A Waltz Of Lies

08. Chapter Eight

requisite

THE question garnered...a sudden suppression.

It was—

The type that bit. The type that froze you at the spot. The type that achieved a sense of suffocation so pure you actually had to battle good natured pressure to even breathe—

One of these days, I think.

One of these days my heart really is going to give up. One of these days I won't be able to handle this life of liablity. It's going to stop like a useless cog inside a useless machine and—

A splash. A grunt of approval. Words.

I don't know what's happening and I can't look away to find out.

I can't

Look away.

And its not the obsidian gaze or its uncharacteristic depth or the secrets that swim inside it like Chips of lava. Its not the golden skin or the beauty or the wrong of the situation.

It was the search.

It was the way he looked and he looked and he wasn't exactly seeing...me.

He was deciphering a secret code written in a language only he could understand. He was fishing out the patterns of my soul and he was laying them bare and observing them like gems.

My brain was uncooperative and my limbs were unmoving. My skin was a testament to the ice in my viens. It shivered. It hued with goose pimples, dipped in....I don't know.

I just didn't —

I wish I could just ask.

I wish I could ask what's had him so transfixed. I wish he could just tell me what he perceives when he's perceiving. 

Like I...matter.

Like there's a fire inside me, a tiny fire, that burns  blue; blue and pretty.

I wish he would stop, because I can't handle it.

I can't handle emotions like this—

Brian moans, louder this time.

It snaps me.

Back to the realm of reality. Back to the dome of kings and savage warriors and a mission...a mission to escape.

My face blushes. My eyes rove the ground, Brian, anywhere but him—

"Any day between Sunday and Monday will suit us fine," spits Brian . His tone is coated with...every shade of disrepect and loathing a person could fathom. It was gasped out. It was a tone one must never, ever use when addressing a king.

Especially not this one.

Oh. My. God.

Brian. Brian. Brian.

I want to hug him because he's okay and I want to slap him in the head and I want to shout, get a filter, stupid.

But.

Cayden's presence grounds me. The reminisce of his arms wrapped around mine sharpens my perception.

I wonder why he's keeping silent.

I wonder how eyes could be so blue, like sapphire orbs and ocean expanses and the sky above us, and yet remain so....calm, like an undisturbed pond or a still sky.

"Unfortunate that I don't have a name for such a day," the king replied. He looked lazy: but only as cats could, alert behind a face of utter boredom.