The Crown's Obsession

Music Recommendation: The Establishment by Martin Phipps

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Beth stood behind Calhoun watching the souls that floated in the river, that looked strange to her. What Madeline saw wasn't the same as to what Beth was seeing, and it might have been because of the drop of blood that belonged to Vladimir that now coursed through her veins, making her see things which a mere mortal couldn't see.

In the living world, Beth and Madeline shared the same mother, but the truth was that it was this woman who was in the river, responsible for bringing Madeline into this world. The bones that Beth saw were rotten and had green moss on it, turning the sight to be uncomfortable to watch. Madeline and her mother were talking to each other, Madeline bending down towards the surface of the river, when Beth heard a sound that drifted down the stairs they had come from.

'Beth,' she heard a voice that fell right in her ears. She turned around, trying to see who it was, but she couldn't find anyone there.

Beth then looked at Vladimir, Calhoun and Madeline, who seemed to have not heard the voice and she wondered if she had just imagined it in her mind. As Vladimir spoke, she turned behind and she heard the voice call her again.

'Lady Elizabeth.'

A chill ran down her body, and Beth realized to whom this voice belonged to. Her eyes turned wide, and she wondered where it was coming from.

'Lady Elizabeth, I have been waiting for you,' said Raphael's voice, 'Don't be startled, my words are only for you to listen and no one else. I have been locked up in the Tower of Chains. I have been waiting for you.'

Beth didn't know if she was hallucinating Raphael speak to her because of the guilt that weighed heavily in her heart and mind. Looking back and forth at the people with whom she had come down here, and then at the stairs where the voice was coming from, she couldn't resist herself and started to walk towards the stairs.

She quickly held the hem of her dress before she started to climb up the spiral stairs that were lit with torches of fire. There were certain intervals of gap before a torch of fire was lit on the wall. Therefore Beth picked up a torch from the wall and made her way.

"Raphael?" whispered Beth, wondering if he could hear her.

The tower they were in was called as the Tower of Sins. From what Raphael said, it made Beth question if he was being tortured in a place similar to the dungeons back in the castle. There was something that had been worrying her for a while, were all demons fated to end up in Hell? By what she understood, Madeline's actual mother was not a bad woman as she had tried to protect her child. Raphael was not a bad person either.

The demon had helped her in keeping her sanity by not just giving her company in her room, but also speaking to her with words that made sense more than ever in the past. Raphael had helped her sister and Calhoun, and she doubted he was the kind of person to kill anyone thoughtlessly, then would he be eligible to end up in Heaven instead of Hell for his good nature? Beth asked herself as she continued to make her way up the stairs.

When Beth reached the last stairs from where they had descended earlier, she didn't see anyone around, and she called, "Raphael? Can you hear me?"

There were a lot of things she wanted to speak to the demon, and before anything, Beth wanted to apologize for his death. She turned back, wondering if Madeline would need more time to spend with her mother. Maybe in the meantime, she could speak to Raphael and then ask Vladimir how to bring him back to life with an alternative deal other than sacrificing an innocent soul.

'Beth, leave the tower of Sins, and come to the Tower of Chains,' Beth again heard Raphael's voice. She heard him groan in pain as if he was being tortured.

'Where do I find it? Where is the tower of Chains?' Beth had entered Hell for the first time. She didn't know where the Tower of Chains was located or how to find Raphael, without his guidance right now, she would be lost.

'You will find the long passage between the pillars that light up itself in basins of fire. Walk straight until you find the three-way route. Take a right from there, and you will find the third tallest tower outside. It is black and completely charred. You will find its top broken, you will know when you see it,' said Raphael's voice to her.

Beth who was half-demon and half-human right now, with a mixture of werewolf's blood also running in her veins, the scent made the demons who came across her stare at the woman who wore clothes that didn't belong to this place. It wasn't that Beth was not scared of Hell. The truth was she was terrified. But the only thing that kept her sane was Raphael's voice.

The place was hot because of the amount of fire that blazed in random places in the pits. Beth could hear the screams coming from the pits and other places. She walked away from it, following the voice, half in a trance state, and half-awake as what was happening right now didn't feel real. When she caught sight of the broken tower that was far away from the rest of the other towers, Beth quickly started to make her way to the place.

But what Beth didn't realize was that the creatures of Hell smelled the scent of the human in the air, waking some of them from their slumber. The creatures that had fire blazing from inside their body turned alert on seeing Beth, and they slowly started to come out from the ground.

Back in the Tower of Sins, Madeline looked distressed.

"Beth?" she called, her eyes looking at where they were and the entire passage of a platform that was built next to the river.