Bound to the Shadow Prince

Chapter 13

Chapter

Thirteen

T ime passes faster than I expect it to, and slower than I want. Each day seems to be made up of making fires, cooking, taking my medicine, recovering from my medicine, and cleaning. Gods, so much cleaning. Why must everything get dirty once it is used? My clothes smell of sweat. The dishes are endless. The bedding is no longer fresh. And my hair is still dirty. All of this takes a lot of work and strength and time that I do not have. I make a list inside Riza’s recipe book of all the things I need to clean, and by the time I mark one off, three more have taken their place.

How do peasants get anything done without a staff to clean up after them? It truly boggles the mind.

I wash clothes. I wash bedding and lay it out to dry. I hang my sodden linens flat on every surface possible, but they take forever to dry. I could light a fire, but I’ve already burned through all the wood of several of my trunks and it is not even winter. I have to remind Balon to tell them that I need much more wood for next winter, I fret.

And I’m almost out of candles. I burn each one down to a stub and I’m judicious with using them, but I’m still reaching the last of my supply and I don’t know how to make more. Riza’s instructions do not cover candle-making and I grow more anxious every time I light one of my tapers.

Do I burn my candles and save my firewood? Or do I burn the firewood and save my candles?

Or do I do neither and sit in the dark? I have no idea.

My food supplies seem to be lasting, at least. I’ve taken to eating less simply because it’s too much effort to cook and clean up. That’s going to help me stretch them, but I still don’t have nearly as much in the larder as the Fellian does.

Balon doesn’t return in two weeks, either. I’ve been making marks on the wall in my room each time I burn a candle fully. That’s as close as I can come to accounting a day, and when I’ve burned sixteen of them, I realize he’s forgotten me. Time crawls again, and I feel lonely.

The Fellian avoids me. I bathe several times in the kitchen, just to try to flush him out, but there’s no response.

I fear I’m going mad already and it hasn’t even been a season. How am I going to last a full year, much less seven of them?

It’s boredom that makes me reckless.

Boredom and sheer loneliness. I can only entertain myself for so long, after all. I’ve spent the last week lying in the darkness, singing songs to myself. Touching my knife and asking it all kinds of questions. Is Erynne’s baby well? Is she thinking of me? Is the war over yet?

Is Balon returning soon?

None of the answers are particularly satisfying. The world outside is forgetting about me as the months pass, and the realization no longer brings me comfort. I want Erynne to dwell on my imprisonment. I want the war to end. I want Balon to rush to the tower and pull down the bricks on the other side of the door to free me. I want him to declare his love for me and that we’ll run away to the distant mountains and damn the crops and the people that need the food.

I want a great many selfish things.

Thinking about the mountains gets me to thinking about the mysterious Fellian. He’s been avoiding me since that day in my bath. It’s painfully obvious. I hear him moving about when I lie down to sleep, and I’ve started counting the pieces of wood he has stacked on his side of the kitchen. He’s using some, because it’s been slowly disappearing. It’s the only sign that he’s still in the tower, because he’s quite good at hiding from me.

Lying in bed, I toy with my knife and consider how I can flush him out. “Is the Fellian nearby?” I ask the knife.

A shiver. Yes.

“In his quarters?”

Yes.

“Awake?”

Yes.

Hmm. I stroke the sheath, considering. “Does he think about me?”

Yes.

A wicked smile curves my lips. “Do I annoy him?”

A hesitation, and then an affirmative shiver.

Interesting. I ponder what that hesitation means. “Does he think about me in my bath?”

No hesitation that time. Yes.

“Does he think about my breasts?”

Yes.

I smirk into the darkness, feeling a bit childish at the line that my questions are taking, but who else am I going to entertain if not myself? “Does he touch himself to the thought of me?”

Yes.

Oh. How very delicious and fascinating. “More than once?”

Yes.

Interesting. I think about the big ugly brute. He’s definitely not attractive when compared to someone like Balon, who has the smooth, elegant good looks of a courtier. I would never touch the Fellian, but knowing that he’s fascinated with me gives me an edge of power. To think that he touches himself to the thought of me regularly.

I cannot say the same. I haven’t touched myself since I entered this tower. Doing so would just make me hungry for the touch of a lover and those needs will not be fulfilled anytime soon, so it’s best to ignore them entirely. But maybe my companion is ashamed of his needs. “Is the Fellian avoiding me?”

Yes.

So he doesn’t want to find a human attractive, then. That sours the gleeful joy I feel, just a touch. He’s a man. Any man confronted with a pair of nice, juicy tits in a bath would jerk his cock to the sight. I’m not special. Ah well. “Does he hate me, then?”

Yes.

I frown at that. “Has he thought about killing me?”

Yes.

A prickle of warning brushes over my skin. “Is he going to?”

No answer. That’s a no, then.

Unless he changes his mind, of course. Unless I annoy him so much that he sees no way out except to get rid of me.

As if the knife is following my thoughts, it shivers in affirmation.

Hmph.“Sometimes your answers are very annoying, you know that?”

Yes.