Luckily for us, the weather was awful that day. Even in the middle of the afternoon, the atmosphere was dreary and depressing. The air was heavy with the stifling, silent presence of stack upon stack of books. As if to harmonize with our surroundings, a low, eerie rumble emanated from the sky outside. We relished the perfect timing, only to come to our senses a moment later.
“W-Wait, thunder? This isn’t good. Quick, we need to split up and—”
Just as we librarians had started to panic, there came a voice from the darkness beside us, low and deep enough to scrape the earth.
“And do what?”
We all gulped. When we ventured a nervous glance toward the source of the sound, there stood our target, his smile ferociously radiant even in the dim light—none other than the crown prince himself.
The color drained from our faces so fast you could practically hear it, and our pallid visages were no doubt the spitting image of the dead risen from the grave. Thunder cracked, as if to verbalize our internal cries. Then came the hammering of a sudden downpour.
The glitzy demon lord observed our appearances with a smile. “I know full well what day it is...but why are you all gathered in the royal archives, pray tell? A few moments ago, I came across my personal guards in costume as well.”
I could all but hear the voiceless screams of my peers. We’re busted! He’s seen through everything! What idiot said we had nothing to fear if we stick together?! We got a little too swept up in the festivities, that’s all!
He wasn’t even wearing a costume, yet with the way he’d brought thunder and torrential rain in his wake, the crown prince had all the presence of a bona fide demon lord. The entire room was cowed by his gaze and voice, which dropped another octave. His dulcet tones would surely enrapture any woman who heard them, but there was something equal parts terrifying lurking beneath the surface. “Don’t tell me you have some diabolical plan to scare my fiancée? That you hoped to frighten her to the point of tears? Oh, certainly not. No one would even dream of it. Nor would any of you fantasize about something so indefensible as making her cling to you in fear, I’m sure?”
Those are your own fantasies, Your Highness!
No one could speak their mind in the face of his intimidating aura. Then, just as tensions had mounted to the point that we were begging the gods for mercy, a bloodcurdling shriek sliced through the fraught silence. It would have been one thing if it had been the shrill scream of a woman, but the fact that it came in the booming tones of a man gave us pause.
Yet the crown prince turned on his heel without a moment’s hesitation, so the rest of us rushed after him. After climbing the scares—excuse me, stairs—and navigating around a few bookshelves, we followed His Highness’s lead and stopped dead in our tracks. In that same instant, a flash of lightning flooded in from the window, illuminating the whole space with a loud crack.
Amid a heap of fallen guards, the ghost of a girl was bathed in pale light. She was drenched from the head to toe, so her face was hidden from view. Only her hand hung limp in front of her, as if pleading for something. Indeed, she was the perfect picture of a voiceless spirit expressing her lingering regrets.
We were on the verge of screaming, a clap of thunder our cue, but then someone else spoke before we could.
“Eli!”
As we watched our fearless prince rush toward the ghastly figure, we flew into a panic. His Highness is going to get possessed by a ghost! At the same time, we could hardly believe our own ears. Wait, did he say Lady Elianna?
“What happened?! You’re soaking wet!”
We were oddly touched by the sight of His Highness hastily removing his jacket and draping it over the female ghost. Leave it to the glitzy demon lord to show more kindness to a ghost than to a flesh-and-blood human.
“It started pouring out of nowhere. I went to close the window, but the fitting was broken...”
“So you struggled with it until you ended up drenched? Oh, honestly... I know how much you love books, but you have to take care of yourself too.”
“My apologies...”
Apparently, our contrite lady ghost was none other than Lady Elianna. We all breathed a sigh of relief, doing our best to calm our fear-stricken hearts.
Then, right before our eyes, His Highness scooped Lady Elianna into a gentlemanly bridal carry.
“Y-Your Highness?”
“We need to warm you up and get you out of those clothes or you’re going to catch a cold. And as we know, a cold can lead to something much more serious.”
“I-I can walk on my own. Besides, the window is still—”
“Eli.” No sooner had the tone of his voice changed than he etched one of his killer, dazzling smiles onto his features. “If you catch a cold, it’s inevitable that I will too. I thought I’d taught you that lesson, but I suppose it hasn’t quite sunk in.”
“What? Why would that be inevitable?”
“I believe it would be faster to explain through actions than words.”
“Y-Y-Your Highness, please!”
We gazed into the abyss as the glitzy demon lord leaned forward and Lady Elianna scrambled to fend him off. I could have sworn some sort of white, translucent spirit matter was leaking from my mouth.
The pair left the royal archives, flirting all the way. Those of us left behind began to tidy up the mess, looking like nothing so much as zombies roaming a graveyard.
I think we all learned a few valuable lessons that day. For starters, we had to reflect on what a mistake it had been to try and scare a certain someone in the first place, and at the same time, we had to appreciate how perceptive he was to unflinchingly identify that creature as Lady Elianna. But above all else...
How do their regular personas manage to be even scarier than our costumes? Are we sure it’s a good idea to let them run our kingdom one day?
It was an emotion-packed day full of costumes and concerns for Sauslind’s future.