Oh gods, there was that cedar and amber scent again.
“I thought princes preferred feather beds to midnight patrols,” she said with a smirk. “Or do you just like watching?”
“I don’t sleep much.” His reply was quiet but deadly serious.
She blinked, thrown off for the briefest moment.
In this light, he looked different—not softer, but less cruel. The danger hadn’t dimmed, but the mask of disinterest had slipped.
“I could’ve slid right past you if you weren’t brooding in the corridor. You do love to lurk, don’t you?”
A breath escaped him, rough enough that it might have been a laugh.
“You can barely stand upright, but yes, keep telling yourself you could outrun me.”
“Still,” she countered, chin lifting in defiance, “I’d find a way. I always do.”
His head tilted, gaze dragging over her with slow intensity. “I believe you.”
The way he said it burrowed beneath her skin, deep and unsettling, enough to draw a shiver from her bones. She steadied herself with several slow breaths, but it did little to quell the unease.
Jakobav pushed away from the wall and inched closer, his voice lowering. “It’s hard to sleep when you’ve seen what crawls in the dark. Easier to face it awake…and end it.”
Ella’s stomach knotted as his words sank in. Was he speaking of her, the intruder who had bled her way into his fortress? Or did he know of the breaches in the Veil, the whispers of shadows sneaking into the world that did not belong to it?
In Orchid, the warnings had begun as rumors, quietly dismissed as nothing more than superstition, yet Ella had known better. She’d seen too much already: creatures thatsmelled of rot and carried no name, threads of magic stretched too thin and fraying at the edges.
Her kingdom had once fought to deny the truth, but the dark cared little for secrets. It leaked regardless, slow and hungry, no matter how tightly it was caged. Could Jakobav sense it in her, the same wrongness, the same crack running through the seams? Perhaps she was not meant for this world at all.
She had always felt there was something different about her, and it was becoming more evident with each passing day, something she could not keep hidden forever.
When his gaze landed on her again, something in it made her skin prickle. He stepped closer, his voice dipping.
“Whatever power you carry, I’m guessing it does not belong here.”
He let the silence bleed out, watching her as though he expected the truth to break loose on its own.
Before she could even draw a breath, he moved. Faster than she could anticipate, his hand closed around her wrist, and he spun her, pressing her back into the hard stone, steel grazing beneath her chin, cool against the delicate skin of her throat.
She glanced down at the knife handle gleaming in the torchlight. Panic coated her tongue and quickened her pulse. The air felt as though it was thinning, each inhale dragging across the line of his blade. The knife point was resting where one swallow could cut her open and angled so the smallest movement from either would spill blood.
“I don’t mind silence,” he murmured, voice low enough to scrape along her bones. “Keep your secrets if you like. But don’t ever lie to me.”
Her muscles screamed in protest, but she forced herself to remain standing, if only to prove she could. He pulled the blade away from her throat, just an inch, not fully releasing her. Sheshifted along the wall a single step, creating distance between them.
Her body barely held, still propped against the wall, but he had let her move beyond his grasp, and that was something.
She didn’t know how long she could survive here, but if she waited until her full strength returned before she sought answers, she might never find them. And though she couldn’t tell if this prince meant to kill her or protect her, the prophecy pulled her onward, as if she’d been brought here for something more than survival.
Steadying herself against the wall, she didn’t retreat any farther.
Jakobav’s gaze narrowed. “I didn’t cut you with my blade, yet you’re bleeding Orchid magic like it’s seeping from your bones.”
Relief sparked low in her chest. Maybe he hadn’t been speaking of the deeper darkness haunting her dreams and clawing through the Veil. Was he able to detect Orchid magic on her? It was, after all, a truth she knew she couldn’t hide forever. Or was he still testing her to see what she would reveal?
“Maybe it’s not magic at all. Maybe I’m allergic to arrogance,” she said, deadpan.
He didn’t smile. He only leaned in.
