Chapter 7
Seven
PAWN TO SQUARE FOUR
Ihadn’t slept at all.
The sun had set and risen twice since I’d been dragged from my cozy clock tower and essentially put to work interrogating the Wicked King’s prisoners.
The same thing happened as on the first day. His Majesty would have me assess a fresh batch of suspected traitors or disloyal citizens. Various groups of people, possibly from different kingdoms across the land.
On occasion that I came across a particularly hateful aura, the king would waste no time and take them away for punishment.
I always tried to resist exposing these people’s thoughts, feelings, or motives, but I barely needed to speak before he would understand.
I didn’t know if he sent everyone to the gallows as he did before—despite my many protests.
The king would even drag away certain individuals before I had an opportunity to assess them. I had stopped asking why when it became clear I would never get any satisfactory answers.
How long was this supposed to go on? How many prisoners had he captured? I’d already questioned dozens of people, and yet there were still more.
I stared out of the thick glass windows of my chambers, my reflection distorted. The bright full moon shone on the castle grounds. Fog rolled along the plain green lawns outside, much like inside the castle, where everything was shrouded in shadows.
Was it all real? Or was I merely dreaming?
Even without my own chains, it was impossible not to feel trapped.
I glanced back at the four-poster bed, the sparkling, opulent furnishings in my chambers, easily three times the size of my tower loft.
Despite everything, I had been provided with every manner of comfort: clothing, warm baths, and the shiny platters of food that magically appeared at the sitting table for every meal. Not that I had any sort of appetite.
My fingers fiddled aimlessly in my coat pockets—brushing against innocuous powders and herbs, which, with a certain expertise, could be turned into sleeping draughts and small explosives.
It was often said that a prisoner’s first duty was escape.
Despite my agreement with the king, I had been mulling over several escape attempts for the past couple of days, just in case.
Except there were no guards around to trick.
No cage, barrier, or passageway I would need to blow up in order to escape to the outside.
If I tried to wander too far along the grounds, either the castle’s sorcery would see me immediately turning around, or shadows would hinder the path.
My science could not defeat the Wicked King’s shadows.
They were everywhere in the castle too, behind my door, along the floors of every hallway.
Each morning, the shadows would shepherd me to the hall to question prisoners for hours, and afterward, lead me back to my room.
Otherwise, the shadows would block my way, keep most doors shut, and constrain me to certain areas of the castle.
It wasn’t implausible that His Majesty was monitoring my activities.
It was as though he could read my mind, watched my every move, and remained one step ahead of me.
It seemed an entire lifetime ago when the same notion brought feelings of warmth and belonging. Not anxiety. Not trepidation. Not this perpetual battle of frustration and desolation.
I blew out a helpless sigh. I was going to go out of my mind if I had to keep to my room all night long once again. Being unable to sleep as my mind spun theories against problems with no foreseeable solutions.
Dragging my exhausted body out the door, I crept out of my chambers and down the hall.
Shadows swirled around my ankles, but it didn’t seem as though I was being restrained from having a little walk about the castle.
As I crossed darkened paths, tapestries fluttered in the gust against the stone walls; candlelight shimmered across the same paintings lining the walls over and over—in different sizes, within different gilded frames.
A royal family—mother, father, son.
A stitch tugged on my heart for the king. If someone had murdered my entire family, I would be irrationally and endlessly enraged too.
Hallways folded, bent like a hazy maze. I wasn’t even sure where I was going. It was entirely possible I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to my room, but I walked on.
Light flickered from a door standing ajar up the way.
Upon approaching it, I peered through the gap. My heart swelled at the tall shelves lining the walls, the vaulted ceilings, and rows of spines of books. A smile broke across my face as that old parchment scent tickled my nose.
It was the library.
Slipping through the door, I tried to make the least amount of noise, walking past a sitting area where a chessboard in mid-play sat at a round table with two chairs. The lamplight brightened the room. I eagerly headed for the nearest shelf to inspect the titles.
Literature, poetry, history, botany, mechanics—there were books covering many fascinating topics.
