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Something in the palace wants to kill you. Maybe it’s the palace itself.
That is the sense you get, more than anything – you sense the malice, you sense the sheer weight of what this kingdom means, but more than anything, you sense how badly the palace itself hates you. It’s driving you mad.
You understand why, of course. You are all too familiar with your own sins. You know what you have done to deserve its scorn, undeserving of your place in its halls. You were its architect, sure, responsible for the columns that hold up its towering arches, and for your efforts, it hates you.
In theory, it should be a hive of activity. The castle staff are busy. The nobles vie for your attention in the court. But every time you emerge from your study, you find the halls deserted. There is never a soul in sight. Staff come when called, appear as though from the ether, but you have not once encountered them without trying.
Your reign was reinstated two months ago. Dream himself oversaw the recoronation, placing the crown upon your head in the palace chapel. Under the eye of Prime, you were once again made king, royal vestments like lead weights keeping you pinned to the spot. On the rare chance you do find someone wandering about, it is him. He appears around corners and at the other end of halls like the palace has placed him there on purpose, your torment given physical form.
You keep your head down. You approve project budgets and send delegates to the L’Manberg inaugural banquet in your stead and keep your head down.
The documents on your desk swim before you. This one– it’s a petition, you think. Another damned petition to once again oust you. You aren’t the real king, they argue; it should be Dream on the throne. You stamp it with a rejection and place it in the pile with all the other petitions you’ve received demanding you abdicate the throne to its rightful ruler. It grows larger and larger by the day. Half of them aren’t even from real constituents. They just appear, unsigned, telling you to get out. The palace, you swear, has been putting them there itself.
It wants you gone. It hates you. That, at least, is something you can agree on.
The museum. You need to work on the museum. You need to get out of here and get out of your own head and do something that doesn’t involve wide, echoing halls with no bodies to dampen the sound. You need to escape the cage you’ve been given, even if it’s only for a little while, regardless of your inevitable return. To go somewhere that Dream refuses to set foot. Perhaps he’s the reason the palace hates you. Perhaps it’s your own fault. Many things around here are, and the things that aren’t are pinned on you regardless.
You exit your study. There is no one around. The high, arched ceilings in this part of the palace loom above you, watching, waiting. Your heeled boots click on the stone floor as you walk – tap, tap, tap, tap. For a moment, you swear you hear one of the laundresses in an adjacent hall; when you look, there is nothing, no one, and perhaps there never had been. You’d invite Niki around for tea, but this wouldn’t be the place for it. The palace would make its ire known to her, and then she’d finally realize what a monster you had truly been. It wouldn’t matter that she’s forgiven you – she’d know the truth of it all, and would turn her back accordingly.
You’d deserve it. You deserve her anger. You deserve the palace’s anger, too.
The halls loom. They echo. They stretch on endlessly, miles and miles in every direction, stranding you alone with no end in sight. You desperately try to brush this off as the panic starts to seep in. It’s watching you. It’s always watching you, the same way Dream is, the same way everyone is. It’s waiting for you to fuck up. It’s waiting for the day it gets its way, drives you from its walls permanently. You’ve not slept the last few nights, with how clear its hate has been. It hates you, it wants you gone, and yet, it won’t let you leave. It never wants to let you leave.
You never should have built this place. You never should have agreed to Dream’s deal. There are so many things you never should have done, and you’ll spend your entire life atoning for them. It will never be enough, but you will try. Gods, you will try. You locate a door, finally, and step into the outer courtyard. Another hundred meters and you’re free, out of the castle’s clutches and its angry, watchful eye.
Tonight, you resolve, you’ll sleep in the museum office. There’s a cot in there. The building doesn’t press in around you the way this one does. The museum, thank the gods, almost feels something like home.
You were the architect of both, but only one feels like a tomb.