Soul of Ice

Chapter Seventeen

Apprehension danced along her nerves as the guards silently opened the door to Pascal's suite for her. She hadn't eaten dinner—a strategic calculation she'd made based upon her probability of throwing up.

A piece of paper sat on the couch in the sitting room. Come to the lounge, it said in its thin, loopy lettering.

Astra noticed that her hands were curling into fists, and she quickly relaxed them, forcing them to rest normally at her sides, before she entered a short, dark hallway to reach a candle-lit room. A bottle of champagne sat on the glass-top table, next to two empty crystal flutes. Pascal, sprawled out on the huge black round couch, gave her a slow smile when he saw her.

"Astreia," he said, pronouncing every syllable carefully and deliberately. Astra slid her tongue between her upper and lower teeth so she wouldn't accidentally clench her jaw and give away her emotions. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come." Like he wouldn't have just had his guards find her and bring her here anyway.

He crooked a finger at her, motioning for her to join him. He asked, "Have you come to tell me more secrets?"

"Yes." As she sat down next to him, Pascal poured champagne into both glasses.

She looked at him and said, "I don't drink." She took the glass he handed her and poured it back into the bottle.

Pascal shrugged. "More for me." He downed the glass in one gulp before filling it up again. "Tell me about these secrets, Astreia."

She judged him, stared at those high eyebrows and dark brown eyes, his shaven chin—no doubt the result of some army protocol regarding facial hair. What was stopping her from lying to him? She'd given away her first name already. That was already a mistake, albeit a small one, what with thousands of girls named 'Astreia'. But there was no reason she couldn't hide herself behind another false mask, another false personality, a completely fake person. She'd done it before. She could do it again.

Pascal had noticed her hesitancy. He brought the flute of champagne to his lips and sipped slowly. He said, "As you might have already noticed, Auxerran soldiers are extremely well trained and disciplined." She already knew where this was going. "Lie detection was a course every recruit went through."

But it was also a course she'd went through. And if there was anything she'd learned from the course that she didn't already know before, it was that human lie detection was very, very unreliable.

She smiled at the captain, letting her mind settle into a sea of half-truths and distorted reality. "I was born in Aurinski, Solasia." She'd already told that to Timmy anyway. Better that the tales she had already told wasn't tangled up with contradictions—just in case the little boy let slip her information for whatever reason.

Pascal gave her what she supposed would be a charming smile, but she felt none of the effects. She wasn't much affected by smiles anyway, not when anyone could fake one anytime.

He said, "I was born here. In Venierre." She wanted to reply, Does it look like I care? But she didn't dare compromise the delicate situation she had dug herself into. Why did she think this was a good idea?

For the children, she reminded herself. That logic was growing weaker by the hour and flimsier by the day. She was reverting back to what she would have done in the past, and she knew what would inevitably happen would be failure.

"Solasia is ruled by Queen Miestra."

"Yes," she said, then continued quickly, "Although I wouldn't happen to know the details of her reign. I try to stay far from politics whenever I can."

He asked, "And why is that?"

"War, and the real world, is depressing enough without all the laws that explain why everything is so messed up."