I don’t trust him at all.
When I was young, I would avoid him at functions and parties because he frightened me. The others my age used to make up stories about him haunting children, his unsettling, pointed features appearing in the darkness above you at night if you were naughty.
I try not to visibly shudder as he rests his icy gaze on me now. “Princess,” he says with a cold, dead tone.
I simply nod and brush past him into my father’s rooms without permission, shutting him out behind me with a slam of the door.
“Elysande,” the king says in greeting, sitting in his oversized chair at the head of the ostentatiously long table as usual. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit so early?”
I sit a few chairs down and grab a pastry, taking a bite before I answer. As I finish chewing the surprisingly soft yet flaky chunk, I decide to get right to the point. “I was roaming the castle yesterday, as I often do, and I came across two prisoners. A Dothronite and a Skeldaryn.” I pause to check his reaction.
“Why were you in the dungeons?” he asks with moderate interest, revealing nothing.
“As I said. I was wandering. As I do.”
“Alone?”
I return his calculating stare, debating how to answer. He has guards all over this castle. Someone easily could have seen us, and he may very well know already. Perhaps I’m a fool, but I’ve never really been afraid of my father. “No.”
“Adrian, perhaps?”
Something tells me he doesn’t believe I was with Adrian even a little. It’s almost like he’s baiting me.
I shake my head, then lift my chin. “Daegan Vaelor.”
The king’s eyes narrow in on me as he rubs his chin. “And have you gathered any useful information from him? Anything that would give us reason to be suspicious about them?”
I hang my head “No.”
I hear him sigh before I lift it again.
“Do you like him?”
“What?”
“Daegan Vaelor. Do you like him?”
“No. Why would you—” I cut myself off, shaking my head. “No, father. Of course not. He’s grumpy, rude, and extremely unpleasant to be around.”
“Good. Because Captain Greenwood has made his interest in you known.”
“To you?”
He gives one curt nod.
“Okay, well, with all due respect, Father, I did not come here to talk about my personal affairs.”
“Then what did you come for?”
“Why are they down there?”
His eyebrows pinch together in the most subtle way.
“That’s none of your concern, Elysande.”
“It is my concern. I talked to them. They seemed kind. Said they came all this way to simply use the library.”
His jaw twitches, but besides that, his face reveals nothing.
