Nothing's Conventional About Us

IV ~ Shadow

You are a shadow.
And I have always looked at one
With utter mistrust.
Until now.
Until your fire seared me.
You seared yourself into me.

Shadow

Her eyes bore into his dark gaze, lost in the sheer darkness of the shadows that snaked onto him from every side, every crevice of the secret that he had unveiled before her.

Or was it more of a trap than a secret?

He had defeated her father and decimated her kingdom into half. He was the enemy and her intellect knew that the chances of the second possibility being true was logically far greater than that of the first one.

But the challenge that glinted in his eyes - possibly the best bait if he were to lure her in - beat her paranoia and her better judgement, to it. She placed her dainty hand in his, the dusk falling on their skins blending with each other, as if they were always meant to.

This was not trust. This was a challenge. A war of two hearts both of whose prides would never surrender of will.

The moment the darkness of the secret hallway cloaked her completely, his mother hand reached out to work on the intricate system of locks next to the squared slit, and the fall of absolute darkness remained the only indication of the closure of the door behind her.

Her breath hitched, silently, as his hand accidentally grazed the minimal amount of bare skin on her shoulder. The darkness hid his smirk, as it hid the heat that rose up her neck, to her face.

"Is this knowledge supposed to make me feel safer? Because, it does not.", she commented, without so much as the trace of a quake in her voice.

"It does not, because it is not.", he stated with a voice so cool that it would have frightened anyone else in her position.

Her light laughter seemed to lighten the air.

"If fear is the reaction you are hoping to get out of me, Your Highness, then I am saddened to inform you that you will not get it. So, why not take the route of productivity and show me the way to your quarters, instead?", her voice sounded so devoid of fear, that the heat within him coil tighter, straightened up taller and almost smiled at how right his assumptions about her were.

"Fear is not the reaction I am hoping to get out of you, Princess. And you would never know what it is that I am hoping to get till your caution is dead and you are too far gone to even remember it.", his voice was like cold steel, or maybe molten steel, as he led her down the hallway of absolute darkness.

She could only wonder if there was truly only one way that led to his quarters, or multiple branchings that he could somehow navigate through.

It did not even take one-third of the time or distance of their earlier walk this time around, and they came to a standstill.

She felt blind. In this pitch darkness, she was blind. But he was not. She could tell that his other senses were making up very well for the absence of his one sense.

The darkness gave way to glorious golden light as noiselessly as earlier. The light startled her for a moment, but not enough for her to squint, only for her breathing to become irregular, before calming down immediately.

But once the abrupt shock of her senses faded, her heart faltered.

It was not a gold, white and beige themed, brightly lit quarter, as she had expected.

Luxury and elegance dripped from every inch of the massive royal suite - finely polished hardwood, velvets, silks and satins. But, against her expectations of startlingly white marble, there was dark granite. Darker than onyx.