Page 150 of Somber Prince
General Oskura stopped in front of one of several heavy doors in the corridor.
“Unlock it,” she ordered to one of the guards who’d come with us.
We’d returned to Teneris only a few minutes earlier, and the first thing Rha wanted to do upon our arrival was talk with the royal hag. We all had questions for her. Personally, I held no grudge against the hag and hoped Rha would release her from the dungeon.
The guard unlocked the door. Golden sparks splattered from the spots where his fingers brushed the wood. The wards in the dungeon worked in reverse to those of the city. They let people enter the cells but prevented them from leaving unless Rha released them.
The hinges screeched as the guard shoved the door open. The air inside was damp and chilly. I hugged myself, peeking from around Rha’s bicep into the cell.
General Oskura announced, “His Highness Prince Rha is—” She cut her introduction short, staring inside the cell with a deep frown.
The small, dingy room was empty, save for two piles of charred clothes on the floor. The hag’s gray cloak was in one pile, with a curved sword stabbed through it and her bracelets scattered around.
The second pile consisted of a black skirt like the Teneris guards’ uniforms, a heavy chest armor dropped on top of it, and a pair of sandals peeking from underneath.
Rha propped a hand in the door frame.
“What does it mean? Where is Kanjie?” I hugged his arm, leaning closer.
“Whose chest armor is this?” General Oskura asked the guards.
“Ulzur’s,” one of them replied.
The scene still made no sense to me. Did Ulzur enter the hag’s cell? Then they got undressed together and ran away naked? After singeing their clothes with fire, just for fun?
“All experienced hags wear a protection spell,” Rha explained. “It eviscerates their bodies on the spot if they’re killed. But the one who dares killing them would die instantly too.”
“Ulzur knew that,” the guard said.
The general sighed. “Everyone knows that. It was suicide on his part. He knew he wouldn’t leave the cell once he entered it.”
“But why would he do that?” I asked.
The muscles in Rha’s jaws flexed. “To protect something she knew.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Ulzur killed her, dying in the process, too, just to stop her from answering your questions?”
The general clenched her hands into fists. “The Watchers have reached deep into Teneris, Your Highness.”
He turned to her. “I’m afraid these aren’t the Watchers, Oskura. We need to find out who wear the desert hyacinth.”
“Why would they wear it?” She rubbed her chin.
“I don’t know why,” I said. “But they took my best friend, and I don’t think she’s safe with them.”
* * *
I opened my eyes at the soft whirring of the wall clock turning. With a quiet click, the golden bee shifted to a new position, indicating six o’clock in the evening.
Upon our return to Teneris, I’d moved into Rha’s bedroom. Last morning, however, we started kissing in the baths and somehow ended up having sex in the golden bedroom, where we then fell asleep in my old bed.
My tendrils were still out, some connected to Rha, others not—all tangled with our limbs. I retracted them all carefully, so as not to wake him up.
Somehow, my prince managed to look even more beautiful in his sleep. His black hair spread over the pillow like a spill of dark magic; it glistened with gold in his thin braids. Without jewels covering his chest, his strong torso was fully on display with its ridged landscape of well-defined muscles. Rha’s wound on his back had closed and was healing well. All that he’d gone through was now behind us.
My heart overflowing with love for him, I placed a light kiss on Rha’s shoulder. He made a soft rumbling noise in his throat and rolled onto his side, but thankfully didn’t wake up.
I slipped out of bed and picked up my folded nightgown that I’d never gotten a chance to put on before going to bed. After slipping it on, I wrapped a long, thin shawl around my shoulders, then shoved my feet into a pair of fabric slippers and padded out of the room.