"Caramyn please, just put on something." He sighed, his back still to her.
She reached for a towel, but beside it she found a thin silk covering with long, wide sleeves trimmed with lace and an open front meant to be wrapped shut. She slipped it on with a silent smirk, deriving far too much enjoyment out of humiliating the prince.
"All right. I’ve done as you’ve asked. Does this suit Your Highness?" She teased, the loose silken robe falling open to expose all but her arms as the hem dusted the floor behind her.
Asterious glanced over his shoulder, and when he visibly blushed again, Caramyn sneered. “What’s the matter, Prince? Can’t face your captive?” He was silent for a moment, and then the air turned heavy. Something darkened in his stance, and suddenly nothing was funny as Caramyn watched his fists clench at his sides. He whipped around and stomped toward her.
“You have no idea what you provoke with these insolent acts...what horrors you threaten to unleash.” He seethed.
As his hulking figure closed the distance between them, Caramyn took a step back, nearly tripping on the train of therobe. The rabid look in his eye reminded her of the Inquisitor who’d lunged at her mother in much the same way, right before he shattered their world.
She flinched as he stopped before her, inches from her bare body. She readied herself to rip out the bone shard knife hidden in the pinned coils of her hair as he loomed over her, her head at the height of his chest—an ideal position for stabbing.
He growled through a tense exhale, his eyes firmly on hers. “Is this all just a game to you? This is absolutely blithe. Downright reckless.”
"Fear tends to make the best of us reckless..." She stood firm as she threw his own words back at him, but a tremble in her voice betrayed her.
Something overshadowed him, perhaps the realization of the mere threat of his stature. He stared at her with haunted eyes, and she stared back for far too long. Her heart pounded like a mouse’s until his broad shoulders relaxed, and he breathed out with a small step backwards. She should’ve just killed him. But she had far too many questions. Though if he ever approached her that way again, she couldn’t promise her curiosity would be enough to stop her.
She closed the robe around herself and scowled. "You wanted to interrogate me?" She hissed, determined more than ever to get the truth out of Asterious before he could get it from her. “Well, then what are you waiting for?”
11
The Forgotten Heir
Asterious
The prince flexed his hands, his chest tight as he stared at this ethereal woman who challenged the deepest parts of him in the strangest ways. She was insolent and wild and foolhardy, and had no idea the danger she was putting herself in. He could sense each of her breaths. The way she shifted and her heartbeat sped up when he came too near. Like a deer trying to stand her ground against a lion.
He would never be able to get it out of his head—the image of her standing there, facing him with bare dripping breasts and stomach, the sweep of her hips and perfect thighs peeking out with each step from the silky folds of that open gown. Hereyes shining like twilight stars above full, soft lips sparkling with water droplets like spring dew. A vision that would be unforgettable and equally maddening.
And when he moved toward her, she’d recoiled. It seemed to shake her far more than he’d meant to. He’d frightened her. Sometimes he forgot how easy it was to move too quickly, too harshly. Sometimes that inhuman part of himself slipped out in moments it shouldn’t. But he couldn’t let himself care. He didn’t care. She was just a pawn…for now.
He held his gaze on her face as she stared up at him and breathed a sigh of relief when she wrapped the robe shut around herself. Fully clothed or not, he was going to continue with this interrogation.
"My question is the same, Caramyn.” He tried to soften his voice, aware that the way he towered over her was likely intimidating enough. “Where…where did you find the ring?”
The girl shifted uncomfortably as she stood, glancing at the window nervously. There was a raven perched outside on the sill. “My answer is also still the same.”
“Then this room will be your prison until it changes.” When she bit her cheek and looked away, he pressed her, producing the ring from his pocket. "Let’s try something else. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Did you steal it?"
She looked back and narrowed her eyes at him, then at the ring. "No," she finally said, focusing again on the bird in the window. “Now I technically answered a question. So now will you answer one of mine?”
Asterious crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the window, trying once again to distract himself from the way the delicate fabric clung to her curves. “Fair enough.” He groaned. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to tell her one small thing. “One question.”
But her question wasn’t as straight-forward as he’d hoped. He could smell her fear, her uncertainty, her mistrust. But he couldn’t hope to guess what she would say next. He braced himself as she moved to take a seat in the windowsill and tossed out the words. “Why is the ring so important to you?”
“Because it was my mother’s.” He turned the ring in his fingers, watching the way the sun glinted off the metal and highlighted the outline of the moons.
“That doesn’t count. You already told me that.”
Asterious raised an eyebrow. “All right. Perhaps this will satisfy you. My mother was Queen Elysia Vaerwynd, and I’ve been trying to find out what happened to her since I was a boy.”
It did not escape the prince’s notice how Caramyn’s eyes widened, and she leaned forward. “Was she not killed in the Lightborn Massacre or the purge of the witchlands?”
Asterious clicked his tongue and waved a finger. “A question for a question. My turn…Did you find the ring?”
A quiet pause held the air as Caramyn twirled her fingers in her lap. “Y—yes. On the bodies of some bandits I came across while traveling.”
