AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s no one!”
“I couldn’t find him earlier, please tell me it isn’t—”
“Yes, it’s me,” drones the voice inside the room.
Dante drags a hand down his face, and the crush of papers in his arms drop to the floor. “For the love of—”
Cyrus grabs the door from me, and I yelp, clutching my clothes so they don’t fall. He’s fully dressed, if disheveled.
Dante rolls his eyes as he reaches over and flattens Cyrus’s hair and shoves his shirt into his trousers. “I don’t want to know—actually—no, no, I do. Your crown and a kingdom-threatening prophecy potentially rest on your upcoming marriage and your pants aren’t fully buttoned, so this better be damn worth it.”
“It was until you interrupted.” Cyrus scowls.
“It was a one-time thing,” I say over him, mortified.
Dante picks up his dropped papers. “I am going to give you two a moment to sort…whatever this is…out.” He backs away toward the stairwell, pointing a vehement finger at Cyrus. “Won’t care if you’re naked, if you aren’t outside this tower in five minutes, I will haul you out of here.”
I shut the door and slide against it, hand clutching my forehead. I peek through my fingers to find the prince nursing a smirk. “Don’t look so smug.”
I finish buttoning my skirts properly. Then Cyrus’s hands find my waist, and he pulls me flush against him.
Jolting, I look up. “What are youdoing?”
“I believe we have five minutes.” His smile is easy and lethal.
“You seriously want to—”
“I already went through all this trouble. He can haul me out of here naked.”
My sensations have dulled since our earlier thrill, butsomething else in me flutters at his idle flirting, if only for how unexpected it is. Cyrus said he wants me, but even after all we’ve done, I don’t believe it until now.
His fingers weave with mine and my mind fills with his threads as he kisses me once more:
A clock striking eleven. In the hedge maze, a masked girl in a dress like mist grins.
The gnarled Seer of Balica taking his palm between hers and speaking a prophecy in rhyme.
Grit and vines and splintering thorns enveloping his bloody body. “Violet,” he utters with gasping terror.
I let go of Cyrus.
“Violet?” My name is a soft question on his lips, but I still hear the terrified echo from the future.
“You—” I nearly tell him the truth. That I dreamed a scene of his bloody body before. But this time, in his threads, I saw the setting.
A room in the palace.
I saw not an imaginary version of him buthim.
“What did you see?”
Cyrus wants to fix whatever startled me. He wants to fix it because he wants me, and the thought seems more ridiculous the longer it lives in my mind. A question burns in my throat—a stupid one I’d never ask. But if I asked it, I’d tack it onto the end of some blithe statement like it’s rhetorical:I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you, but I’m still not worth this effort and we don’t even like each other, so—
Why me?
But I can only think of so many answers, and I can’t bear to hear any of them aloud. “It doesn’t matter,” I say, pullingfarther away with each word. “There’s no future for us. I’m not—” A laugh bubbles out of me despite myself. “You’re going to beking.And I’m going to be your Seer.”
And that’s that. We had our respite in this divine room, away from the world and our duties, as the gods sneered above. Now we move on, because we have to.
