Chapter 16 #2
“I love the morning light,” she sighed, wrapping a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Pricilla led Amaris to a messy desk with scrolls littered across it and ink-smudged parchments scattering the floor.
She pulled out a quill and began jotting a scribble of cursive down as she muttered to herself. “Any itching?”
“No. I’m also not feeling bad either. No fever, nausea, dizziness. I’m as healthy as I was a few days ago.” Pricilla’s head lifted as Amaris’s stomach protested. “Starving, but healthy.”
Pricilla made a few more notes before tossing her quill aside and shoving the piece of parchment into a drawer.
“What did you do to my hand?” Amaris reclined against the desk, assessing her strength as she pressed her weight against it. The scabs pulled as her skin stretched, but the stiffness was waning.
“Yuxiway leaves.”
“How do they work?” They sounded like a plant. Judging by the limited equipment in the tower, Amaris didn’t think they had an advanced medical system. However, with results like this, she was intrigued to learn more.
“Mixing the leaves with saliva creates a paste that fights inflammation and festering.” Pricilla grinned at Amaris’s face of disgust. “You can also add them to ude stalk.”
Sephardi offered a laugh that had Amaris smiling.
“Will you be filling the position permanently?” Pricilla asked.
Amaris gripped the edge of the table and shot a look toward Sephardi as she stood with a smile on her lips and her arms folded across her chest.
“For a time,” Sephardi added.
“Are you a traveler? I do adore your accent. I wish I could see the realm beyond these walls.”
“I…no.”
Pricilla took Amaris’s arm in hers. “Not many have the luxury. I wish to travel to every corner of Magoria one day. I want to learn about the different cultures, especially their myths and legends.”
“Do you have a fascination for the occult?” Amaris was oddly growing used to it over the years, with Viv attempting to read her future through tarot cards and wafting sage in her direction every time she said she was with Derek.
Pricilla furrowed her brow and played with the word, exaggerating it and repeating it.
“It means believing in supernatural things—palm readings, spells, that kind of stuff.”
Amaris tapped her fingers against her thigh. Her healed hand brought a whole new level of possibilities. She could try to escape tonight if she wanted to, but there was still the impending question of where to go.
“I most certainly do then. I adore learning all things about magic.”
Amaris stumbled but smiled as she attempted to keep herself from face-planting. Did Pricilla mean tarot and séance magic or magic-magic?
“Magic doesn’t exist,” Sephardi cut in. “They’re only fascinating tales to tell your children at night.”
Pricilla extended a gracious smile, but a hint of annoyance lurked in her eyes as a muscle in her cheek twitched. “It’s said Magoria was once filled with magic. The people and the ground we stand on subsisted on it.”
Sephardi rolled her eyes, scoffing as she returned her attention ahead of them.
“Then what happened to it?” Amaris asked, wondering if magic wasn’t as far gone as Pricilla thought. Maybe magic still existed. How else would she have found her way here? Science couldn’t explain it.
“Lost to the realm.”
“How do you know magic existed?”
“Stories passed through the generations. Some had the ingenuity to write it down in the folktales and various myths. Why would they bother to if it wasn’t real?”
Hope fleeted away. Pricilla’s belief in magic was no different than believing in dragons or unicorns in Amaris’s world.
“Where do you think you’re going?” A towering presence blocked their path, and Amaris rolled her eyes as Theodoric stepped closer from the shadows of the bookcases. Her shoulders tensed as he furrowed his brows, his eyes glaring at her.
“Captain,” Pricilla greeted, inclining her head in a small curtsy.
Are you kidding me? Amaris wasn’t going to curtsy for this jerk.
“Food. I’m hungry,” Amaris said, crossing her arms.
“I’ll be taking over from here. Sephardi, see to it Miss Carter’s breakfast is brought up to her tower,” Theodoric ordered.
Amaris released Pricilla’s arm, clenching her hands into fists. Her cheeks flushed as Pricilla’s gaze swept between them. Pricilla might believe in fairy tales, but she could be a key to escaping, and he was ruining it.
“Miss Carter?” Amaris sneered.
“A formality,” he stated, a twinge in his jaw, making her further narrow her gaze at him.
“Then what should I call you?”
“Theodoric will do fine.” His voice was crisp and irritating.
“I was thinking more along the lines of prick or jackass. Which would you prefer?”
Pricilla gasped. Amaris didn’t care if he was her boss. He wasn’t getting away with acting like a jerk.
