AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You might want him to put a stitch or two in that cut of yours.”
“It’s fine.”
As if to prove myself right, I touch the slice and feel the soreness but ignore it all the same.
“Had worse, right?”
“Right.” I sigh and push up. “Let’s go see her majesty.”
Leaving Sebastian, I walk corridors I have so many times before, picking up the things I need, but the atmosphere is different. It’s as if in the last hour or so, the tension that has lived in these walls for years has somehow intensified.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
Natalia was always an enigmatic character. She commanded attention regardless of the situation.
She has barely entered the palace, hasn’t seen anything but the four walls of her room, but it feels like it knows she’s home.
Running a hand over my face tiredly, I wonder what it will feel like when I’m through with her. How will the atmosphere shift when I’m done with this game and I’m ready to truly move on?
I hesitate briefly at her door, but I don’t wait. Without notifying her of my presence, I open the door and enter.
She’s curled up in the middle of the bed, the duvet pulled right up to her chin, her eyes staring at the far wall opposite her. There’s not even a flinch of recognition from her as I push the door shut.
As I cross the room, she still doesn’t move a muscle. Placing a glass down onto the bedside table, deliberately obstructing her line of vision, I wait. No reaction. Next to it I place two white pills, freshly popped from their packet. I toyed with the idea of giving her the entire lot, but the last thing we need right now is her overdosing.
“Here’s some tablets for that headache.”
“I don’t need them.” Her response is instant.
“Take them,” I order softly.
“I don’t need them.”
“You’re a poor liar considering how much you do it for a living.”
She rolls her eyes. “I said I don’t need them.”
We both know it isn’t true. Her eyes tell me everything her lips never will. She forgets the sorry truth of us. We knew one another, we loved one another, and because of that affliction, we know the deepest parts of the other.
Once upon a time, I’d have declared that a massive flaw in myself, but now it’s the biggest strength I have.
I sigh, knowing we aren’t going to get anywhere with this, and take my leave.
I’ll try a different tactic later when it’s not the middle of the night and she’s had some time to adjust.
“Do you really hate me that much?” she suddenly asks, but I can tell she hasn’t moved. Everything about her is silent. “Am I worth that little to you now?”
“If the tables were reversed, Talia, would you let me go?”
“I already proved what I’d do.”
Turning slowly, I regard her across the space between us.
This is the most lifeless I have ever seen her, and part of me aches at the idea that I did this - and how I did this so easily.
“Yeah, I’ve got the cut on my jugular that proves just what you wanted to do but couldn’t.” I snigger and shake my head. “The bravado wasn’t strong enough to finish the deed, was it?”
She laughs, rubbing her hand over her face as she pushes herself up, the bedding falling from her slender body.