I smiled in triumph. Time would be of no consequence if I could remain here in this room with all these books, and my captivity would feel less like a slog.
If I could not escape the castle, I could simply escape into books.
Pretend I wasn’t even here at all. Pretend I was in another world altogether.
My fingers hovered over the spine of one large leather-bound tome about mystic tides. I tilted my head to read the gold-embossed text, increasingly pleased at the solemn quiet the library had to offer.
It almost felt peaceful.
The skin at the back of my neck prickled with warning, even before a hidden paneled wall to my right slid open with a subtle but unmistakably mechanical shift of gears. A darkened figure emerged.
The king stopped as abruptly as I did.
We stared at each other.
The look of genuine shock on his face was almost comical—his normally controlled expression shattered in an instant, steel-blue eyes widening in disbelief as if I was the one who had materialized out of thin air.
I suspected my own face looked much the same.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Whenever I interrogated the prisoners these past couple of days, the king would always stay on his elevated dais, far across the room. This was the closest I’d been to him since I arrived at the castle.
He was still half inside the secret doorway, one hand braced against the hidden panel. The dim light of the passage cast shadows across his face, sharpening the angles of his jaw, the familiar line of his brow.
There had been a time when I was immune to his particular set of charms. When I mocked every companion he ever took to bed for having such poor judgment. Those days when he had been the one trying his utmost to seduce me. He’d failed every time—much to the amusement of Chez and the Duchess.
But ever since I had taken on this borrowed heart, it had become close to impossible not to notice how ridiculously handsome he was. Impossible not to be drawn in by his charming aura. Impossible to resist his logic-defying magnetic attraction.
Even more impossible when he stood so close to me.
The intoxicating fragrance of his soap overwhelmed my senses.
The king’s brown hair was damp, droplets hanging delicately from the tips.
He hadn’t bothered to tie the deep blue dressing robe, which flowed like silk around his broad, tall figure.
It allowed a privileged view of his chest, sculpted abdomen, and the trail which naturally led one’s eyes down to the matching silk pants which hung low about his hips.
The sight made my stomach flip.
Stop it. I forcibly dragged my gaze up and away from his body. I wasn’t here for this, wasn’t here for him. The last thing I wanted was to be all caught up in his seduction spell.
Clearing my throat, I tried to regain some dignity. “Ah, of course, there’s a secret passageway.”
He took another moment before speaking. “You are here.”
I couldn’t read his tone.
My eyebrows rose expectantly. “Where should I be?”
He shook his head. “Not here. This is my private study.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I jumped in alarm. “I didn’t realize. I thought this was…the library.” I gestured at all the bookshelves all around us. “Am I…not allowed to explore the castle?”
He glanced at the towering shelves around us. He stepped forward, the paneled wall sliding shut behind him with a soft click. He seemed to be trying to construct a response—struggling to.
I couldn’t blame him. We hadn’t really seen each other or spoken casually in months. Given the terms of our bargain, I couldn’t imagine what sort of petty conversations we could possibly have.
Fancy seeing you here in my nightmare of a castle… How have you been since that one terribly cold night many moons ago when I left you forever?
Nope.
I, for damn sure, wasn’t willing to discuss our past.
I was intent on cultivating my anger toward him. He was the one who had abandoned his old life with no word, no explanation. It was a fool’s errand to attempt to reconcile. I was merely here to work, not to mend fences. I wasn’t planning on reminiscing about memories with him.
I wasn’t even entirely sure whether he still remembered any of it. There was nothing so far to indicate that he still cherished anything at all before that crown was put on his head.
Really more irate than anything else, I turned to leave. “I should go.”
“Wait.” The word came out rougher than usual, like his voice had briefly forgotten how to work.
He took another step forward, almost towering over me. Up close, I could see the faint crease between his brows, the subtle tension in his shoulders—as if my presence had disturbed some carefully balanced order.
I couldn’t help but study the depth of those eyes. There was a storm of questions in them, but he voiced none of them. “Was…was there a question you wanted to ask?”
Slowly, the surprise faded from his expression, and the careful mask of the tyrant king slid back into place.
Sneering. Arrogant.