Chapter 2 #4
When she was certain he would remain with his gaze askance, she stripped from her gown and pulled the pins out of her hair, sinking gratefully into the tepid water of the bath.
As she washed herself, she recalled Silvanus’ lesson.
Her emotions were high enough that her magic was an ever-present seething mass inside her, so she focused on it, giving it a shape in her mind’s eye.
A snake, baring its fangs, coiled and hissing.
Fitting for the bastard she intended to release it on.
The more she concentrated on that shape, the less it seemed to escape her grasp.
When she was ready to step from the bath, she realized she had nothing to change into save for her sweat-stained, dusty gown.
“Your sleeping clothes are over there.” Theron pointed at a chest closer to the bed.
Aurora opened it and grimaced. Gold. Every last item was made of a golden material. She didn’t want to wear his colours. Didn’t want anything of his touching her skin.
“Where are the clothes Her Majesty sent with me?” she asked, coiling her magic to strike him.
“No doubt on one of the many baggage carts. You can wear what you’ve been given or you can sleep in the nude. The choice is yours.”
Aurora donned the clothes and impractical slippers. The moment he turned towards her, she would loose her magic and hope for the best.
As Theron faced her with a smug grin, she bade the viper of her magic to coil around the king.
She stilled for a heartbeat as she envisioned fangs sinking into him.
He froze mid-turn. Then she ran. Magic pulsed from her in torrents.
It drained out of her faster than her feet could carry her.
Aurora sped past him and ripped open the flap of the tent, surprising two guards as she spied her destination through the rain.
She made it all of three steps when her magic snapped back, fully drained.
Theron swore and lunged after her as the sudden weakness made her lose her footing.
He snatched her, hauling her back inside.
“Had your fun, did you?”
Aurora might have whimpered, but her heart was hammering inside her chest, her breath sawing in and out.
Her limbs trembled as he tossed her on the bed and rummaged around in one of the chests.
She tried to sit up, to fight back, but after a full day of travel and purging herself of all her magical reserves, she was spent.
Theron hovered over her, a length of fabric in his hands. His eyes roamed over her as her pulse thrummed in her ears. She fought to catch her breath.
“You’re like a child with their first taste of wild magic. You can’t really control it, can you? Not just your visions, but any of your fairy magic?”
She didn’t answer, turning her face away. He grabbed her wrists and bound them in front of her with a length of silk.
“Silk?” she asked, panting. “Really?”
He sneered, jerking her upwards on the bed before tying it around one of the posts.
“Had you not been a vile traitor, I would have given you the pleasure of being bound. Now, this will suffice to keep you from running off or getting yourself injured.”
“And here I thought…I had a date with…the floor.”
“If you try anything in the night, you will. But given you just blasted through the full of your magic, I suspect I’ll get a decent sleep.”
He sat on the edge of the bed opposite her and took off his boots.
“I’d rather sleep on the floor than next to you,” she hissed, inching as far from him as possible.
“And I would rather be married to a loyal wife, but it seems neither of us is getting what we want.”
“If you’d wanted loyalty, then you should have been truthful.” She glared at his broad back.
He turned, expression thunderous.
“You weren’t owed my secrets just because you wanted them!”
She met his anger head-on.
“I was owed the truth before I shackled myself to you!”
He knelt on the bed, his fists clenched.
“Is that what you think of me? As your chains?”
“What else could you be? You’re an obstacle to my mission.” She turned on her side so she could face away from him and give him the cold shoulder he deserved.
“And when your mission is done, Drakon is slain, and I am vindicated, what then?”
“Then you can spend the rest of your miserable life alone,” she scoffed, eyes locked on the fabric of the tent.
“You think you can escape me? That I’ll let you run off?” he asked, his voice laced with threat.
“I don’t think you’ll have anything to say about it. If I don’t master my magic in time to defeat Drakon, you’ll be dead.”
He crouched atop her then, invading all her senses. When she turned her head away from him, he slipped his hand beneath her head and drew her so close their noses were touching.
“Is this another of your lies?”
“It’s simple fact. You can choose to believe it or not, that won’t change it.” She refused to be swayed by another of his intimidation tactics.
“Where would you even go? You said Drakon destroyed your homeland.”
“Anywhere would be better than here.”
“I can think of a great many places worse than my palace, Aurora.” He rolled his eyes.
“And I can’t think of any life worse than one spent in your company.”
He frowned, somewhat less confident than before.
“You will never know a passion like the one we share.”
“Whatever we shared is gone. You made sure of that.”
He released her with a snarl, muttering under his breath as he settled onto his side of the bed and turned his back on her.
Aurora curled up as best she could and closed her eyes against the sting of tears.
She kept her breathing even as they rolled down her face and into the sheets.
A queen could not afford this weakness, but as Theron had made abundantly clear, she was no queen—she was nothing and no one.
So she allowed herself a night to weep silently over everything she’d lost and over everything she had to do.
After all, come dawn, she would have to swallow her shattered heart and move forward.