CHAPTER THREE
EMMERY
Though the dense foliage muffled the King’s footsteps, Emmery recognized his flawless gait immediately.
His hands shoved into his pockets while he wore his usual bored expression.
When a tiny yellow bird on a tree branch above chirped angrily to protect its nest, he tilted his head back, giving her a full view of his scarred neck.
Despite the bird's displeasure, for a moment, Destonne almost looked content.
He plucked a ripe green apple and polished it on his shirt before he walked over to Emmery. Her breath hitched as he sank down beside her, their arms only a wisp away from brushing.
She recalled how gently he’d held her hand as they sealed their pactum, so strange now that he’d revealed his true nature. Vesper was right. Destonne had fooled her into the deal by making her think he wasn’t so bad. Evidently, he’d won their game. However, Emmery didn’t plan to lose again.
His volatile calm unnerved her, like at the slightest provocation he would erupt into an unruly monster. She could see it in tiny movements: the tick of his brow, the quiver of his lips, the twitch of his cheek.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. His face lingered far too close to hers, but this was a game he played. To see who would back down first.
He raised a dark brow. “Sitting with you while we wait.”
Of course he’d steal her moment of peace. “Leave me be,” she mumbled.
Destonne spun the apple in his nimble fingers. “Do you say that to everyone who sits with you? Or is it special treatment reserved for me?”
“I see your vanity hasn’t faded over these weeks. Rest assured, everything still revolves around you.”
He shifted closer and between his body heat and the brush of his sleeve, she stiffened. “You didn’t answer my question.”
To fight the rising flush in her cheeks, she took a cleansing breath. “Why would you possibly want to sit with me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” His minty breath flooded her senses.
Did he have to answer every question with a question? It was so damn irritating. His dark stare grazed her cheek, as intrusive as a touch. She shielded her birthmark with her hand, like it could protect her from whatever he saw. Whatever messy shred of her he examined.
Everything he did was calculated, every move a carefully placed piece in his game. He sat here because he wanted something from her. She only needed to discover what. “You haven’t shown interest in my presence since I arrived. Why is now any different?”
“I didn’t realize you craved my company. You did call me a murderer and a coward. I didn’t know that intrigued you.”
She’d meant it. And yet, he had called her the same.
We’re more alike than you think, he’d said.
He was wrong, of course. After all, she'd burned Ellynne’s kingdom capital to the ground and their people with it. She had far more to repent for.
When she drew her knees to her chest and fidgeted with the hem of her skirts, his gaze blazed like black fire.
“Surely you have another garment to wear,” he drawled. His voice sounded uninterested, but his eyes betrayed him. “Do you not care for any of the dresses I had made for you? There are trousers too, if you prefer.”
“Am I embarrassing you, Your Majesty?” She nearly stood and gave him a mock curtsy but settled for a saccharine smile. She refused to be dressed up in a pretty outfit to fit into his pretty life.
With an undertone of aggression, he bit into his apple, then chased the trickle of juice down the side of his mouth with his tongue. “You’re certainly less than cooperative.”
Everything he did maintained control, that much was obvious, and any chance she could steal that control, she would, if only to get a rise from him. And the irritated press of his lips was a small victory.
“Did I not make that clear the day I pulled my blade on you in Malheim? Oh, and threatened to set you on fire?”
He made a throaty noise that resembled a chuckle. “I suppose.”
His shoulders relaxed as he leaned against the tree trunk beside her and savoured his apple like he truly enjoyed her company. He was a convincing actor, she’d give him that.
“How are you finding your time here?” he asked.
His feigned politeness knocked her from her thoughts and she now realized how long she’d stared at his mouth. She tore her gaze from him and studied the ground. “Fine,” she lied.
In the last weeks she’d spent many constructive hours in the training center whipping daggers at targets, pretending they were Vesper’s face, since she couldn’t practice her magic. She hadn’t summoned her khaos flame in weeks and her soul ached for it.
The rest of her time she’d spent at Fionn’s bedside reading to him while she waited for him to wake.
He still hadn’t stirred, still lost in that drug induced coma.
The days she spent trapped in the castle, and only her nightly adventures provided reminders of freedom—the loose windowpane, the trellis beneath, and the dagger she hid in her wardrobe.
