Chapter 16 #2
I hated how I depended on him, and yet I couldn’t stop, because he was all I had in this nightmare I’d been thrust into—a nightmare he was responsible for.
The angry thought immediately felt…wrong.
Harthon hadn’t given me these eyes. He hadn’t even been the first to take me captive. It’d been Koerlyn, and had Harthon not ambushed us and stolen me away, I’d still be with that cruel, evil man. I might even be dead.
None of that made Harthon a hero, though. He still kept me from home. He was still determined to use me to enter Centralis. Being with him had brought me more danger than my previous life had ever delivered. These were all things forced upon me.
And yet, if Harthon weren’t the one doing it, it would certainly be someone else, because those tree men had seen my eyes change at the magvis’ hand, and there was no escaping that fact.
If anything, Harthon had given me all I needed to understand my situation, leaving me better informed and more capable of survival than I would have been otherwise.
So this nightmarish reality was the magvis’ fault, not Harthon’s. I couldn’t hold that against him.
I didn’t think there was much to hold against him at all, not if all he’d shown me of himself was true.
He cared for the well-being of his people and shirked the selfishness of high society.
With the exception of North, his friends were kind, and he’d saved that boy when any other soldier would have killed him like the rest. He was different.
So incredibly different from what I expected him to be, and he only continued surprising me.
Would it really be so bad to lead him to Centralis and make him king?
Of the two other Princepes I’d met, Harthon was certainly the best leader. Koerlyn would raze villages to the ground, and Ellan would, I don’t know, force everyone to wear that horrible orange and replace their food gardens with flowers.
Compared to that, Harthon was by far the best option.
But power had a way of warping the minds of men, of making them into monsters, and I didn’t want the responsibility of giving anyone access to that kind of control.
It wasn’t my responsibility to have.
For the thousandth time, I wished that I’d never left the village boundaries and encountered the magvis.
If I was home, I’d be trapping at this moment, hopefully catching a meal to cook tonight after selling firewood.
Routine would be carrying me through the day, and I would remain an insignificant speck—as Harthon had so bluntly put it before—controlling my own survival, caring for Merelda, and doing nothing more.
None of these confusing, loud thoughts would be racing through my brain, bombarding me with feelings and decisions and too much uncertainty.
I lay there, cycling through the same thoughts as I stared up at the stone ceiling. At some point, I must have dozed off, because my next moment of awareness came when a door creaked open. I jolted up, blinking hard as I took in Harthon at the entranceway.
He was striking in his formal black attire, but this time, a gold crown sat upon his head.
“You’re wearing a crown,” I said, stating the obvious.
He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “And you have excellent vision.” A pile of dark fabric was piled in his hands.
Swiping at my lips to make sure there was no drool, I rose to my feet. “I never thought you’d be one to wear jewelry.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
Seriously? I waved my hand at him. “Pretty jewelry takes away from the whole deadly mercenary image. I thought you like being scary.”
He dropped the fabric onto a chair beside me and crossed his arms. “You think this crown makes me less deadly?”
I studied the polished, pointed tips. Nothing could ever soften the dangerous edge that Harthon constantly wore, but still, the crown was unusually Princeps-like for him. “I think it implies that you care more about appearance than strategy and skill.”
“Sometimes, appearances are important,” he allowed. Then the corner of his lips lifted in challenge. “But I wear it for more than appearances. Anything can be a weapon, Etarla.”
Again, I examined the sharp metal peaks. “A weapon of intimidation, or a weapon that can make someone bleed?”
“Both.”
“You’re telling me you’ve stabbed people with your crown?”
“It makes quite the statement.”
He was ridiculous. I shook my head slowly. “I don’t want to know what you’d do if you were given a necklace.”
His grin was predatory. “I’ve enjoyed it in the past.”
“There’s so much that is wrong with that.”
“While I disagree, I can’t argue it with you now, as much as I’d enjoy that.” There was no sarcasm in his voice. “The party’s starting, and you need to get changed. I brought you your clothes,” he said, nodding toward the pile. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
When he left, I was relieved to find that he hadn’t brought some awful dress, which I imagined was standard attire for women at elite parties.
He’d given me the same black leather pants as those I’d been wearing, but instead of a tunic and vest, the top was a thin long-sleeved leather, dyed a rich violet and adorned with swirling gold and silver embroidery that caught the light.
Golden laces stretched across a gap that ran down the front of the garment.
I pulled on the clothes, cinching the top together so no skin peeked through and securing the laces with a bow just above my chest.
Then I turned to the mirror and stared. My unnatural eyes were vibrant, highlighted by the colored leather, and the clothing wrapped tightly around my body, dipping in at my waist and slightly flaring at my hips.
While my breasts weren’t full enough to spill out above the neckline, my collarbone and upper chest were on display.
I looked regal. Feminine but powerful. Like an important woman, rather than a villager.
