Page 46 of Revert
“You shouldn’t.” His eyes were serious as he looked from me to the door, from which I could hear the faint echo of voices, too soft for me to catch the words.
“I have to know,” I whispered.
After a moment’s indecision he sighed and nodded reluctantly. Motioning for me to stay where I was, he walked briskly down the hall. The guards at the door snapped to attention as he approached and he engaged them in conversation, asking questions about shift change and praising their attentiveness. I scarcely heard his words, my eyes fixed on his hands clasped behind his back. Finally, he made the slightest motion with one finger and I eased forward.
Halric shifted to the other side of the door, drawing the gazes of the guards away from me. I had just enough time to slip into a small alcove near the door, standing behind an ornate urn where no one would see me unless they walked down the hall. The words drifting from inside were faint and difficult to make out, but with focused concentration I could pick up part of the conversation in the throne room.
“…she questioned the nature of Thorndale’s darknesswith a servant, Castiel.” The king’s voice, cold and dripping with disdain. “Openly, carelessly. As if such remarks do not betray weakness, treason—or worse, the threat of influence.”
Treason. The word caught in my throat like ice.
“She exerts no influence; her weakness is our strength.” Castiel’s voice was tight and controlled, but even through the veil by detachment, the current of emotion beneath it wasunmistakable. “For all her ignorance, she possesses enough sense not to overstep the boundaries we’ve firmly set for her.”
Fear tangled my thoughts as I scrambled to piece together their meaning. My conversation with Liora. For a horrified moment I wondered if she had betrayed me, before reminding myself there were plenty of other ways the king could have obtained his information—whether through his magical spies, or his human ones, his many watching eyes that lurked everywhere. I had no time to dwell on how.
“You know that wasn’t once true,” the king snapped. “In the end intentions do not matter—perception is everything. If she’s already infecting the palace staff with doubt, how long before she incites full disloyalty? She’s reckless. Unfit. A danger to the throne you will one day rule.”
A long, heavy pause followed, the kind that made the air go still, as if the palace itself was listening. And then I heard Castiel’s voice, quiet and deliberate: “You need not worry—her influence cannot create change when I refuse to allow it to reach me. I hate her.”
The words sliced through me, far more painfully than his sword ever had.
“Hate,” the king sneered. “Is that what you call your previous deviation? If it’s truly hatred you feel, you’ve had an…unusual way of demonstrating it, both then and now.”
“The man I was isn’t who I am anymore,” Castiel said. “I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ll never allow attachment to cloud my judgment again. Rest assured, I loathe that woman with every fiber of my being.”
My heart pounded so hard I feared it would betray me. But beneath the ache, a quiet certainty stirred:He’s protecting me.The gentleness cradling his voice last night, the apology, the tenderness in the shadows when no one had been watching.Those hadn’t been lies, only this—the mask he had to wear, the role he had to play.
The suffocating silence following his cruel pronouncement seemed to extend forever. I imagined the king examining every syllable, parsing the tone for the lies he suspected lay hidden. I desperately prayed he wouldn’t find them.
Even through the blood rushing in my ears, I caught the king’s next words, smug and approving. “Good. Then see to it that your behavior reflects it. Give me no reason to doubt you.”
Instinct warned that I’d lingered too long. Cautiously easing out from behind the urn, I peeked to see that the guards were looking away and slowly started to back away, but before I could move, I heard the king’s voice speaking more loudly than before—honeyed now, but laced with steel.
“Ah, Princess Bernice, impeccable timing. We were just discussing you. Why don’t you come in and enlighten us on your true loyalties?”
Horror seized my breath. I had been caught. The guards moved to flank me, guiding me to the doorway as they threw it open. I stumbled, catching myself on the frame, clutching it like a lifeline. Down the hall, I caught a glimpse of Halric’s pale face just before he turned and walked away. I vainly wished he was going for backup, but I knew better—he was powerless here.
Heart pounding, I turned back towards the open threshold and dizzily peered into the shadowed throne room…straight into the king’s cold gaze.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the little eavesdropper herself.” His tone turned sharp, mocking. “I can’t even trust you to keep to areas where you’re invited, or to refrain from listening to conversations that are none of your concern. But since you’re here…why don’t you join us?”
I knew that tone: it wasn’t a request. Every reflex drilled into me by court etiquette urged me to obey, but terror rooted me inplace. For a flicker of a moment, I thought I saw something in Castiel’s eyes—panic, or regret—but it vanished just as quickly, masked beneath princely detachment.
“Are you deaf in addition to incompetent?” the king snapped. “Get in here before I drag you. I will not ask again.”
I tried to move, to obey…but fear had paralyzed me. I had seen firsthand what this man was capable of. He wouldn’t hesitate to strike me down—or worse, order one of his guards to do it for him while he watched with sick delight.
In the end, it wasn’t duty that finally thawed what terror had frozen, but Castiel. “Come in, Princess.” His voice was sharp, almost cruel, but beneath it, I heard a trembling plea to heed the king’s command.
His presence gave me just enough strength. Though instinct screamed for me to run, I moved like a marionette, each trembling step guided not by will but by survival, strengthened only by the knowledge that I was coming closer to the prince as well as his father.
I straightened my shoulders as the doors creaked open wider and then boomed shut behind me, sealing my fate with ceremonial finality.
The throne room was dimly lit, the morning light muted behind high stained glass in fractured, colorless shards. Shadows lurked in the corners like silent sentinels, oppressive servants of the king that felt almost alive, waiting and ever watching.
The king lounged on his throne with the elegance and ease of a serpent at rest, looking far too pleased to see me. Foreboding twisted my gut at his delight. Pleasure from the embodiment of cruelty itself was never benign—it was always the beginning of something, as final as an omen of death.
Castiel stood to one side, his face a mask carved from stone. Whatever softness had existed in his gaze the night before wasgone, buried beneath layers of distance and duty. But I had learned to read beneath the surface. I could see the tension coiled in the tight set of his jaw, the strain in his rigid posture, the weight behind his unwavering gaze.
