This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(76)

She’d not felt safe in so long.

The prince sat forward an inch and his jaw skimmed her cheek, hard and soft planes touching, retreating.

She heard him exhale.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what we’re doing,” he said softly. “Though if you mean to take me captive, you need only ask. I would come willingly.”

Alizeh almost laughed, grateful for the reprieve. She focused her fractured consciousness on the prince, allowing his voice, his weight, to orient her. He seemed to her so wonderfully concrete, so certain not only of himself, but of the world he occupied. Alizeh, by contrast, often felt like a ship lost at sea, tossed about in every storm, narrowly avoiding disaster at every turn. She was struck, then, by a strange thought: that she might never be shipwrecked if she had such an anchor to steady her.

“If I tell you something,” Alizeh whispered, her hand curling unconsciously around his forearm. “Will you promise not to tease me?”

“Absolutely not.”

She made a sound in her throat, something mournful.

“Very well.” He sighed. “Go on.”

“I’m a bit afraid of the dark.”

It was a moment before he said, “I beg your pardon?”

“Petrified, actually. I’m petrified of the dark. I feel very nearly paralyzed right now.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am, quite.”

“You killed five men last night—in the dark—and you expect me to believe this blather?”

“It’s true,” she insisted.

“I see. If you’ve constructed this falsehood merely to safeguard your modesty, you should know that it only undermines your intelligence, for the lie is too weak to be believed. You would be better off simply admitting that you find me attractive and wish to be near m—”

Alizeh made a sound of protest, so horrified she shot straight up and stumbled, her injured knee having been locked in one position for too long. She caught herself against her old cot and stifled a cry, clinging to the thin mattress with both hands.

Her heart beat harder in her chest.

She shivered violently as her body filled again with frost; her terror, too, had returned, this time with a force that shook her knees. In the absence of the prince—the absence of his heat, his reliable form—Alizeh felt cold and exposed. The darkness had grown somehow more vicious without him near; more likely to devour her whole. She stretched trembling hands out before her, reaching blindly for an exit that refused to illuminate.

She knew, intellectually, that hers was an irrational fear—knew the illusion was only in her head—

Still, it claimed her.

It gripped her mind with two fists and spun her into a vortex of senselessness. It was all she could think, suddenly, that she did not want to die here, compressed by the darkness of the earth. She did not want to be abandoned by the sun, the moon, the stars; did not want to be inhaled whole by the force of the expanding universe.

Suddenly, she could hardly breathe.

She felt his arms come around her then, strong hands steadying her, searching for purchase. He drew a map of her with his fingers until he found her face, which he took into his hands, and upon which he made a discovery that bade him be still. Alizeh felt it when he changed, when his fingers met with the tears falling slowly down her cheeks.

“By the angels,” he whispered. “You really are afraid of the dark. You strange girl.”

She pulled away and wiped at her face, squeezed her eyes shut. “I only need to orient myself. My—my bed is here, which means the door is just—just across there. I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

“I don’t understand. Of all the things in your life to fear— I’ve seen you in the dark before, and you never reacted like this.”

“It was not”—she swallowed, steadied herself—“it was not entirely dark then. There are gas lamps lining the streets. And the moon—the moon is a great comfort to me.”

“The moon is a great comfort to you,” he repeated tonelessly. “What an odd thing to say.”

“Please don’t tease me. You said you wouldn’t.”

“I’m not teasing you. I’m stating a fact. You are very strange.”

“And you, sire, are unkind.”

“You’re crying in a dark room the size of my thumb; the door is but paces away. Surely you see that you are being nonsensical.”

“Oh, now you’re just being cruel.”

“I’m being honest.”

“You are being needlessly mean.”

“Mean? You say this to the man who just saved your life?”

“Saved my life?” Alizeh said, angrily wiping away the last of her tears. “How easily you praise yourself. You hardly saved my life.”

“Didn’t I? Was not your life in danger? Is that not why you were crying?”

“Of course not, that’s n—”

“Then you accept my point,” he said. “That you were in no real danger. That you were being nonsensical.”

“I—” She faltered. Her mouth fell open. “Oh, you are a horrible person. You are a mean, horrible—”

“I am an extremely generous person. Have you already forgotten how long I allowed you to sit on me?”