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“Oh, Steven, let's go to Europe, they said,” Steve grouses. “There’s culture and shit, they said. We can visit the castles. It’ll be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, they said.”
Well, it damn well is turning out to be one hell of an experience!
His side is on fire, his ankle stings with every step he hobbles, and he’s starting to bleed through his clothes. Just what he needs! Leave a warm, coppery trail to lead these things right to him.
While he drags himself down the dark corridor, he wonders if he can sue. The guides did warn against leaving the travel group, on the one hand.
On the other, they should probably have detailed the possible consequences. Like getting lost in the ruins and being chased by monsters with rotting grey skin and maws full of fangs, and fucking claws that slice through clothes and skin like a knife through butter.
This kind of shit never happens in Hawkins. He’s never going on holiday with his parents again.
Something behind him clatters. When he whips around, the shadows at the end of the corridor move. He hears snarls and sniffing, the tick of claws against stone. They’re coming closer.
“Shit,” Steve swears, forces himself to go faster, using one hand against the wall for support. “Shit, shit, shit, c’mon!”
He doesn’t even know where he’s going, just that he needs to get away if he doesn’t want to be monster fodder.
His fingers catch on something.
There’s … a narrow doorway in the wall, half hidden by a tangle of thick vines. A sliver of silver light is falling through it.
“What the-”
Something behind him shrieks triumphantly.
Steve doesn’t think for another second, just ducks through the doorway.
He finds himself in a cavernous room, moonlight trickling in through arched windows. Right in the middle, on a dais, is a throne carved from solid stone. On it is a tall, hooded figure.
Except that isn’t true. As his eyes adjust to the light, he realizes that the throne is covered in what looks like an old shroud, tattered and torn with age and vaguely human-shaped. It’s overgrown by more vines, like it has been here for a very long time.
And that is the moment the monsters slam into the doorway behind him.
He yelps and stumbles further into the room, trips on the first steps of the dais and lands square on his ass. The monsters snarl and snap at him, and for a blissful second, he thinks they won’t fit through the doorway.
But then the first distorts its body like a snake’s jaw and squeezes through. Steve watches in horror as they trickle inside, surrounding the dais like a pack of feral dogs. One of them swipes at him with its claw, and he instinctively shuffles up the stairs, backwards and on all fours. The monster lunges after him-
-and hesitates at the foot of the dais.
Like it’s afraid, like there’s some invisible barrier.
It’s only now that he realizes the steps are inlaid with an intricate pattern of symbols, shining in the moonlight like liquid silver. The monsters try to get at him, but every time they touch the symbols, they recoil as if burned.
“Ha!” Steve’s mouth tugs into a hysterical grin. “Can’t cross, huh? Well, too bad, you ugly-”
The largest of the monsters steps over the barrier. A sizzle of silver sparks runs over its form as it does and it jowls like an injured cat, but it still advances. Steve swears and skitters further back, until his back hits something solid. The throne.
The creatures are moving slowly, like something is physically holding them back, but they are gaining on him inch by inch. There’s no escape, except …
Steve clambers onto the throne with clumsy limbs. The shroud is cold and brittle under his hands and the vines tear into his bleeding skin, but it’s the only place he can still go. If the monsters are afraid of the dais, maybe the throne will be enough to deter them. Maybe he’ll be safe here, maybe he can wait until help arrives, maybe-
And then it happens.
A sound booms through the silence, rattles his bones. A sound like the chime of a clock.
Then another.
And another.
Steve yelps and covers his ears, screws his eyes shut. The light of the sigils on the ground seems blinding all of a sudden.
The creatures howl.
And then everything goes quiet.
Steve waits with baited breath for the feeling of claws tearing at his legs, but nothing happens. The snarls and growls are gone.
Instead, birdsong fills his ears. The faint sound of footsteps and voices, hooves on cobblestone and the clang of metal against metal. Instead of dust and decay, the room suddenly smells like wood and smoke and forest. The light shining through his eyelids isn’t silver anymore, but golden.
“Fuck,” Steve breathes. “The hell was all that?”
“Oh, those?” somebody chuckles. Somebody very close by. “Those were wraiths. Scary little fuckers, aren’t they?”
Steve swears his heart misses a beat. Because upon closer inspection, the roughness of the vines and shroud against his skin is gone. Instead, there’s a body under his, a hand running idly down his side, all the way down to his ass. He’s sitting in someone’s lap.
Steve snaps his eyes open. There’s a guy looking back at him, a guy with a shit-eating grin set in a handsome, dimpled face, framed by a spill of dark curls. There’s a crown on his head.
“Now what I’d like to know,” says the guy, and gives Steve’s ass a hearty squeeze. “Is what I did to deserve getting a pretty little thing like you dropped in my lap. Not that I’m complaining.”
Steve does what any sensible person would do in his situation.
He faints.
And that’s his first encounter with King Edward the Banished.