majesty," Thorsen lowered his head.
"I know, and I don't blame you for that, nor will I ever, but right now, I need to send the rest of the kingdom a message," she said, her tone growing increasingly colder as she steeled herself for what came next.
Gripping the back of Truls' hair, she lifted his neck and began to saw off his head, just like he had to Bashaa. Realizing it would be much more effort than it was worth, she chose an alternate route. With a grunt of frustration, she grabbed the body by the beard and began to drag it along with her down the stairs, leaving a trail of smeared blood in her wake.
Her eyes were as cold as steel when she walked back into the throne room. There was already a crowd of people near the entrance who were trying to see over the guardsmen's shoulders, or beneath their raised arms. "Step aside," she panted heavily, her shoulders curled over and arms taut as she dragged the large man's body behind her.
The guardsmen, who turned to look, immediately followed her order with widened, worried eyes. She glanced over to her left, where Fulco was just now waking back up, but fainted again as soon as he saw the king's half-decapitated body being dragged into the room.
She dragged his body into the middle of the throne room and dropped it in front of the throne he coveted so much. The crowd poured in to see the commotion, some even slipping on Bashaa's clotted blood on the floor as they scrambled to get in close. "Your Majesty! What happened here? What happened to the King? Whose blood is this?" a barrage of voices shouted in question.
Leona held a blank, emotionless stare on her face and raised the dagger high into the air, still coated in Bashaa and Truls' blood.
"The King did this to himself," she shouted, silencing the crowd immediately. "He first killed Prince Bashaa, then tried to kill me. Unfortunately for him, he failed to kill the latter," she shouted over a wave of murmurs from the crowd.
"I am the ruler of this land and its people now. I am the one who will do her best to bring about a new age of prosperity, trueprosperity," she said, letting the words hang to see if anyone would object.
No one did or even felt they could, for that matter.
"No objections? Good. Then let this new age for Coltend and its people begin!" she shouted, getting scattered cheers from the crowd as her words slowly sank in. As more and more voices called out to cheer her on, she glanced at Thorsen, who nodded to her thoughtfully, then turned to face the crowd.
A new age indeed, Your Majesty, he thought, sternly looking at the ever-growing cheers of the people before them.
Fulco regained consciousness, and after seeing the crowd of people chanting her name, he steeled himself to reach the steps to stand beside her. He did what he could to hold in his breakfast and avoid looking down at the lifeless body before him.
The people continued to cheer as more came in to discover what all the commotion was about, and those who did, joined in with the crowd. Leona looked out over the amassing servants and smiled.
"Your Majesty, I have been his advisor for over twenty years. If there is anything you need from me, you need only ask," he muttered into her ear. "I know, Fulco. Thank you for understanding," she continued to stare blankly ahead as her free hand balled into a fist.
My turn, she thought.