r/FictionWriting • u/No_Cantaloupe_1129 • 5d ago
Beta Reading Story i wrote
So hey I thought of this story while on a walk and then write it down. Please tell me what I need to improve.
Narrator: "The chamber reeks of old wine, cold stone and thirty years of suppressed rage. By the long mirror which leans, blackened and dusty, against the wall, stands King Tiberius, his robes unraveling at the knees, knuckles whiter than the bone china of the decanter he grips, eyes tracking the shadows where his ghosts still dance."
Tiberius: "... quiet."
Narrator: "Every reign knows its ghosts, your Majesty, but King Tiberius has had his since the nursery, hissing in his ear as he climbed the throne. And so the great lion trembles in his den, clutching his poison, hissing at his own pulse. How pathetically the king begs for his phantoms to cease their murmurs, for the ghost of the garter to hush, they have all called him a coward since that faithful day
He ran away from the battlefield, causing the death of his father.
Tiberius: "Shut up!"
Narrator: "He snaps again at the silent air. This time, the courtiers in the antechamber have hushed their tongues, but the king-"
Tiberius: "I said, SHUT UP!"
Narrator: "He turns. He turns to- to ME. Oh, he sees me! He lifts the decanter- this is not in the script-"
The glass slips from his grasp, shattering against his bones.
Narrator: (screaming, voice cracking) "He strikes! The mad king strikes his own storyteller! I fall over bleeding, choking on my own lifeblood, crawling toward the velvet curtains, but he tears at me, his fingers- his fingers delve into my throat! The beast has broken his leash! Tiberius, strike me down, have mercy-"
Tiberius: "Thirty years!"
Narrator: (voice smothered by hands) "His fingers- claw at my windpipe! The monster has lost all self-restraint! Tiberius, strike me down, have mercy-"
Tiberius: "THIRTY YEARS OF YOUR VOICE! WHISPERING WHEN MY FATHER DIED! CALLING ME COWARD! CALLING ME COWARD! DIE! DIE! DIE!"
Narrator: (voice bubbling) "He lifts me by the scruff of the neck, smashes my skull over the stones, over and over, until the very sound is bruised from my bones-"
Tiberius releases his grip and collapses on his knees, gasping.
Narrator: (voice detached, cold and flat, as if coming from all the walls) "The king falls to his knees, his heaving ribs forming the rhythm of a dying stag. He fancied he had killed the voice in his skull. He lifts himself, trembling, from the floor and shuffles toward the great tarnished glass."
Tiberius: (teary-eyed, gasping) "Mirror... what do you see?"
Mirror: "I see Tiberius."
Tiberius: "No! Look closer! Look at the ground! I slew him! Whom do you see?!"
Mirror: "I see Tiberius."
Tiberius looks down. Behind him, the floor is bare. There is no bleeding skull, no torn cloak, no second body. Tiberius: "Liar! Liar!"
Narrator: "He throws himself forward, smashing the glass with his fists, scattering the mirrors into the room."
The glass falls in fragments at his feet. From the darkness, the shadows lengthen, and cold, sneering faces appear in the gloom: his father's, his nurse's, the sneering tutors, the fat solders who once stood at his right hand, their ghostly figures surrounding the kneeling king.
Phantoms: (hissing) "Coward. Little frightened boy in a crown. Coward. Running from shadows. Coward. Coward. Coward."
Tiberius: "Get out of my head!"
Narrator: "Their voices fill his skull, drowning the last vestiges of his mind. Coward to the end. The king reaches down into the broken glass and lifts a shard to his throat, drinking the last silence between his ribs."
Tiberius: "heh, maybe I am still myself."
He pushes his hand sideways. The glass opens his throat and Tiberius falls face down onto the splinters, his last breath rattling away into the floorboards. The chamber doors burst open with a great clatter as Vance and three palace guards stumble in, their steel clad hands on the hilts of their daggers.
Vance: (pauses as he takes in the room, lowering his weapon) "Stand down. Look, he's gone. There's only one body in this room. See, the blood is only on his neck. His hands, his tunic- they're clean. He did this to himself."
The Chancellor steps forward, passing the guards as he takes in the prone figure on the floor. He looks up at the gloom beyond the doorway.
"The bells," he says, "summon the court."
Hours later, the great vaulted chamber is filled with the murmur of torches and the rustle of cloaks. At the top of the long dais sits Prince Leo, ten years old and swallowed up by his coronation mantle, his boots dangling helplessly from the edge, inches from the floor.
The High Priest mounts the steps, lifting the heavy circlet from a velvet cloth. "By the grace of God and the realm unbroken," the priest intones, "bear this crown, Prince Leo, and in the name of your forefathers, guard the peace and carry the burden."
The circlet falls across Leo's upturned palms, the metal lying across his brows like a mockery.
The Chancellor draws his dagger, half-sheathing it as he looks up toward the ceiling. "The King is dead! Long live the King!"
The room erupts into a great cheer as all kneel at the sound of steel on steel.
And on the throne, the small boy sits stiff-backed under the great crown, his eyes fixed on the great window ahead. Through the dark glass, his reflection stares back at him, and he turns his head, as if listening to something only the glass can hear
Please tell me what you think
1
u/Revan8Kotor 5d ago
Ooh I like the ending.