So much was going on inside Lola’s head. She couldn’t stop looking at the completely dismantled body of Nora. It made her entire body feel cold and her mind seize up. She couldn’t think and couldn’t do much more than pull her knees up to her chest and fold herself up as small as possible. The flashes of imagery she’d gotten during her blackout kept smashing into her mind, making the shock of what happened even worse.

What happened? How? Why?

These questions overwhelmed her but she had no answer for any of them. Did she kill Nora? Or did something else save her? She looked down at her hands and was appalled to find them covered and slick with blood. In a frantic, furious state, she used the cloak she wore to scrub at them, trying to get the blood off. When that proved ineffective, she scrambled to the pond’s edge and dunked them into the frigid water. It was too dark to see below the surface, but she could imagine thin swirls of blood floating down into the depths of the pond.

The guards found her there, still by the water, scrubbing and scrubbing at her hands. They tried to move her back but she refused with a shout.

“Stop! I have to get clean. I have to get clean.”

There was no way of knowing how many times she said that. The phrase was repeated over and over again for at least two full minutes. The guards were careful with Lola at first, afraid to hurt her or inadvertently trigger her to physically lash out at them. But when it became apparent she wasn’t going to move away, they became more forceful.

“It’s okay,” one of them said, trying to be soothing. “You’re okay.”

“Gods, what happened here?” another one said, staring fixedly at the decimated body of a woman no one there had ever seen before.

Lola heard that one and freaked out more, her body twisting violently in an effort to break away from them. One of the guards holding on to her realized she was reacting to the body as well.

“Cover the body! Hurry,” he ordered.

The same guard that couldn’t tear their gaze from the corpse, ripped off the thin, scarlet cape he wore as part of his uniform. He quickly used that to cover up the body.

“We need to alert the king.” He turned to look at the highest ranking soldier there. “Don’t we, Sarge?”

A guard looked up in response. He was still holding on as tightly as he could to Lola but her continued struggle was taking its toll on the man. He was breathing heavily and his face was flushed red. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and it dripped down his face, into his eyes, and soaked his mustache. For such a small and outwardly unimpressive girl, her panic attack was surprisingly strong.

“Aye. Word’s spread that the king was looking for this lass. Find ‘im and let ‘im know what’s happened. He’ll definitely want information on that.” He jerked his head toward the corpse. Already, patches of darker color were spreading as the cloth soaked up the body’s blood. “Whatever the hell happened in this place, he needs to be informed as well.”

The guard nodded and was about to leave.

“Wait, Jeffries,” the Sarge suddenly said. Lola was starting to exhaust herself now and he was having a somewhat easier time controlling her. The other guard helping him was also red-faced and sweaty. “Make sure to deliver this…intel alone. It wouldn’t do to have the wrong set of ears finding things out if ya catch m’drift.”

“Aye, Sarge,” the man responded with a quick salute of fist over heart. “I do.”

He turned and ran off.

As he did, he heard the Sarge and Eaton (the name of the other guard he left behind) still trying to soothe the woman. He poured on all the speed he could, racing through courtyards, hallways, and dodging other soldiers and guards along the way. The world blurred past him and he narrowed his focus to straight in front of him. As he burst through the main castle’s front doors, he immediately ran up the grand, central staircase and navigated his way to the king’s private apartments and bedchamber.