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“I gave no order for violence, Millicent.” A low, melodic voice impacted the room like a detonation of magic. Millicent—the woman who’d dragged Tenah here—backed away from the open door and dropped to her knees in supplication.
“Apologies, my king,” she said, her tone edging on desperation. “She spoke ill—”
Invisible energy crushed down on the room, sending Tenah to her knees too. Her bones creaked from the pressure of Cirel’s magic. She gritted her teeth, shame curling in her chest.
To say it was strange to gaze upon Cirel in this world, clad in his fine navy dress clothes, was an understatement. He’d existed solely in the Void all the years she’d known him. Nowhere else. As a child, she’d often wondered if she’d conjured him up, a figment of her wild imagination.
Cirel was very much real.
His mismatched eyes trailed the ribbons of blood down Tenah’s arms now splattering on the floor. “That rug is over five hundred years old, Millicent. Clean up your mess.”
The woman crawled out, unable to rise under the force of her king’s unnatural magic.
Cirel lowered himself before Tenah. “Forgive her. I provide her with work to keep her out of the topaz dens, but she has a tendency to lash out, regardless.”
“The girl, I can forgive,” Tenah muttered, humiliated at her inability to move.
His lips parted briefly, and she caught sight of sharp, pearl white teeth. Her internal alarms fired. She needed distance from him.
“Just look at you, blighted by Chaos.” He reached for her arm.
Tenah writhed against his invisible hold, but the king was fully in control. Light fingers traced the markings on the inside of her arm. Her eyelids fluttered at his electrifying touch. She couldn’t hold back a shiver.
“If only you’d cooperated,” he said at length.
“Cooperated?” Tenah snapped back. “How can I cooperate when you rob me of consciousness and bend me to your will?”
The king was unfazed by her insolence. This close, she glimpsed the tiny strands of Chaos sizzling in his orange eye. She inhaled the scent of brewing storms and a hint of something smoky.
Strange. He wore no crown in this world.
Cirel’s fierce gaze held hers. She envisioned him younger, without the hard edge of his madness, his thin body free of Chaos’s leash.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said, his tone severe.
Her chest heaved, seeking enough air to fill her lungs and keep her terror at bay. “Like what?”
He frowned. “Like there’s hope. Like I’m fixable.”
She bit down on the inside of her lip. She didn’t miss the way Cirel’s gaze dropped there for a moment, eyes gleaming as if he could smell the blood she drew.
Millicent burst back into the room. She carried a silver tray of medical supplies in one hand and a bucket and cloth in the other. She set both on the end table between the two chairs. When she moved toward Tenah, Cirel raised a hand.
“You will not touch her again unless you wish for death,” he said. “Fetch us drinks and then leave us.”
Millicent bent in half to show respect, then she was gone once more.
The pressure lifted, no longer grinding Tenah into the rug she’d bloodied. She drew in a full breath.
His voice softened as he examined her wounds. “My magic can be a bit overwhelming.”
Then the King of Adra delicately cleaned and bound her wounds with surprising care.
“Why?” she whispered, throat swelling.
“You believe my intentions to be sinister,” Cirel said, his thumb drifting along her arm. Softly, it traced her markings.
A weak laugh escaped her. “You made your intentions clear when you sent an army through that rift you forced me to open. You told me once how much you hated war. Yet, here you are, stirring up another one.”
