A prison guard wearing a set of silver armour was carrying a silver tray of food as he walked past all the prisoners who looked at him with blood-lustred faces, but the guard didn't seem to mind as he reached a dark cell which at first appeared to have no inhabitants.
The man struck the bars of the cell, causing a figure to stir in the darkness,
"Hey, you mad woman, I've brought you something to eat, madam, and don't worry, according to what I have heard, the judge has decided to set you free in a few days"
A woman with brown hair and dirty brown eyes moved forward and grabbed the tray from the kind guard as he gave him a weird look before retreating to the cell and sitting down to eat her food.
"Poor lady, placed in jail just because she is mentally unstable. I'm glad they will be releasing you soon"
The woman stopped eating for a second and turned her gaze to the man before running towards the bars of the cell.
"Beware, for the blue moon will soon rise, and a sacrifice will be offered to bring about its ascend. Who will it be? Well, I know, but you don't, but I can tell you if you want to know"
The guard pulled away as the woman began to laugh crazily. She waited for the man to leave before letting out a sigh and returning to her prison cell.
"Having to act mad every time a person comes around sure is tiring. I wonder when they will finally set me free, because being stuck in here is hell, and the food is awful"
She walked to her food and pushed it a way where it collided with other similar trays before turning to the moon that was close to vanishing from the sky.
Her face grew sombre as she sat down on the cold floor. She curled her knees inward and wrapped her hands around them.
"My dear lord, if not for my greed, then I would still be in your service, but now that you are gone, I have no master to serve a lowly servant that betrayed its master"
She slammed one of her hands to the ground, an angry face now replacing the one she previously had
"But as soon as I am free from this place, I will take down those lying cultists, but to do that, I need to find that butler boy again"
She bit her nails in anxiety as she bathed in the light from the moon
"From his reaction to me, he could see the forbidden knowledge I harbour from my contract with the king, but he did not look like one of those mad cultists, meaning he can help me take down those scumbags, but how do I reach out to him?"
She continued to bite her nails as she searched through her mind for any solution that may surface
"Wait, my contract with the king, it can help me, she turned to her shadow that began to surge like a pool of violent bubbling paint.
She reached into her shadow and covered her hands in the black, like substance before beginning to write on the walls.
[Oh dear scholar, may knowledge be your guide and may madness be your solace, for I of the blue moon summon you to…]
She heard someone walk towards her as she quickly stopped what she was doing and sat down against the wall.
She pretended as if she was scratching the wall while mumbling to herself as the steps she was hearing drew to a halt.
She turned her gaze to the face of the one who had come to meet her, but to her surprise, it wasn't a guard; instead, it was a smartly dressed man whose face was hidden by the shadows.
"How…What are you doing here?"
The man took his top hat, and a white and black mask manifested on his face, with the left eye shaped like a crescent moon.
"Dear Helen, must you really say you have no master, yet you serve the most glorious king who freed you from your slaver? How rude of you"
Helen backed away from the bars and pointed to the masked man
"Free me. I joined you people because I wanted to protect him, not lead you straight to him"
The masked man laughed
"Oh really, so in your heart your heart you never harboured any bit of animosity to that duke of yours, from the way he treated you like you didn't exist, yet you loved him so to the point you offered your body, but you rejected you still"
The man giggled under his own voice as he placed his hands behind his back
"And then his heart was taken by a noble lady of the Harleyclover family; he wanted a lady from his own class, not a slave like you"
Her rage reached a boiling point as she reached into her shadow and pulled out a row of black spikes that she threw at the man, who simply put his hat in their projector and quickly absorbed the attacks
He dusted off his hat as Helen watched on helplessly
"The King's grace is soon to leave you, dear Helen. He is very cross with what you intended to do, and so he has sent me his priest to deliver judgment"
Helen felt her heart speed up as she felt something behind her. She moved away and turned to look at her shadow that had begun to pulsate as it spilt out a weird black substance began to spill out
She turned around to the man whose crescent-shaped eye had begun to glow a bright red before turning back to her shadow and trying to make it obey her, but there was a force stopping her from doing so
"Dear Helen, you were a good consort to the king. You only sought to be loved, but that led you to betray the one true lord; hence, I shall evoke punishment onto the soul you sacrificed judgment by the king's hand"
Her shadow grew massive and morphed into the shadow of a man wearing a top hat
"Isn't the king's own shadow a beautiful gift he gave to you, yet you choose to misuse it? Now, my king, deliver to her the punishment you see fit"
The shadow-like figure stretched its hand to the man, who placed a clay figure with the same shape as Helen into the shadow's hand
A smile manifested on its face as Helen cried while shaking her head, and then the shadow devoured the clay figure as Helen tumbled to the floor with the black substance rising to her head to absorb her fully
She turned her faded eyes to the moon and smiled
"My Lord, I promised to avenge you, even though it is not me carrying out the revenge, at least let it be that boy"
She freed her hand and bit her finger, causing it to bleed, and then threw her blood onto the wall. The words morphed and formed words right under the ones she had written before
[Oh dear scholar, may knowledge be your guide and may madness be your solace, for I of the blue moon summon you to me and bind our souls so that he may perform my last rites]
And with those words, her soul was no more, at least some of it, as at that moment Hal jolted awake with fear in his eyes.
"That mad woman she's been killed"