The nightmare is always the same. Every few months the same nightmare would haunt her every time she shuts her eyes. But lately, it has been occurring much often, much to her distaste. And tonight was no different. She was again surrounded in a swirling storm of screaming white, a blizzard. The hooded person in her dreams would come closer to her, making sweeping movements to music only he could hear. He would be closer, then further away and then closer again. And all she could do was to run; run, and run, only to come back to the same place where she first left. But it was a little different this time, because when she kept running, the hooded person kept getting nearer and when Joohyun spun around to look behind, the thing was so close, she could see dagger like teeth gleaming under the hood. “No!” Joohyun cried as she held out her palm to the person, flakes of ice creeping under her skin, “Go away! Go away! Go—!”   “Princess!”   “Princess!”   Her eyes shot open and she swallows hard. She clutches her chest furiously, hoping that by a scratch or simple graze, her heart would stop racing. She felt cold water being dabbed on her forehead by Sooyoung as the girl eyes her worriedly. Joohyun did not utter a word till her heart beats back to its normal rate and realization hits her after a few moments.   “What happened?” She grips her maid’s wrist, “Why am I here? Did the earlier event really happened? Did that boy died?”   “Sleep, Your Highness. You are unwell.” Sooyoung bit her lips, releasing the grip and continue to her hair.   “No. Answer me.” Joohyun attempts to hoist herself up from the bed, only to feel what small amount of energy left inside and she landed herself back on the bed.   “Princess!” Sooyoung cries in hush, before adjusting her body to lie comfortably, “You should rest, Your Highness. The King is very worried upon your well-being and he ordered for you to rest till your condition is back to normal.”   Joohyun shuts her eyes for a few seconds and heaves a sighs. She then opens her eyes and shifts her look towards a painting of her father, her late mother and herself, as a baby, cradled up on her mother’s chest. A feeling of sentiment surge inside her as she imagined her mother being by her side right now, instead of her maid, Sooyoung. And she wishes to tell her all of her dreams – her nightmare – towards her mother, asking for her opinion and advice, because she once read a book and it says ‘A mother knows best’.   “That boy…he’s dead, isn’t he?” Joohyun looks away from the painting and stares at the girl.   Sooyoung seems hesitant to answer as she bits her lip while her pupils dart away from Joohyun’s gaze. “T-The King….His Grace ordered me to not mentioned anything regarding the matter to you, Princess.”

 

“But you are my personal maid and you serve me.” Joohyun was not one to use her authority much but for this case she just had to, “I order you to answer me. That boy was murdered, true?”

