AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All right, so I might have sniffed at a few of Nox’s vials, too, trying to find a scent that would mask the fact that I haven’t had a proper bath in weeks.
Most would have considered the sniffing a mistake after I accidentally inhaled a substance that had me waking on the floor minutes later with my head throbbing, but eventually I found something that smelled rather citrusy, so it was worth it in the end.
Unlike most of the time, I hear him before he arrives, and I wonder if he’s making noise on purpose to alert me of his presence. I hop up on the dais and finagle my feet and hands around to look as though I’m comfortable, not that I’ve been jittering incessantly all day. Before I can stop them, my hands creep up to the tips of my long braid, which I’ve swept over my shoulder, and start playing with the fraying ends of my hair.
I can’t imagine the braid is all that pleasant to look at, especially after Nox snipped a lock of my hair for that disastrous potion. In fact, if I run my fingers up the plait, I can feel where the tips of my hair splay outward where one lock is shorter than the rest and refuses to be contained.
No matter. I know it’s silly. Nox has seen me in much less alluring states. Like when I first arrived at the castle unconscious and my britches were soaked all the way through. Or the time I was frothing at the mouth. Or how I must look every day without a mirror to judge my appearance. He’s seen me at my worst and doesn’t seem at all deterred.
Still.
I’m not exactly the prettiest petal on the rose, and the attention I’ve gained from farmhands in the past has more to do withactinglike I’m pretty than actually being pretty.
Some boys can be easily misled, I’ve found.
But it still helps to have bathed.
The lock in the dungeon door clicks, and in walks Nox.
I pick at my nails and try to look unimpressed.
I’m not sure I succeed.
He’s not wearing his usual robes—the ones with stains all up the hem of the sleeves. Instead, he’s donned a set of black slacks with a shirt and well-fitted coat to match.
Without the billowing robes obscuring most of his form, there’s no hiding the muscles packed onto a narrow build.
Black, white, and the blue of his eyes—the only hint of color against a monochromatic palette.
The shadows underneath his eyes have started to fade, and there’s a life to them I haven’t yet had the pleasure of witnessing.
He’s still Nox though, and his black hair still falls in his face. I find myself grateful that he can’t seem to pull himself completely together, either. We’re the same in that way, bonded not by an intricate knot, but a messy tangle.
Tangles get a poor reputation, but they’re difficult to unravel, and there’s something to be said for that.
Nox’s gaze fixes on me, scanning me from the crown of my braid to the tips of my toes.
He looks a bit dazed, and my cheeks heat when he doesn’t take his eyes off me as he uncorks his canister, his throat bobbing as he drinks.
“You stayed up,” he says, hooking the canister to his belt, and there’s a hesitancy in his voice that wasn’t there earlier, when he had me pinned to the very dais on which I sit.
It’s like he’s spent the afternoon pondering whether he overstepped, whether it’s a step he’s even capable of taking back.
It’s like our minds have been spiraling down the same path.
Nothing’s happened between us, but the passion, the longing that went taut between us earlier today, is almost worse.
“Well, it’s not like I had anything better to do,” I say, hopping down from the dais and looping my arm through his. “So what was it you wanted to show me?”
It takesus what feels like an hour to sneak through the castle undetected. Queen Abra doesn’t keep her castle overstaffed by any means, and the servants are few, but we still find them dusting busts in the corridors, carrying steaming pots of water down the staircases, and scuttling about the castle performing their chores.
Nox says it’s best if they don’t see us, though after they’ve passed, he always whispers in my ear their names, how they ended up in service to the queen, how many children they have and the names of each.
I wonder if they fear him as much as he loves them.
As we slink through the shadows, Nox’s hand firmly interlocked with mine, I can’t help but try to take in the beautiful veneer of my prison.
It’s stunning, this castle, in a sad sort of way. I can’t tell much by way of the coloring at night, except for the few tapestries the crescent moon lights up as it leaks through the windows, but from what I can tell, the whole place is outfitted in rich, dark colors.
