Despite his words, my legs remained locked, my mind failing to accept that he would just let me walk away from the mess splattering the floor. I sucked my trembling lip between my teeth. My eyes rose, wanting to read his expression that I was sure would give me nothing as it had been so far, but I couldn't lift them past his chin which sported a small scar.
What if I found the same cruel twist on his lips that resembled his mother's? What if his eyes held the same sadistic glint in their matching hazel depths? Was that what he hid behind his mask? The same savage evil that his mother wore so openly?
"Go," he urged, using the hand on my trembling shoulder to push me towards the doors leading to his room when I continued to remain motionless. His voice remained deceptively soft.
The strained breath that followed his gentle command had my locked muscles carrying me to his room and slipping inside. When I turned to shut the door, I paused, peering through the crack to see Rowan standing there with his thumb tapping across his phone's screen.
My throat tightened as I latched onto an assumption of who he was contacting.
Was he telling the Queen how successful she was at shaking me? Reducing me to a vomiting mess-
Suddenly, it grew glaringly clear why the Autumn Prince would be assigned to watch me. Who better to have report my every move or slip of the tongue than her own blood?
Shutting the door, I tried to piece together my breaking psyche and block out the images of rolling heads and spurting blood. The acidic scent of vomit oddly helped with the disgust it provoked. It was different from the disgust I felt each time I recalled how I held my tongue rather than letting it warn the crying fae who was now dead. Maybe she wouldn't be if she had stopped. If I had stopped her.
But I didn't.
I couldn't.
I couldn't save everyone. I... didn't want to. I was barely able to save myself, the only thing keeping me going was the image of Ash dead, a lifeless puppet on the chains that kept him in my life. The life I was taken from and struggling to find my way back to.
I wouldn't if a psychotic Queen chopped my head off first.
The head that was attached to my neck that was attached to my body that had an ass that I wouldn't just sit on to patiently wait for a chopping block to be prepared.
Repeating my promise to Ash like the mantra it was, I refused to let shock render me venerable and stupid. It was what the Queen must have been hoping for. I couldn't do much about the fear she had struck aside from channeling it into more motivation for finding a way out of this castle. And this realm.
I wouldn't just have the Winter King on my trail if I successfully escaped, I'd have her too...
Not if, but when. I ground my teeth, swallowing past the guilt that I shouldn't be shouldering the responsibility for. I wasn't responsible for another's cruelty. I already carrying the weight of my parent's atrocities, trying to right them. Rowan could carry his mothers.
Turning, I made my way to the bathroom I had yet to experience the pleasure of using. Now that the time had come, the pleasure it would give had been cut several folds. I tried to pull on the blanket of numbness that had been slowly slipping away, but it was growing harder to grasp onto.
Locking the door behind me, I washed my hands of drying stomach fluids and rinsed my mouth using the minty past by the sink before making my way to the tub. Twisting the knobs to release a downpour of hot water, I let it run and flood the room with steam while I emptied my bladder which had threatened to release multiple times over the last thirty or so minutes.
