Page 58 of Her Dark Reflection

He caught my wrist and held it in a grip that was a stark contrast to my tender caresses. ‘I’ll have what I came for.’

I resisted the urge to slap him. ‘You will, my king,’ I soothed, managing to tug my wrist from him. He watched me with eyes like a feral dog, mistrustful and vicious, likely to lash out at any moment. The thought of letting him lay his grasping, brutal hands on me made my insides cringe. If I took him to bed like this, what would happen would be a far cry from love.

I poured him a glass of water as his heavy panting filled my room, choking any sense of refuge and peace I’d come to connect with the serene space. All I wanted was to be as far away from him as possible, and the knowledge that escaping him tonight would only mean that he’d come for me the next night, or the night after, filled me with bitterness.

As I moved to return to him with the glass, my eyes landed on the apple, glossy and enticing, perched on my bedside table. Without pausing to think twice, I picked it up and plastered a smile on my face.

‘Do you remember our first night together?’ I cooed, smoothing my thumb over the red skin. ‘I saw this in the orchard today and it reminded me.’

His expression softened slightly as I swayed towards him. ‘Waking dreams,’ he mumbled.

‘I was an awestruck girl already completely infatuated,’ I lied in honeyed tones, supressing my instinctive revulsion as I perched on the arm of the chair and let his arm snake around my waist.

I held the apple aloft for a moment, letting the faint glow of the coals catch on it, feeling the way it seemed to reach out and beg to be consumed, dripping with enchantment that stoked longing and appetite and desire. I sensed when his gaze followed mine, locking onto the apple, his body becoming still and tense, his breathing turning shallow. I imagined how he had begun to salivate at the sight of it, how he longed to taste its crisp sweetness, to rip into its perfect flesh.

Slowly, I lowered my hand and offered it to him, meeting his gaze with an expression of wide-eyed sincerity. ‘Let me take care of you.’

He snatched it from me and immediately raised it to his mouth. A coal spilt and spat up a shower of sparks as he sank his teeth into the fruit, the flaring light catching the juice that dripped down his chin, making it glisten. He consumed the apple in a few greedy bites, his lips smacking, raking his teeth along the core to capture every morsel of flesh, pausing at the end to suck every drop of nectar from the centre. Then, he reached for me, and I surrendered.

When I woke, I moved my limbs gingerly, gently stretching the tender places where I had been pushed too hard, gripped too tight. I was so absorbed in taking inventory of my body that it took me several moments to notice the cold, stiff form beside me.

A scream tore from my throat as realisation crashed down on me.

When the first guard came rushing through the door, I was curled in the corner of the room, my arms wrapped around my legs, still screaming. It felt as though all the pressure and fear and revulsion and paranoia of the past few months had rushed forth like a breaking dam, drowning all reason and leaving me a trembling mess.

Leela dashed to me when she arrived in the room several moments after the guard, who was shouting orders and trying to rouse the king. She threw a blanket over me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, her wide eyes fixed on the bed, muttering prayers to Aether in a tense and relentless burble. People began to pour into the room, servants and more guards and physicians. They crowded the bed, yelling over one another, and I could just make out the sheets being stripped back.

Dovegni was suddenly in the doorway, his eyes darting over the scene. Our gazes clashed for a moment, then he stormed in and parted the crowd, revealing Linus lying with his eyes open and unseeing, the skin on his face slightly blue, red-tinged froth gathered at his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. Then the crowd converged again, and I could no longer see him.

‘Come, Your Royal Highness,’ Leela said in a tremulous voice. ‘Come away.’

I rose on unsteady legs and let her usher me from the room, the blanket clutched tightly around my shoulders. I began to calm as soon as we were in the hallway and away from the commotion of my room, my senseless panic replaced with a numbness that made my legs and arms feel like they didn’t belong to me and were moving without my command. The image of the froth around the corners of Linus’s mouth seemed burned into my retinas, scorching to life every time I blinked.

I was led to a room and placed in a chair, before a mug of hot, sweet tea was pressed on me. I barely registered the fussing going on around me as maids exchanged frantic whispers at the edges of the room. When a guard entered and loomed over me, I had a moment of panic that jolted me out of my shock. I tensed in readiness to dart out of his grasp and run, but he only stationed himself a few feet away and turned to watch the door, his posture defensive. I stared at him for several long moments before I realised that he was indeed there for me, but to protect me, perhaps from any possible assassins that might be stalking the halls. Little did he know that he should have been facing the other way, guarding everyone else from me.

The shock of his appearance seemed to have kicked the cogs in my head back into gear and my mind began to race. I had killed the king. It was too great a coincidence for there to be any other explanation. I hadn’t known what the apple would do, had done exactly as Draven bade me when he had given it.

Don’t ask.

I hadn’t asked. I hadn’t considered Draven’s plans, hadn’t speculated on what he would want the king to do next. I’d been too consumed with my anger at the man who had treated me worse as his wife than as his whore.

But that didn’t mean I hadn’t known.

Deep down, I had known what would happen when I watched Linus bite into that apple. Deep down, I had known what Draven had offered by keeping the knowledge from me.

Ignorance.

Blissful, wilful ignorance.

Blackwasaterriblecolour on me. That was my main concern as I stood over Linus’s coffin and tried to conjure up some tears. It was no good; I felt hollowed out, and the only disturbing waft of emotion that seemed to be lurking around my cavernous interior felt a lot more like relief than grief. I was lucky that veils of black gauze were commonly worn by mourners at funerals because my dry eyes were sure to draw comment if they could be seen.

I didn’t turn when I heard footsteps against the marble floor of the hall, even though I knew who it was. The footsteps stopped at the base of the stairs leading up the dais that was Linus’s temporary resting place.

‘How do you keep sneaking in here?’ I asked without looking around. ‘If everyone could access the palace the way you seem to be able to, we would have a serious security risk on our hands.’

‘Luckily, I am exceptional.’

I drew in a deep, slow breath and turned to face Draven, who stood staring up at me with a strange expression. There was a tightness to his mouth and eyes, and he ran his gaze over me like he was searching for something.

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