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He’ll be rough, too. His anger is still there, even if it’s ice beneath his mask.
The prince pushes up from the bed. It creaks before he reaches out his hand. I cringe back from him, eyeing his hand as though it’s ready to strike me down.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he offers it to me. After a pause and a curve of his fingers, I rest my hand down on his. He peels me out of the bed. The sheets fall over the edge, landing on the floor, damp with my sweat.
Crystal-blue eyes run me over. “You are in need of a wash,” he decides, his hand slipping away from mine. “Later.” He takes a loose grip of my arm before he steers me out of the room. “First, we will eat.”
He takes me down to the Hall, his grip loose but commanding—follow the rules, he’s telling me. And I obey.
In the Hall, my appetite fails me. I stir around my honeyed pudding with a long golden spoon, resting my chin on the heel of my palm.
Beside me, the prince eats lightly, too. But he does drink generously from his crystal tumbler of amber liquid.
We say nothing to each other.
Worry starts to creep into me. The amber liquid gets him drunk, more than the loads of wine he downs in one Quiet.
If last Quiet was him sober, I don’t want to be around him in a drunken state so soon after our fight.
Yet, I have little choice.
Once we abandon our unfinished meals for his bedchamber, the prince orders the golden washtub in his room to be filled with soapy water.
Daein pours himself generous helpings of that amber drink by the bar at the vines in the corner. He then sits himself on a red-velvet chair, bringing the crystal tumbler to his mouth.
I hover by the washtub, waiting for another slave to come and fill it for me. The seconds seem to tick by like hours until Archer finally enters from the slave’s door, followed closely by Gary and Terry. Each of them carries pails of steamy water.
In silence, they fill the tub then leave. Terry shoots me a worried look before she disappears and the door clicks quietly behind them.
Without waiting for orders, I strip down to my bare body and step into the tub. Despite all the balms and salves that Hilda used on me, the moment I sink into the water, it gets to work on the aches and pains pinned to my muscles.
I loosen a gentle breath and let my eyes flutter at the soothing sensation. Something is magical about the water from the lake, I decide.
I sit in the washtub a long while. The prince just watches me, looking away only to refill his tumbler.
Silence sticks to us like glittering specks to the willow trees outside.
I’m in the tub for so long that my skin starts to prune—and I hate that. Growing restless, I fidget in the water, making it slosh around me, and pick at a faint scratch on my kneecap. I chance a curt glance up at the prince.
Our eyes meet for only a moment before I tuck my gaze down.
He pushes up from the chair with a creaking sound that breaks the silence. I sink deeper into the water until my chin is submerged, and I watch him move across the bedchamber. He goes into his closet—buried in the wall and hidden by sheer drapes that I can see his silhouette through—before he returns with a black shirt of his own.
My breath is trapped in my chest as his eyes find mine and he advances on the washtub. He walks around it, coming up to the back of my head.
The urge to drown myself takes me. Instead, I grip onto the sides of the tub and stay utterly still.
He might just drown me himself.
The prince lowers to a crouch behind me, his free hand coming around to curve around my chin. He lifts it up, taking it out of the water, and aligns our mouths as he brings his face to mine.
Eyes weary, he plants a chaste kiss on my lips. Against my mouth, he says in a low tone that I think is meant to be some kind of gravelly whisper, “Even if I have regrets—of which I have very few—I would never apologise to a human.”
I suck my lips inwards, clinging to his words.
Was that supposed to be a round-about apology?