  Sooyoung quickly nods, “B-But the culprit remains unknown. The joust was immediately called off after the King heard the news and all the knights and guards were on full rampaged in search for the felon.”   “Impossible.” Joohyun murmured. That killing was not done by a human, Joohyun thought, She was sure of that. No equipment could have made a body in such a twisted position.   “Did you have a bad dream of the boy?” Sooyoung timidly asks.   Joohyun lies, “Yes, and I wish I could wipe that image off from my memory forever.” And the last part was true.     For several days, she spent her time being locked up in the room, though Sooyoung said it was for Joohyun to get better and she eventually did after a day but the King still wants her to remain confined in her bedchamber for nonsensical reason. Though she was not all bored and brooding because Seulgi came to visit her every morning during breakfast, after her lessons and training, and also just before Joohyun’s bedtime she would sit and talk with her.   “I heard you are allowed to leave your room tomorrow, is that true?” Seulgi suddenly asked.   They were in a comfortable silence for a while as she continues to sew her yet to finish cloak while Seulgi had her nose deeply buried in a book she found at the castle’s library. She looks up to face Seulgi whose brown eyes gaze inquisitively at her.   “Yes,” Joohyun puts the cloak down on her lap, “Sooyoung told me this morning that the King had given orders to let me leave this room by tomorrow. Though I think the guards will be doubled than usual.”   Seulgi nods her head, seemingly approved. “The guards must be doubled. It is for your safety, Joohyun.”   “Seulgi,” She calls out, “I’ve heard the last sentence too many times, and it wearies me.”   The girl slowly shuts her book, while open and closes, looking apologetic, “I-I’m sorry, I just thought – well, since the knights and guards were not able to catch the culprit, the killer might be still on the loose within the castle. And you…you are the Princess and –”   “It’s alright,” It was Joohyun’s turn to feel sorry. Sometimes her past frustration getting locked up gets the best of her, she did not thoroughly thought what comes out from her lips, “I did not mean to come out irate. It’s just that all my life whenever I asked the people around me, why I am being confined in this place, they would always answer the same thing as what you spoke earlier.”   “But I know what you said was true,” She gave a small smile to the girl by her bedside who somehow look a bit downcast, with her pink lips jutted out in such a manner that Joohyun finds it deeply adorable. “What are you reading, anyway? You did not tell me what it was.”   Seulgi appears startled as she looks at the book in her hands. It was an old book, Joohyun knew as the pages were yellowish and crisp. But she could not manage to see what the tittle was as Seulgi shield the front cover away.   “Umm… it’s…” Seulgi tries to find the right words to describe. “It’s rather an odd book.”   “Odd?”   “I’m not sure you would like the content much.” Seulgi tries to hide away the book.   “Seulgi…” Joohyun adds a persuasive tone towards the girl and the latter gave up with a sigh before giving the book to her open palm.   “Veterum Bellua?”   The title was the only thing on the front cover. There were no short explanations, no drawings of hints of what was the content of the book, nothing. So Joohyun randomly flips the pages and almost throw the book away when she was met with a huge drawing of a werewolf opening its wide mouth, revealing its sharp teeth. And Seulgi probably noticing her reaction, immediately grabs the book away from her grip.   “I’m sorry,” Seulgi mumbles, “Are you alright? You should not have seen the book.”   “No, it is fine.” Joohyun whispers as she recovers from the small shock, “Are you perhaps reading… about monsters?” She saw Seulgi bit her lips, probably because she was anxious, Joohyun have to say she noticed the habit quite a fair few times.   Seulgi nods, “I was curious. After the recent incident, I thought – I thought, I should search up on books regarding the matter.”   “So you thought the boy who got killed is the doing…of a monster?” Joohyun pushes, though she herself knew the doing is not by a mere mortal. “Are you saying there is a monster in this castle?”   “No, no, I did not meant that,” Seulgi’s pupils turns wide, and her eyes darts everywhere, finding the right words to explain, “I just – I know I should , I must not ask this question, but…did you remember how the dead body looks like?”   Joohyun shivers slightly before she answers, “Of course. It is engraved in the back of my mind though I wish it wouldn’t. And why is that?”   “Did you noticed how twisted the body is? How there is no wounds of being neither stabbed nor being struck?” Seulgi inquires, her eyes searching for an answer. “His eyes were dead white and the black spots on his neck…that was quite unusual. And birds have already spread the town, about his bizarre death.”   “What did they say?”   “The people thought the boy became a sacrificial lamb for some dark magic,” Seulgi faces her, “They said incidents like this had happened before but it was a long time ago.”   Joohyun shook her head, “I never heard of it. I have never come cross on this piece of knowledge. The only strange things I have seen were what I had told you before, the people in cloaks attending my late mother’s memorial service. And those people they…the cloaked figure…they – they sometimes haunt—”   A slight cough behind them cuts Joohyun’s words as the both of them turn their heads around. Sooyoung walks in with a folded night gown on her hands. Her maid bows both to her and Seulgi and walks towards the bed. “It’s time for bed, Princess.”   Seulgi stood up from her chair, looking slightly dishevel at the interruption as she tucked the book away. Seulgi bows to her and Sooyoung, “Have a good sleep, Your Highness. I will see you tomorrow.”   Joohyun merely nods and watch the girl shuffle a couple of steps backwards before turning around and walk out from her bedchamber.                                                             ***   Joohyun always have guards around her whenever and wherever she goes. But today, the guards seems to double up and she felt more suffocating than ever. But it couldn’t be helped because since the incident, the King had ordered for the security to be tightened towards the important figures in the castle, of course, Joohyun herself included. During breakfast, after many, many weeks, she finally had the chance to eat it with the King, and he took this chance to ask all sorts of questions regarding her well-being and Joohyun kept repeating countless time assuring that she was really in fine fettle. Her father always tends to be over alarmed and protective whenever she feels slightly unwell. Though she knew the King, her father, deeply cared for her, but sometimes, he could tend to be overboard. For example like locking her up in the castle grounds.   “Father, could you please lessen the guards securing over me today? I felt like it’s too much.” Joohyun appeals beside her father who just drank his second cup of wine.   The King grunts in disapproval. “No.”   “But there’s already four guards and two knights,” Joohyun tries to points out, “Not one, but two. Surely there must be other important matters for those knights to tend rather than guarding me.”   “Guarding my sole child is also an important matter, Joohyun.” The King turns to lo