With a loud crunch, he took another bite, his perfect teeth imprinted into the crisp green skin. “I’m afraid I’ve been rather pre-occupied. The last few weeks have presented some … unexpected challenges.”
He held out the apple. Her eyes flicked between his hand and his face in disbelief. He was offering her a bite? What a heinously casual thing to do with a stranger. The thought of putting her mouth where his had been made her squirm, so she shook her head and pulled her knees harder into her chest.
Like the refusal offended him, he sighed, then took methodical bites, no doubt planning the conversation’s route and carefully chosen destination. She waited on bated breath for his next prompt, or irritation. The two often coincided.
After he finished the apple, he tossed the core aside.
“I should have given you a tour and ensured you were properly situated.” He plucked a white rose from a nearby bush.
A thorn pricked his little finger and drew blood though he paid it no mind, even as it trailed his hand and dripped onto a rose below.
As it soaked into the flower’s petals, she wondered if that’s what he intended to do with the entirety of this land: stain it with blood.
The King twirled the bloom between two fingers in an offering. “Will you accept my sincerest apology?”
Emmery studied the rose but couldn’t decipher his tone or intentions. Somehow the soft petals were pristine and unaffected by the cold. And it was winter. “How do you grow flowers this time of year?”
“My help with the blessing of earth tend to the castle grounds.”
She swallowed her irritation. Starving children flooded his city streets, and he was concerned with his garden. How vile.
With each twirl of the flower, her stomach wound tighter. To accept this rose felt like a white flag, compliance with the King’s actions. And every shred of her despised him and what he’d done to this kingdom and people.
But more than anything, she stared at the flower in quiet shame.
Destonne’s brows knit as he surveyed her expression. “Why are you staring like I’m offering you a snake? It’s only a flower, angel.”
It wasn’t only a flower. The words stuck in her throat but she choked out the admission. “No one has ever given me flowers.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Emmery clenched her jaw, as if she could crush that hollowness inside her. Fold it up into tiny sections like parchment. Anything to shrink it. But a thin voice from the shadows whispered she was, and always would be, alone. That the darkness and solitude within her was earned.
Her cheeks heated as his gaze lingered on her face again, studying her like a piece of literature written in a foreign language.
A code he couldn’t crack. What was it about this man that made her insides vibrate?
She couldn’t name it, only recognize that he stirred something wild and anxious within her. Made her want to crawl out of her skin.
“I’m honoured to be your first,” he said, his voice a velvet caress.
He winked and the corner of his mouth twitched. This was a joke to him. She could feel it in her bones. He was playing with her.
“Don't mock me,” she snarled.
Destonne put a hand to his chest and shook his head. A trickle of blood streamed down his temple from the crown. “Mock you? I would never.”
The humour and unwelcome playfulness in his voice made her withdraw and crave time alone with her thoughts and darkness.
She was done with his games. All she needed was to retrieve her memories from the Hollow, find Shade, and sort out this prophecy.
Then she could leave this place and finally settle somewhere she could call home.
Unfortunately, her pactum with Destonne was the only way forward.
“Go away,” Emmery grumbled.
“Sharp words for such a delicate flower.” His eyes glimmered with the promise of trouble. But just because she had to tolerate him didn’t mean she couldn’t strike back.
“You want sharp words?” She turned to him, her eyes molten. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
Amused, he clutched his chest. “Ah, a clean shot through the heart.” Emmery stared at him. Had she missed something?
He stood, brushed the dirt from his trousers, and dipped his head. “As you wish. I’ll update you shortly on the plan.”
Even his fucking bow was patronizing.
As she watched him retreat toward the castle, a line from The Nameless Book whispered through her mind.
When right and wrong fail, the truth does not falter.
It was a quote she recited at times when everything blurred to grey.
When she’d entirely lost her way and sought light at the end of a seemingly infinite, dark tunnel.
In her weeks here, one truth had sunk into her soul: with or without the King’s help, she would fulfill this prophecy, save the people of Karynthia, and find Shade.
And under no circumstance would she falter.
The rose sat beside her for a long while until she reluctantly picked it up and shucked off the thorns with her dagger.
It didn’t have to be a white flag. It could simply be a flower.
That’s what she assured herself as she tucked it beneath her pillow, and fought sleep that night, pretending the rose was from Shade, not the King of Thorns.