Chapter 7 #2
“Until someone relieves me, I will be here.”
“Is Harthon coming to talk to me tonight?”
That mop of hair swished back and forth as he shook his head. “I wasn’t told he was.”
My lips curled. “Well, Stefano, feel free to tell Harthon that I’m not going to eat or drink anything until he comes and speaks to me as he promised.”
The sooner I fully understood my situation, the easier it would be to plan a successful escape.
If my eyes were of life-changing importance to Koerlyn and Harthon, I wouldn’t be able to stay in my village.
I’d have to move somewhere remote with Merelda, perhaps toward the Domus further into Second Territory.
But if my eyes only presented a slight advantage to their ends, they would forget about me soon enough.
While Harthon had vowed to enlighten me on the truth, I could only imagine how long his other, more pressing priorities could take. Considering how he seemed to value my health, threatening my own well-being would encourage him to speed up the process.
Besides, I’d gone enough nights with hardly any food in my belly to know I would be fine.
Stefano’s lips parted. “I-I…why wouldn’t you eat? Or at least drink?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just feel free to mention it if you see him.”
“I would advise agai—”
“I’d like to bathe now before the water gets cold,” I interrupted. Stefano’s mouth snapped shut. “If you don’t mind, some privacy?”
He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but then he stepped back and closed the door.
A twinge of guilt went through me as I walked past the food to the bath. Wasting food in this world was a terrible thing to do, but I was only doing what I had to in order to gain back some control. The food was a sacrifice.
I bathed and changed into another set of trousers and a tunic, though this one was lavender.
Nightgowns had been left in the dresser, but I’d never worn one to bed, and I certainly wouldn’t start now.
They were the most useless, impractical piece of clothing ever invented.
They didn’t keep you warm, they didn’t protect you from insects, and they were almost always white, which required endless washing.
As the sky darkened and the untouched food went cold, I sat at the window, scanning for guards.
Chances were I’d be escorted by a guard whenever I left the room, which left this window as my primary escape option.
It was only three stories from the ground with a small balcony right below, and there was enough fabric lying around this room to help me make the drop from there.
But I would need to time it perfectly.
So I sat until it was well past midnight, marking when the guard by the garden and the one on the wall walk above moved or switched with others.
My sleep was restless, plagued by memories of my time with Koerlyn, and I dragged myself out of bed only when Felda and Frannie entered with breakfast, restarted the fire, and collected last night’s fly-covered food.
This time, I brought the platter of bread and chicken eggs to the door.
“Stefano!” I called through the heavy wood. It opened a moment later, and I held the plate toward him. “You might as well eat it so it doesn’t go to waste.”
He stared at the food with clear distress. “You really should eat, or at least drink, Lady—I mean, Etarla.”
“I should, but I won’t. You should take this plate, though, because I’m about to drop it.”
“Harthon will be upset—”
Those big eyes widened as I removed one hand from beneath the dish. I wiggled my fingers. “The other hand is leaving in about two seconds.”
That jerked him into action, and he grabbed the plate just before it fell.
I grinned. “Thanks, Stefano. Is Harthon coming by today?”
“He hasn’t informed me of when he’s coming.”
“Are you able to take me for a tour?”
At my question, he straightened, his face turning serious. He almost looked like a real guard. “No. You aren’t to leave.”
Irritation rose, even though I’d expected his answers. Without another word, I closed the door in his face.
Harthon didn’t come that day, so again, I didn’t eat or drink, even as my stomach growled and my head ached when Felda brought dinner.
It was hard to focus on studying the guards, my mind foggy from dehydration and hunger, but I knew there was no other way to encourage Harthon to speed up his efforts.
When I woke the next day, it was to a throbbing skull. Throat drier than I thought possible, my tongue was sandpaper in my mouth, and my arms shook as I pushed myself to sit. I dropped my head into my hands, debating for the first time whether it was worth it.
That was how Felda and Frannie found me when they delivered breakfast and a pitcher of water again.
I simply laid back down, but not before catching Stefano’s worried gaze in the door frame.
It struck me for the first time that this may very well be a stupid idea.
But Harthon had to be testing me. He probably thought I couldn’t outlast him, that my threats were empty.
I would not give him the satisfaction of being correct.
So I shuffled around my room in a daze, not bothering to braid my hair before propping myself against the window and watching the guards again.
The past two days had revealed a pattern.
The guard on the wall walk above would watch the garden for a short while before turning around to watch the other side.
Then he would repeat the process. The guard in the garden was more vigilant, but last night, the man on duty had gone so still at one point that I was sure he was asleep.
From so high up, it was difficult to really know, but it was something I could test in the coming nights.
Not thirty minutes later, the pounding in my head almost too much to endure, my eyes drifted shut as I slouched on a lounge chair.
Without warning, the door to my room slammed open. Sluggishly, I opened my eyes to see a blood-covered Harthon.
Truly. It was as if he’d bathed in the stuff.
Dark crimson coated most of his tan leathers and matted his hair that, for once, looked wildly tangled.
His face was no cleaner, a stripe of blood crusting one side, while the other was a canvas of droplets.
It made the furious expression on his face far more terrifying than its normal amount of terrifying.
I suppose I should have flinched. Or screamed. Or backed away from the ferocious anger emanating from the doorway. But I was too tired and my head hurt too much to do anything beyond keeping my eyes open.
