Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MORGANA
I ’d been left to my own devices for over two days since the attack. They brought dry, stale food when the sun was at its highest, but this time they did it through a barely cracked door.
I let the platters slowly pile in the corner near the door. The tower room was empty, save for a chamber pot I refused to use and an empty cot without its feather mattress. The stars distracted me from the terrible memories of what Galen and I escaped, but every moment that passed was a risk. I entirely expected Paul to return and get his revenge.
There was one small window, just a hair larger than my waist but secured with two bars. Winds breezed through every evening, and if it weren’t for the sounds of the nearby shores, I’d go mad in the utter silence. There was simply no escaping this.
I tried picking the lock when the moon was higher than the window. I used splinters of wood, my fingernail—anything I could get my hand on, but nothing worked. The meat was starting to reek, and before long, I’d befriend the flies that buzzed around my uneaten gruel.
The door opened slowly. The lantern on the wall bled through the crack, flecks of dust blooming into the room like winter’s first snow. I stared with wide eyes, expecting a guard to toss my next meal on the ground, but a tall, unimpressed silhouette stared back at me.
“A guard told me you bit him.”
“He tried to touch me.” Tried. No, he did touch me. Aster didn’t need to know how vulnerable I was though— if he didn’t already know.
Aster was silent. He pushed the door open wide enough that it clattered against the plates, his attention dragging over to it. I watched a soft apple roll across the dusty floor. “You’ll cause rats.”
“I am already looking at one.”
Those crimson eyes flicked to mine, observing me with predatory intent as I rose. My legs wobbled, hands shaking as my weak body struggled to stay upright. I was hungry, sure, but I rejected the water too. I didn’t trust them to not poison it—at least not the guards. Aster had use for me. The guards did not.
They could beg for forgiveness. After all, I was nothing more than a prisoner.
“How should I expect you to fulfill your duties if you are dehydrated and empty bellied?”
I pouted, my dry lips cracking as they stretched. “What a shame.”
Aster scowled, the wooden floor creaking as he shifted closer. Even in physical form, he glided across the floor like a ghost would. I kept my eyes on those gloved hands, wondering if the fabric would do anything to prevent his wrath or if it was just for show.
“The guard tried to touch you?” he asked, circling back so jarringly that I gasped. My pout faded into neutrality. I didn’t need to ask him why he cared, I knew it was fake.
I nodded. “It seems your guard dogs don’t know when to stop biting.”
“It seems my dove has claws after all.” Aster smiled, light glimmering in his eyes. “He will be dismissed then.”
“Dismissed?”
“Did I stutter?” Aster inhaled deeply, a scowl forming onto his face. He gave the slop a sidelong glance and sighed, as if he were unsure what to do with me. I looked at the opening in the door but knew better than to run for it. I was fast, but not faster than his magic. I’d learned that the hard way. “Follow me.”
Aster turned on a heel and disappeared down the stairwell. He didn’t wait for me to follow, and for a moment I wondered if he cared. I hesitated before stumbling forward, my feet numb and tingling as I held onto the grooves of the wall with each step down. Aster was waiting patiently for me at the bottom, hands tucked behind his back. He only continued when my feet were planted on the ground.
The silence was deafening, but I favored it over his torment. It felt odd, to say the least. I was a prisoner, freed of shackles and capable of running far, far away, where I would forever hide from the infamous prince of Verdantis. He’d existed, shrouded by intrigue and the mask his father placed upon him, but I knew if I tried to escape before I had leverage, the running wouldn’t stop.
So I followed in obedient silence, anger brewing deep within my chest. Two guards opened the courtyard doors, and for the first time in two days, true sunlight bled onto my cold, dry skin. I exhaled in relief and watched as Aster sat at an outdoor table without instruction. He merely pulled out his pocket watch as the time ticked away.
I swallowed my terror, shifting across from him and bracing my hands on the back of the chair. He looked at me through his lashes, clicked the pocket watch shut, and waved his hand at the chair. I blinked. Once. Twice.
“Sit,” he said.
“Sit?” I repeated. “To share a cup of tea?”
“Would you prefer coffee?”
I stammered but pulled the chair out from under the table. The metal legs scraped against the cobblestone sidewalk, and when I sat my sore muscles sang in relief against the cushion. I settled, if only to give my body relief, and stared wide-eyed at the Prince of Shadows.
He seemed kind when he wasn’t coercing or kidnapping me. I wanted him to be just as cruel as I expected—and in a way, he was. Up until this very moment, at least.
