Page 13 of Revert
Someone else, not him? A different threat than before.
He took a step deliberate step towards me. I stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re searching for,” he said quietly. “But if you must look for it, I would advise you not to do it alone.”
I went still. The words were carefully measured, equal parts veiled warning and quiet offer. But before I could even begin to analyze them, he turned, his cloak whispering behind him as he disappeared into the shadows from which he’d come.
Only when his footsteps faded did I realize I’d stopped breathing. The breath I’d been holding escaped in a tremor.
My scattered thoughts struggled to process what had transpired. Despite catching me somewhere I shouldn’t have been, Prince Castiel hadn’t killed me, arrested me, or even escorted me out of the place I wasn’t meant to find. Not tonight. But that didn’t mean I was safe, and it certainly didn’t mean I could trust him.
He was playing a different game than before, and I was determined to master its rules so that this time, I would emerge the victor.
CHAPTER 5
Ivainly hoped that would be the end of it—that the prince would retreat into the shadows and resume whatever schemes occupied him between court appearances and calculated smiles. But the night had barely passed—filled as always with restless dreams and shadowed memories—when a sealed summons arrived bearing the royal crest. Delivered not from a court courier, as would have been customary, but by one of the prince’s personal guards on a silver tray, as if it were an invitation to a ball rather than my inevitable execution.
My fingers trembled as I broke the seal, bracing for the worst, but the message contained only a time, a location, and a single sentence written in his steady, unmistakable hand:You’ll want to see this. Brief and cryptic, precisely His Highness’s style.
But the elegant calligraphy on gilded parchment couldn’t disguise the command, undoubtedly a continuation of last night’s encounter that I should have known better than to think concluded.
My fists clenched. I crumpled the summons and tossed it into the fire, but the flames did nothing to burn away the threat woven into every word. I had expected silence to be his finalword—that he would vanish back into the shadows, leaving me only with the dread and confusion he always managed to stir.
I’d dared to wonder—just for a breath—if my betrothed was capable of mercy. But this felt like cruelty, a calculated game meant to toy with me, an extension of my punishment. If he had intended to kill me, I would have preferred he had done so last night rather than lure me into a false sense of security, only to delay the inevitable.
I yearned to ignore the summons and pretend it had never arrived, but such cowardice would profit me nothing—in this gilded prison, there was nowhere I could hide where he wouldn’t find me.
At the appointed hour, I gathered my composure around me like a shield and made the excruciating journey to our determined meeting place, towards whatever fate awaited me.
It was an unspoken rule of court to arrive at least a quarter hour early for any appointment with the king or crown prince; I exceeded that expectation, arriving a half hour before the appointed time, punctuality being one of the few tools that might compel him to extend the grace I so desperately desired.
To my horror Prince Castiel was already there, posture rigid and hands clasped behind his back as he studied a tapestry depicting a rather gruesome battle. The depiction of bloodied swords and fallen men was hardly the most comforting direction for his thoughts to linger.
At the sound of my approach, he turned slightly, nodding once in acknowledgment. “I’m surprised you showed up.”
As though I’d had any choice. Only sheer survival instinct kept me from voicing the biting retort burning my lips. Instead, I forced them upwards in a tight, brittle smile.
“Of course. I always welcome time with my fiancé, especially considering we ended our time together rather abruptly last night.” The words were carefully chosen, delivered with thegrace of courtly etiquette, just enough to let me feel some semblance of control, though deep down I knew it was merely an illusion.
Garron, the prince’s accompanying guard, coughed awkwardly. Too late I realized how my comment might have been misconstrued. The prince and I had been alone last night, absent of even the presence of guards. I had unintentionally made it sound as though he had summoned me for an illicit tryst, an unforgivable slip that cast him in a compromising light. Such slander, however accidental, was considered pure treason in Thorndale.
I cursed myself. Normally, I would have sidestepped such a misstep with ease, but I seemed to have left my composure behind in my original timeline.
I cast a hesitant glance at Prince Castiel, expecting a flicker of irritation, if not outright anger. But his expression remained unreadable, no trace of emotion flickering across his stoic features, not even embarrassment.
“The hour was late,” he said at last, his voice calm. “I thought it best to continue our discussion today.”
I looked away, saying nothing, my throat thick with the remnants of last night’s terror. The tendrils of that encounter still clung to me, curling around my thoughts and clouding my focus. Diplomatic ease—once instinctive—now felt distant and unreachable.
I expected him to press the issue, but to my surprise he simply narrowed his eyes. “You’ve kept me waiting long enough. Come.” Without waiting for my reply, he turned and strode down the corridor, his footsteps echoing with the expectation that I would follow. I didn’t dare disappoint him.
We walked in silence, one more unsettling than usual, thick with tension that pulsed with every step. I couldn't stopobsessing over my earlierfaux pas, analyzing it in agonizing detail, flinching at every imagined consequence.
Apologize. Pride resisted the idea, but in the end prudence reigned victor. Should the prince actually possess a good side, it was in my best interest to remain on it.
“Forgive me for earlier,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean to imply anything inappropriate by my words.”
He blinked, as if the memory had only just caught up with him. He cleared his throat. “It’s nothing. What the court thinks matters little. You and I know the true nature of our meeting last night, and that is enough.”
His response surprised me, but not as much as the faintest hint of color that rose to his cheeks, nor the almost shy way he looked away—the first crack I’d seen in the armor of the formidable man who had once killed me, offering me a glimpse not of the prince or executioner, but of something more human.
