Page 83 of Deadwood
I watched her. Her expression was blank, but her eyes screamed with…pain. So silent, so hidden, that I hadn’t seen it before. But now, it flared bright, like it wanted someone to recognize it. Like it needed someone to relieve it.
Was she insinuating…?
“Princess.” The word was a quiet caress.
She shook her head, blinking away unshed tears. “It’s true.”
“Death is not freedom, but only another sort of prison. You don’t wish that.”
More had to be going on inside that castle than what met the eye. I was certain of it now.
“The bridge collapsing is not the most tragic thing.” Nowshewas the one deflecting.
I got to my feet, eliminating the space between us to set a finger under her chin, lifting her head so she’d look at me. I couldn’t help that my thumb ghosted over her skin. “Such a change of heart since you arrived. What will your fiancé think of this new you?”
Her lips pressed together. I’d ticked her off just like I wanted. She needed her mind out of whatever dark place it’d traveled to, and I’d gladly be the one to get her out of it while I could.
Rather than go at it with me, she changed the subject once again. “What about the barrier the bones dragon couldn’t cross?”
What a shame. I quite liked the flame that ignited in her eyes when she came alive.
I dropped my hand from her. “That, I don’t have an answer to.”
“So you don’t know everything,” she surmised.
I quirked a brow. “Careful, Princess.”
Her eyes turned curious. “What is your secret?”
I cocked my head in question.
“In the caves, you said to pretend we knew each other’s secrets. What is yours?”
“Next question.”
Her bottom lip pouted out with a frown. The look was…torture. “That’s not fair.”
My shoulder lifted in the smallest shrug. “The world was not built on a balanced scale, I’m afraid.”
She set her hands on her hips. “Fine. What does the collapsed bridge mean for my people?”
I began to take slow steps, circling where she stood in the center of the living room. “That you cannot cross.”
Her arms unconsciously fell back to her sides. “Can’t dragons get us across the chasm?”
A low chuckle came out of me. “Have you ever seen a dragon in Amosite?”
Her brows pinched together as she thought on that. “Well, no. But I assumed I hadn’t seen one because I can’t leave the castle.”
I took note of her phrasing. Her sequestering in the castle was not voluntary, it seemed. “Dragons won’t cross the chasm.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged, continuing my prowl around her. It was something we hadn’t been able to figure out for decades. “You ask any of them, and they won’t do it.”
“Perhaps the bones dragon would let us pass,” she thought aloud.
I stopped behind her, eyeing the back of her head. “Are you searching for a way to die?”