“Hi,” I mumbled.
He prowled toward me, and while my heart may have quickened a beat, I still didn’t move. I thought I saw steam rising from his ears as he loomed above me. Maybe my mind was conjuring images, or maybe he really was that angry.
“What. The. F—” Harthon stopped himself with a deep breath. “Etarla, you will drink, and you will eat, or I swear to the fucking Domus, I will sit here in this gore and force you to do so.”
I blinked slowly. “You must have just killed…a lot of people.” My voice sounded raspy, and a dry cough threatened.
I think I only made him angrier because he put his hands on his knees, bringing his face level with mine, his pupils so big his irises looked black. “I did just kill a lot of people, people who were coming for you, and then I found out that you’ve decided to do something completely idiotic.”
I frowned. “It wasn’t completely idiotic.”
His teeth ground together. “No? Enlighten me.”
“It got you to come here quicker. You didn’t even bathe,” I noted, wishing the backrest wasn’t trapping me so close to him. The smell coming from him was making my headache worse.
Harthon straightened, and I dimly took in those big, muscled arms as he all but growled, “If you did this for another day, you could die.”
“I’m a captive. Why would you care?”
The muscles in his arms spasmed. “Because you are far too important to this world to be able to die, Etarla.”
“You keep saying that I’m important, and I’m tired of not knowing why. Are you finally going to explain?” The words felt like sludge as they came out.
“Yes. Just like I planned to do the entire time, even before you pulled this ridiculous stunt.” He lowered his bloody face toward mine again. “But you will eat and drink right now, and only after that will I bathe, and only after that will I explain things.”
I stared at his lips as he spoke. They were nice and smooth, somewhere between thin and full, forming a neat contrast with the stubble around them. I’d never thought much about men and their facial hair, but on him, it was incredibly masculine. Definitely attracti—
“Etarla,” he rumbled.
Oh, right.
“How do I know you’ll come back to talk?”
“You have my word.”
I nodded, but I don’t think my head actually moved.
Harthon stepped away for a moment, and the sound of pouring liquid followed.
He returned with a metal cup and held it out to me.
With a worrying amount of effort, I lifted a heavy arm and grasped the cup.
He released it, and it just fell through my fingers, landing on my belly and soaking my tunic with water.
“Oh. I didn’t…mean to,” I said, lowering my arm to push myself straighter in the seat.
His heated sigh wanted to breathe fire. In a fluid motion, he stepped behind me, grabbed my arms, and hauled me upright.
“I was going to get there,” I grumbled as he poured another cup and brought it to me.
Instead of offering it, I watched as he cleaned his free hand on a cloth that must have come with breakfast. Then that hand, no longer bloody, landed softly on my chin, and his other one brought the cup to my lips.
“I can do it.”
“No, you can’t. Drink,” he ordered, tilting my head back as he tipped the cup.
How he could be gentle when anger so clearly boiled beneath his skin was beyond me.
When I quickly drained the water, Harthon filled another cup. “Slower this time.”
I gazed up at the hard, triangular lines of his jaw as I drank in smaller sips, and then that jaw turned into dark, gold-flecked eyes that roamed my face.
“Do you need help eating?” he asked after a moment, those fingers still cupping my chin.
I didn’t necessarily want them to leave.
“No,” I whispered, and he nodded, finally stepping away.
He grabbed the bread from the breakfast plate and tossed it on my wet lap. “I’ll be back in less than an hour. Don’t drink anything in the meantime. If that bread isn’t all gone when I return, I’m not saying a word,” he threatened, and then he turned to leave the room.
Stefano stood before him at the entrance, his features pale.
When the door closed behind Harthon, I thought I heard the low murmurs of conversation, but it was too quiet to make out.
The water began to clear my lethargy, and I slowly tore off pieces of bread and ate them, failing to feel the satisfaction I thought I would.
My plan had worked, but I felt like utter horseshit, and Stefano was probably in trouble.
When I finished eating a long time later, I walked to the mirror, already feeling more steady on my feet.
Using the comb Felda had brought me yesterday, I smoothed my hair into a simple braid that fell to the top of my chest. The bruise from Koerlyn’s man had turned an ugly yellow on my cheek, and the raw wounds on my wrists had become crusty scabs.
My face still held the dull hollowness I’d noticed in Carmen, and dark circles still rimmed my eyes, but that was more from refusing water and food for the last two days than Harthon’s treatment.
The liquid pools of violet and gold, though, were as vibrant as ever. A little over one week later, they were still a shock to see, a slowly shrinking part of me expecting them to suddenly be brown again.
The door opened, and nerves settled in my cramping stomach as I studied the man through the mirror.
Harthon was completely clean, his hair hanging in wavy, water-darkened tendrils to the top of his shoulders.
The top of his hair wasn’t tied back, and he wasn’t wearing tan leathers.
This was an entirely different version of him.
He wore a stunning ebony ensemble that tickled something in my chest. Trousers hugged powerful legs and met practical leather boots, while his tunic was embroidered with swirls of gold along the center line.
Black leather straps held knives across his torso and thighs.
The darkness only highlighted the scruff of his jaw and the intensity of his gaze.
It was a clear image of power.
This was the Princeps Harthon.
The one I’d just threatened by refusing to eat or drink, and the one who’d marched into my room, covered in the blood of slain men.