Page 100 of The Prince's Captive

He was mostly concerned with expanding his vocabulary, but that wasn’t actually something she was very good at helping with since she couldn’t confirm if the dictionaries were accurate due to her worse skills in his tongue. But when he did say something, she was able to correct his pronunciation and point out when he was forgetting articles or nouns that were usually included in the forms of other words in his tongue.

It was slow going. Mostly him pointing to the runes in her language and asking her to pronounce them. And then he would try, and she would demand he say it again until he got it right.

“Your accent is making them all wrong,” she said.

Gavril always blew out a long breath and said, “I cannot replace my tongue with one better suited for your words.”

“Give your heretics a few years. They will find a way.”

At his silence she looked up to see him gaping at her. She stiffened. Had that somehow been the wrong thing to say? Too—

Then Gavril was laughing, bright and clear. It filled the air and settled around her warmer than the sunshine they were lounging in. But when his laughter subsided, he just picked up his book and tried again.

Marcella wasn’t sure what about her jab at the heretics was so funny to him, but she supposed she was grateful for it.

Her throat was starting to go dry, and she could tell Gavril’s was as well from all their talking when he finally said, “One more.”

She nodded and started to pass him the book when he shook his head. “It is not—I do not know what it is in my tongue or what it looks like. You said it the first day we sparred. I did not understand it.”

Marcella thought back. She supposed there were plenty of opportunities where she’d thrown so much at him at once it was entirely possible he hadn’t caught everything. Especially given how she almost never understood a full sentence in his tongue.

“Do you remember what it was?”

“You—You asked me if I was—ah—if I was satisfied with your—w—worth—essess?” Gavril stumbled over the word.

Marcella remembered, and she took in a short breath. Of all the things to care about knowing, something she spat out while they’d been sparring was still on his mind?

But she could not refuse to answer.

“Worthlessness,” Marcella said softly, lowering her gaze.

She flipped through the book and found the rune in her tongue and passed it over to him, pointing to it without looking at him. She couldn’t bring herself to try to describe the word and so thoroughly expose herself to him.

His eyes darted down to the page, tracing the words. His brow furrowed, and he leaned in closer, reading it again. Then he looked up sharply and he gaped at her. “You—you think this? Of yourself? You thinkIthink this of you?”

“Only if the translation is accurate,” Marcella muttered, shifting back slightly and hoping maybe that would be enough to deflect his unnerving attention.

“It means—In my tongue—” His brow furrowed, and the scowl overtaking him had her cursing herself for not lying about it. Gavril set the book to the side and faced her fully, bracing a hand on the ground, blocking her. She had nowhere to run. “Describe it in yours.”

She hated him.

Shehatedhim.

She was going to pay him back for all the humiliation he was putting her through.

“It… It means for something to have no value,” she whispered as she lowered her gaze to her lap.

A hand was tilting her face back up. Gavril was right in front of her, staring at her with that intensity that she was starting to believe was just how he was about everything. Or maybe just how he was about her. “You arenot.You are not this… worthlessness. You have value. You know this.”

He didn’t say it like a question. He said it like an order.

She wondered if what he was trying to say was ‘you are going to know this.’

If she succeeded in taking him hostage, then, yes, she would.

Chapter32

MARCELLA

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