Page 28 of The Prince's Captive

The next morning she watched for an opportunity but Gavril, as usual, didn’t let her have a moment alone enough that she could escape. Then she was thrown back onto his horse like every other day.

Like she was still a hostage worth a commander’s attention.

They started riding, but not as hard as they had every other day. Slow enough that she could hear him when he leaned in, his breath brushing her ear as he spoke in his horrid accent.

“Hard to know inside your head. Meant my promise. Haven’t told anyone.”

This could be a scheme. Yet another thing that was supposed to endear him to her and make her believe she could trust him.

Maybe he hadn’t killed her or handed her over because he thought she still had useful information he could get out of her.

So she stayed silent. She would take the little information she did have about Clan Desero to her grave.

Or an Inimicus’ heretic’s operating table.

That night when they stopped, instead of setting her in the center of the camp, he barked orders as he walked her to where the tent she’d been staying in was already set up. He didn’t shove her in it, but she also didn’t really have a say whether or not to go in it.

She scrambled back to the edge of the fabric as Gavril sat down with the flap draped over his back, but technically he was sitting on the ground outside.

“Talk to me now?”

The man didn’t know how to let something go, did he?

“I have nothing to say.”

Gavril sighed and muttered, “Contumax puella.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and at the insult yet again that she still hadn’t figured out, something snapped. “You’re going to do what you want to me even if I give you clan secrets, so just go ahead and do it.”

He blinked at her for a moment then said slowly, “Secrets… not option? Then speak?”

Marcella scoffed. “What could you possibly ask me that doesn’t have me giving you valuable information you can use against my people?”

He clasped his hands together the way she did when she prayed and he held them out. “This. What is this? Why do you do it so often?”

That’swhat he cared about?

Marcella couldn’t help her slightly delirious laugh. “I’m praying, you heathen!”

“Praying? Heathen?” He sounded out the words slowly. Then he said, “Heathen like savage? The Elemens?”

For a people who acted so superior they were clueless.

“At least the Elemens pray to their lesser gods, even if not Asentai as they should.”

“Pray? What—” He clasped his hands again. “I do not know the equivalent of this word.”

Marcella paused. For a moment she wondered if he was making fun of her, but there was a genuine confusion in his eyes. Real curiosity.

Not that sharp searching, calculating gaze from before.

“Uh… it’s when you… speak to or… petition the goddess. Or god in some of the Elemens’ case,” Marcella said.

Gavril nodded, seeming to take the information in. He then said, “Why?”

Why?

Wasn’t it obvious?

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