The Infernal King | 1 ✓

CHAPTER XXVI | A MONSTER'S INTRIGUE

       THE BOY-KING and the prisoner sat in silence—an endlessly long table separating them—for what seemed like an eternity.

Maarit stared down at her full teacup—it had long since cooled—with a glassy-eyed, faraway look. More than anything else, she longed to return to her lonely, quaint little home in Fribois. She wanted to leave behind this grandeur and these people, both of which left a raw feeling in her stomach.

But nothing will ever be the same, even if I do return, she reminded herself.

She had revealed her true identity as a soothsayer to the entire village before being abducted. It was very likely that if she ever went back, she would be shunned—or worse—for her curse.

And then there was Keion.

The strident sound of a chair screeching against the dining hall floor startled her out of her very skin and caused her to nearly drop her teacup. When she looked up, her curiosity getting the better of her, King Theodoracius was rising from his place. He strode over to an ebony cupboard on the far end of the room with his robes dragging on the floor behind him in a serpent-like fashion, opened it, reached inside and pulled out a second wine glass.

Without looking at her, he walked back towards the table and scooped up the wine bottle in his free hand and his own full wine glass in the other. As he walked over to the opposite side, where Maarit was sitting, she cringed away from him at first.

But he still would not look at her.

He carefully placed the empty wine glass in front of her and muttered very quietly, like the whisper of the summer breeze, "Perhaps you'd like something a bit stronger than tea. Would wine suffice?"

Maarit was so shocked at the tenderness in his voice that whatever words were on her tongue failed her. She gritted her teeth, and, even while hating him with a burning and unparalleled passion, her heart involuntarily clenched. All she could find the strength to do was will the muscles and bones in her neck to move so that she could nod. She felt an unexpected jolt of pain from the bruises and one of her hands rushed to her throat to massage it.

Without a moment spared, she heard the sound of the wine being poured out into her glass. Pushing her teacup aside, she grasped the wine glass with both hands and raised it to her hesitant lips.

The expression on the face of the king was one that could not be deciphered by one single glance. Maarit stared at his handsome face, seeing all at once the guilt and pain that, for some reason, tainted it and twisted it into something less than perfect. He took a long sip from his glass, holding so tightly that it could have shattered in his grasp.

And then, words unbeknownst to any evil king took form on his lips and revealed themselves in the form of a chagrin-filled murmur and flushing cheeks.

"I'm sorry."

She could not retain her gasp. Her brown eyes—though still holding the dismay she had felt earlier that night—widened with shock at the first human emotions she had seen on this man's face. Oddly enough, as he continued to speak, she momentarily lost the ability to be vexed with him.

"I don't know if this is even worth it."

Theodoracius swirled the wine, tilting the glass again to his lips. Then he changed his mind and put it back down. He dropped his head, his slick hair falling out of place and the ruby-encrusted crown slipping.