I didn’t dislike it, and that was unexpected. I’d never cared much about my appearance—always thought it was a pointless thing to worry about.
When I opened the door, I found Harthon leaning against the wall across from me, his ankles crossed.
The position was almost lazy, if such a man could ever appear that way.
I had no doubt he could land a dagger between a person’s eyes faster than they could blink, if required.
His eyes scanned my body, tracing the outline of the clothing.
My skin tingled with awareness, and when he finished his perusal and met my gaze, those irises were almost like midnight.
It was the poor lighting, of course.
“Beautiful.”
At the soft, sincere comment, those tingles morphed into a warmth that bloomed inside of me. “You gave me nice clothes.”
“I did. But you were beautiful even when you were ripping into Ellan earlier. Before the nice clothes.”
Warmth turned back into tingles that shot from my toes straight to my head. I wasn’t beautiful. People like Ana were beautiful. I was…plain. Fine.
Aware that my cheeks were a brilliant hue of red, I shook my head, searching for an appropriate response and coming up empty. Harthon finds you beautiful.
“I should also mention that I enjoyed watching you challenge him.”
“Then why did you interfere? You put your hand on my back,” I asked, surprised at the breathlessness in my voice.
“I interfered because we’re here only to see Josenne, not to end up with meetings discussing political and social reform.
I didn’t want to give Ellan a reason to invite us to stay for anything other than this party—a party which we should be going to now.
” Harthon pushed away from the wall and swept his forearm toward me.
It hung in the air as if waiting for me to take it.
“Am I supposed to hold onto that?”
His lips twitched. “You say it like it’s a form of torture.”
I had my moments of depending on the man, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to cart me around on his arm like some dainty lady. “I can walk myself into the party,” I said.
His forearm hung steady. “You certainly can. But it’s best if we look united.”
“And me holding onto your arm will be what tells everyone in Fifth that we’re united?” I questioned doubtfully.
“These people put an insensible amount of weight into decorum. So, yes.”
“But Ellan already saw us. Without me on your arm.”
“He did, but he isn’t the only one with power in Fifth. His cabinet, who have yet to see us and are waiting for us now, hold significant sway over him,” Harthon explained.
There was no way around this. “Fine,” I sighed, slipping my hand into the crook of his elbow. His arm was hard beneath my fingers.
“It’s a good thing my ego isn’t easily crushed,” he noted, walking us toward the hall and the whir of voices. “You would think I smelled like the stables.”
No. The complete opposite, actually. Harthon smelled far too good. Really, he smelled the same as always—leather, musk, and something male that was all him. Only now, my body wished to lean toward it, rather than away.
“You don’t smell bad,” I said quietly, wondering what was seriously wrong with me.
I didn’t have any more time to think on it because we were entering the hall to a trumpet call. My fingers clenched Harthon’s sleeve as I took in the sea of frumpy dresses, silky tunics, expensive jackets, and done-up faces that occupied every seat.
Harthon slowly led me up the steps to the raised platform as the room went silent. Just like at the Citadel gathering, the stares were a physical weight on my chest, threatening to crumple my shoulders.
Don’t look down. The magvis wouldn’t hide her eyes.
I was the magvis, the all-powerful being, and I couldn’t cower under their attention. I could crush them with a blink of an eye. I could erect impenetrable walls. I was the king’s weapon.
Right.
I held my chin high as we stepped onto the platform, and the sound of wood scraping on stone echoed throughout the space as Ellan stood from his cushioned seat in front of us. No one else sat at the table.
He spread his arms out wide as we stopped at the two empty seats beside him. “Let’s give the formidable, powerful, and absolutely ruthless Princeps Harthon and his magvis, Etarla—” He stopped, looked over at me, and whispered, “What’s your last name?”
Skies. Could he not just use my first name? “Torlanne,” I hissed.
“—his magvis, Etarla Torlanne, a Fifth Territory welcome.” His announcement echoed over the room which erupted into cheers.
I waited for Harthon to sit, but he didn’t, because as the applause quieted, Ellan opened his big mouth again.
“As you know, this warrior,” he bellowed, slinging his arm around Harthon’s shoulders, “is my dear, dear friend. And it’s a good thing, too, because he is the fiercest warrior in this world… ”
I fought to keep my expression neutral as Ellan commenced the cringe-worthy speech Ana had warned me about days ago. As it stretched on, it was damn near impossible. Somehow, Harthon maintained an expressionless face throughout the embarrassing amount of praise and exclamations of friendship.
Ellan was a disillusioned fool.
How could he be the leader of a Territory? Really, there had to be some standards, no?
Ellan grabbed a goblet from the table and raised it high. “But enough of that. Let’s feast, and drink, and party! To Harthon and his magvis!” he yelled. The room mirrored his toast.
Thank the Domus, it was done.
The evening could only go up from here, no?