“Do you fear me, Morgana?”
I chewed on the question, head cocking to the right in disbelief. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I muttered.
Aster grinned, the tip of his canine sparkling as if he were born to hunt. He leaned forward, bracing his arms against the iron table. “Fear makes for valuable friendships, you understand. That is why you chose a life of espionage and coercion?”
“You know nothing of why I chose this path.”
Aster sucked in a breath, shaking his wrist as if it hurt. “Did I hit a nerve? I’ll have you know the crown has the most talented and capable healers at the ready.”
I stared in bewilderment, my lips neither widening or tightening in reaction. I was an immovable force that would not falter beneath his torment. He sighed, leaned back in his chair once more, and turned his attention to the white calla lilies blooming to our left.
“Quite beautiful, aren’t they?”
I flicked my attention to them. “Aren’t those the flowers people bring to funerals?”
“A fitting symbol, if you ask me.”
I narrowed my eyes. I’d heard of the crown family’s plague. It was once a symbol of aptness in a world clawing for the ability to withstand—to survive—linking them to the thing that doomed our world. It made Verdantis and their royal family the most feared people in existence. Sorceresses traveled far in hopes of understanding this curse. This power .
Over the generations, though, that vision darkened.
“Careful. Rumor has it your subjects tire of the ruse.”
Aster’s eyes hardened, but he didn’t look at me. He tapped his finger against the armrest and sighed. “My grandmother used to speak of a legend. A goddess of death who watched over us, shielding us from our untimely demise. On her deathbed, she warned me that this being was tired of our failures.” His focus finally shifted to me, lips thin and downturned. “We planted calla lilies in her name, as if we could appease an angry god.”
“A fitting end.”
Aster chortled. He chortled—loudly, in fact—and it made me recoil into myself. “You do not fear me,” he said, answering his previous question. “But you should.”
“I don’t fear much.”
“Unless it is a guard, or lord , touching you?”
The blood rushed from my face, leaving behind a sickly cold feeling, but I neither agreed nor denied. Shrugging, I averted my attention to the table. “What is the point? Why have you imprisoned me?”
“You do not expect me to let a murderer run around my streets.”
I bit my tongue. He was a murderer too—I’d witnessed it with my own eyes—but when I met his gaze, there was mutual understanding. He tented his fingers, elbows pressed into the metal armrests.
“No, Morgana. I do not care if you murder half of my city, truth be told. I have guards equipped to handle that. What I do care about, however, is the magic you chose to kill with.”
My mouth went dry, and no matter how many times I swallowed, my tongue would not wet. “If you’re planning on asking me how long I’ve known about it, you will be disappointed to find that I have never wielded magic before that night.”
“Liar.”
“You will not call me such a thing,” I hissed.
“I will,” he hissed back and leaned forward. “I am your prince, Morgana. I will call you what I so please.”
I bared my teeth, my eyes slits. “You are nothing to me.”
He grinned, ear to ear. There was darkness dancing in his gaze. “Then this will be an easy task. The more you do for me, the more freedom you earn. Eventually, you’ll return to that shack of a home you so miss with an allowance and list of errands.”
I choked on the air in my throat. He was lying. Aster wouldn’t let me go—not after what he discovered, what I’d done. He would be a fool. Yet he didn’t falter—and that darkness begged me to believe him. “You’d let me go back home?” I whispered.
“Perhaps. But you must earn it. It will not be an easy reward to earn.”
I shook my head slowly. We sat there in silence, as if our stare down was a competition, but he inevitably won. I lowered my gaze back to the table and gritted my teeth. “You said you had a task for me.”
“I am glad you’re eager to earn your way out of the nest, little dove.” He stood, snapping his gloved finger. It was muted, barely loud enough for me to hear, but two servants flitted out the courtyard doors not a second later with food and drink enough for three. “Your first task is to eat.”
My jaw went agape, watching as he turned his back and aimed to the door. “And my second?” My voice croaked, a servant resting the plate of eggs and sausage delicately before me. The second servant served me water.
“Your second is to pay a visit to a friend of a friend. Rumor has it they’re off to attend a funeral—but they owe me something quite dire.”
And then Aster left me in solitude to eat, the guards stationed at every door and a lady on hand waiting to refill my cup. Again, the thought of running came to the front of my mind?—
But I knew the consequence of such haste. I’d play Aster’s game. If he was unwilling to give me my freedom after I won a few rounds of this terror, then I’d force his hand or die trying.