“Ah,” he murmured, amused. “So this time, you speak first.”
She swallowed hard. “This time?”
Fuck. She did recognize him, though her mind rebelled against it. Denial coursed through her; she had convinced herself that the vision was only a fever dream, a trick of painand exhaustion. But the sight of him here in Jakobav’s room had shattered that fragile lie.
He stepped forward, slow and unhurried, and the shadows recoiled from him, bending back as though even darkness feared his touch. His gaze swept across the chamber once, and his mouth curled in quiet disdain.
“This place reeks,” he said, his tone laced with contempt. His eyes turned to her, darker now, gleaming with something unreadable. “Is this where you’ve been hiding? In another man’s bedchamber?”
Ella’s mouth went dry. Her heart stuttered once, twice, before finding a painful rhythm. “What are you?” she managed, her voice a thin thread of defiance.
He closed the distance between them until only a few feet remained, and up close, he was impossibly more beautiful and infinitely more dangerous. The pendant brushed lightly against his chest with each breath, catching the firelight as if it were alive.
His gaze softened, barely, just enough to make her doubt what she saw. “You’re asking the wrong question,” he murmured, stepping closer. “The question you should fear is not what I am—but whatyouare.”
A chill traced the length of her spine, but she swung her legs over the far side of the bed anyway, finding her balance. She rose as smoothly as she could and forced her chin up.
“I know exactly who I am. And I know where I belong. You’re the one intruding.”
And she did know where she belonged, though not in this room, not in this castle, not in this cursed kingdom. But he didn’t need to know that. Who was this man to walk in here and act as if he already understood her?
With a face like his, he was probably used to getting whatever he wanted. That, however, would not do.
His eyes glinted, amused, as though he had plucked the thought straight from her mind. “Do you know where you belong? Or have you only ever been told where to go?”
Her stomach lurched.
The words struck too close, and the blood drained from her face. Because he was right. She had been following the paths others chose for her. First her parents, then the fates, and recently, she’d been obeying the orders of an enemy prince. Every step she’d taken had been for someone else’s purpose.
His words had dragged her truth out of the deep, hidden place where she’d buried it, a part of herself she thought no one else could ever touch.
Fuck him.
She clenched her fists to hide the tremor, nails biting into her palms.
The faintest curve touched his lips, not quite a smile but dangerous and satisfied, like he knew he’d struck a nerve.
“Not all roots are buried,” he said, his voice softening into something intimate and uncomfortably certain. “Some reach for the surface. Some ache for light. And some are only waiting for you to remember them.”
Her stomach twisted so violently, she thought she might retch.
The heat in her chest wavered as her fury fractured, his metaphor about roots leaving her bereft.
His pendant glowed once, briefly, as if answering her. Her Orchid sigil flared in reply, gone before she could even look down, as though calling her out from within, urging her to figure it out.
“What does that even mean?” Ella demanded. She was getting whiplash from this conversation, but gods help her, she couldn’t stop herself from wanting answers.
He stepped closer, closing the space with unhurried certainty until the air between them pulled tight like a snare.
“It means you were never meant to kneel for them,” he murmured, low and opulent as dusk.
Ella straightened. “You don’t even know who I am.”
“But I do,” he said, his voice more verdict than reply. “You carry her fire. You move between veins. You dream of ash and bloom.”
His tongue dragged slowly across his lips, a gesture so intimate it felt like intrusion, and his hand lifted as if to touch her face.
Ella jerked sideways, catching her foot on the rug and nearly stumbling onto the bed, but she refused to fall. Fear clawed at her ribs like talons, but she stood her ground.
