I see the words in her eyes. A lot scarier.
What does he want only days after the battle of the White Square?
I would rather you understand completely the nature of the male you challenged.
Or rather, what does he want so soon?
I woke, Aerinne, for you.
Fair warning. I mean for you to be mine.
Several grim possibilities float in the back of my mind, possibilities I wouldn't entertain if it wasn't for that damn letter, Nora, and that every time we meet in person he touches me. Touches me like. . .
He already has plans.
There are many, many creative ways I can be punished for Embriel, and Lords with power usually start with the most banal and work their way up.
Rape is a bloodless, brutal, debilitating punishment for all it lacks creativity, and it isn't even a crime. Perhaps I should change that. I wonder how hard the Houses would fight—all the extra paperwork.?i
“I thought I'd have more time,” I hear myself say. At least until the end of the negotiations. I thought he wouldn't want to start playing sex games until after the real business was concluded.
“We should have expected this.” Juliette’s tone is grim. “Nora and I had a talk.”
I can imagine.
“He’s really just hanging out in the courtyard?” I say in English, because there are no words in Everennesse I can use to express my blank confusion at this untoward behavior.
“Less talking,” Juliette barks, sounding like her older sister. “Brush your teeth and wipe down your face. Sixty seconds.”
We leave, running down the hall and stairs like we're thirteen again. I step through the front doors of Faronne House and meet the gaze of the Prince as he turns to face me. It isn’t a sunny morning, but the clouds are a gentle gray, allowing a hint of the sun to shine through.
I pace forward, my wound aching as stomach muscles flex, and at the appropriate distance I sink to one knee until he bids me rise. He’s still for so long the hair on the back of my neck rises.
Finally, the barest touch under my chin tilts my head back and then his fingertips are slow, featherlight touches on myforehead, drawing down between my eyes, down the bridge of my nose, brushing over the high slope of my cheekbones and the curve of my jaw as if he's blind and memorizing my face.
“I dreamed,” he says quietly, “as I slept. Some of them, dark. But there was always one face, one voice, in the mist. If capable of pity. . .but it has been long since I was.”
The Prince lowers his arm to his side and I rise, his words plucking at strings of memory. He says nothing, studying my face as I study his. I will not speak unless asked a question. The eyes that take me in are the same color as his layered robes, a deceptively soft sky blue that bridges the distance to gray.
“I have something for you.” The Prince reaches under his robes and withdraws a long, delicate gold chain. A trident dangles on the end. He lifts it over his head and it dangles in his hand. “Your mother gave it to me many thousands of years ago when we were near your age. One of many over the years.”
It’s a struggle. To stand here, to breathe through the fist in my chest, to not weep. I have jewelry of hers, of course, but nothing this old. Nothing from her youth when she was, maybe, like me.
Stepping forward, he reaches out and drapes it over my head, gathering my hair in one hand to lift it up out of the way. The chain is warm, and it settles around my neck as his breath touches my cheek. I clutch the pendant, looking down to avoid his gaze.
“When you are ready,” he says, releasing my hair, his fingertips brushing my neck before they withdraw, “we will speak of her. There are no books that chronicle the history in my mind.”
“There should be,” I manage to say.
“Then I give you leave to write down what I say. But that will be for another day.” He touches my cheek. “There will be many, Lady.”
I nod, and compose myself before looking up. “Thank you, Prince.”
Another small smile briefly touches his lips. “There are gardens on your lands, if I recall.”
I let out a deep breath and shake my head, hand still clutched around the pendant. “We transferred the flowers to a public park a few blocks away, to honor my mother. The gardens here now grow nothing more grand than carrots and cabbages, but they would doubtless be honored by your presence.”
“Doubtless. In the same fashion mine would be honored by yours.”