“Let’s go.” He grasped Amaris’s arm and urged her toward the tower.
Pricilla shuffled away, darting behind the nearest bookcase.
“What was that?”
“You’re to remain in the tower, not parade around, doing as you please,” he answered.
“I wasn’t,” she shouted. “Sephardi was there. I haven’t eaten a solid meal in days. Do you want me to starve?”
He didn’t bother to answer, only allowing a short burst of breath through his nostrils like he was a beast snarling at her.
“Do you have any idea how to be a normal human being?”
He released her arm, catapulting her several steps ahead of him. “Keep going.”
Amaris stormed through the arched threshold of the stairs and stomped like she would when Gran would send her to bed without dinner for back-talking. She threw open the door, the boom echoing through the cramped space. Theodoric appeared through the darkness and took Sephardi’s spot by the fire.
“You never even thanked me.”
“What in the realm do I have you to thank for?” he asked.
If he hadn’t had a knife and sword within reach, Amaris would’ve sent a fist flying into that smug and perfect jawline.
“I don’t know,” she began, sarcasm lacing each syllable, “maybe because I saved your life. I could’ve died in that river!”
His shoulders tensed. “How did you?”
“How? No thank you for saving me and not leaving me to drown or an apology for taking me fucking prisoner?”
Amaris’s chest tightened as the coursing of her blood flooded her veins and the speed of her breaths grew erratic.
She was losing her shit. She could only take so much before she finally snapped and began spouting off.
It’s why her and Derek fought almost every night.
She couldn’t drop it, no matter how hard she clung to her mask—she had to fight back.
“You’re a prisoner here because you haven’t been forthcoming with information. There wasn’t a village for miles, and you haven’t once revealed who you were running from.”
Amaris’s cheeks flushed, feeling trapped. She couldn’t go to the gym, cry her frustration away with Viv, or pick up an extra shift at work. “It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business. We found you—”
“Oh my God, give it up already. We’ve heard this a million times!” She waved wildly. “You found me when I was lost and trying to get away but stumbled on that poor man.”
“Get away from whom? Your husband?”
Amaris froze. “I don’t have a husband.”
“Then why do you wear a wedding ring?”
She twisted the band of metal. “It’s an engagement ring. I’m not married yet.”
“You’re betrothed then?”
“Yes, but why do you care? It’s not like he can help me.
You idiots can’t put two and two together.
You couldn’t figure out how I ended up in the middle of the woods, so the only logical explanation you had was I’m a murderer!
” His jaw tightened, but she continued her rant.
“It’s all you want to see. You don’t have answers for what you found, so your tiny-ass brain did all it could and connected two completely different situations. ”
“Why are you enraged? If your betrothed is truly missing you, wouldn’t he be looking for you? Or are you lying and you know you’re trapped now?”
“You’re a bastard, you know that? He’s searching for me and won’t be happy when he finds out what you’ve done.”
“What will he think of what you’ve done? I wouldn’t take too kindly to my betrothed running away. Do you think he’ll even come for you now?”
Amaris knocked over a jar of herbs as she stumbled back into the worktable. The shattering of glass was deafening. “Get out,” she croaked, fighting tears.
“Not going to happen.”
“There’s only one way in or out. Go sit at the bottom of the steps if you need to guard me.” Amaris hid her face, holding back a scream from ripping through her throat.
He dropped his head in his hands, dragging his hair back as he sighed. “I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but we’re stuck with each other. Let’s at least make the most of it.”
“You get to act like a complete asshole, but I have to play nice?” Amaris blew out a breath, but it did nothing to mask her fury. “Fuck you.”
“You’re the one who started this arguing.”
“You want me to apologize because your daddy is the duke? Let me guess. You’re used to getting everything you want?
Once someone shows you a bit of disrespect, you demand for them to grovel at your feet and kiss your boots?
I don’t care if you’re a lord or a goddamn prince.
I won’t let you or anyone else treat me like I’m someone less than. He’ll come for me because he loves me.”
Amaris turned her back on him. Clenching the edge of the worktable, she stared at the jagged edges of the broken jar.
He had no right to say anything about Derek.
Her chest sharpened as her heart beat like a stampede.
She wasn’t even sure Derek could come to her rescue, let alone if it was even possible for her to get back.
The door shut behind her. It wasn’t a slam, but it rang louder in her ears than if he’d unleashed all his anger into the wood and splintered it.