Page 53 of Artemysia

“No one gave you permission to touch me.” - Delphine

“I ’m not a spy,” I lie to Prince Toryl as I drag myself up the third flight of stairs behind him. I’m in no hurry to get to wherever he’s taking me.

“High Lord or Prince,” he reminds me arrogantly, a frown marring his soft face.

“I’m not a spy, High Lord. My husband is a marquis under your rule.” What is it with men and their noble-born titles? Admittedly, I do love hearing captain , but I earned it.

He jolts me back to attention with his sharp tone. “You don’t move and act like a marchioness.”

“I’m not one.”

“Then?”

“I mean, I am now,” I begin, using the backstory Riev and I finally settled upon earlier in the carriage.

“My father is the head of security and the weapons expert for Lord Riev’s estate.

Riev only just inherited it from his late father.

” The Syf said we could use our real names since the palace doesn’t keep track of every transfer in title.

North Kingdom is more widespread than South Kingdom, with more estates and lordships.

I go on. “Riev fell in love with me for my strength and married me. But like other noblewomen, I am expected to raise children, not fight. I savor any chance to use my skills.”

The irritation in my voice is real. Annoyance shreds my insides—where the hell is Riev?

Did something happen to him too? Or should I be worried for myself?

It seems like the men have all the power here, and they probably need him to vouch for me, the errant wife. I haven’t seen any women guards, and the queen fainted at the sight of a Syf. For an instant, I’m homesick for Stargazer, and wonder how my squad is doing without me.

“I have the means to decide if you’re lying or telling the truth,” Prince Toryl replies ominously as he unlocks the door at the end of the hall on the fourth floor. His hands are well-manicured, his fingers slender and nimble.

Does he mean a torture device? Stargazer doesn’t torture its prisoners anymore. It’s illegal.

The double doors open to a massive bedroom. A bedroom fit for a prince, of course.

“This is your room?” I ask. The brass-framed bed is set sideways and is unmade, with pillows strewn in high piles. A dark, heady scent, perhaps smoky incense, lingers in the air. My bare feet sink into the thick, gold and black floral rug.

“One of them.”

He remains stoic as he stares at the lump on his bed. “Astrid. You’re still here?”

“Mhmm.” A woman rolls up from under the thick coverings and blinks into the light. She sits up and flicks back her sleek hair that cascades down to her waist.

She’s naked.

She traces two fingertips around the large, dark areolas of her shapely breasts on an attractive frame. “Ready for more already, my prince?” Her tits harden at her own touch.

“No. You need to leave, Astrid.”

I try not to stare, but there’s nowhere else to look, except at this awkward exchange.

Her gaze slides to me. “Found some thing better?”

I resent her calling me a thing . I wrap the bloodied cloak tighter around me and don’t dignify her with a reply.

“Now, Astrid. Get out,” he snarls impatiently.

She scoffs, but turns to leave.

He fixes his attention back on me. “Take off the cloak,” he commands.

Astrid’s hair whips into her face as she whirls back around to watch, snickering at my discomfort. I shift on my feet and open my mouth to protest. But I do as he says because there is a longer game here to be played, and I know I can escape whenever I want.

I slip the cloak off my shoulders and toss it at the prince. The cool air of the room washing over my naked torso puckers my nipples into sharp points.

He keeps his eyes pinned on mine. Without looking at Astrid on her way out, he extends his arm toward her, holding the bloodied cloak hooked on two fingers.

“Astrid, take this to the laundry, or wherever they clean these things. If they can’t get the blood off, have them tailor me a new one. It was my favorite dress cloak,” he says without emotion, as though his favorite possessions hold little importance to him.

Astrid releases a long-suffering sigh. “Call for me when you’re done, High Lord.” She gathers a duvet around her and saunters out gracefully, but not without throwing me an arrogant glare that could cut through ice.

Toryl shuts the doors behind her and clicks two locks in place.

Suddenly, I’m unsure of myself. Threatened, even. When a stranger locks a door behind you against your wishes, there’s no other way to feel.

He approaches, towering over me. I maintain eye contact, chin lifted. But when he reaches as if to brush a strand of hair from my face, I grasp his wrist and twist.

“No one gave you permission to touch me.” I know my grip hurts. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t fight either.

“I wasn’t going to touch you. You have a Syf claw in your hair,” he says with as much emotion as a brick.

My hand goes to my braid, and I pluck out the broken claw. It’s still sharp.

It seems wrong to toss it onto the expensive-looking rug, so I stare at it between my fingers. Do I put it on the nightstand? Throw it out the window? The black velvet curtains of his bedroom are drawn.

Toryl clears his throat and extends his palm. I’m surprised he would want to touch it at all, but I drop it into his hand and he pockets it. Okay, gross, but I don’t have an alternative.

“Sit on the bed,” he commands me, in a tone that suggests he’s used to getting what he wants.

He walks to a side table decorated with a vase of enormous blood-red lilies near the door and pulls open a drawer to extract a small case.

“I need clothes,” I order back at him.

“Not yet.” He opens the case to reveal a vial and a syringe.

My eyes narrow. “If you plan on using that, you’ll end up like the Syf,” I warn. “I can saw your head off with anything in this room.”

“I have no doubt of that. I’m not going to touch you if you behave. Take off your underwear.”

“Don’t be a sick pervert.”

He glares at me coldly. “There are rules.” He fills the syringe with amber liquid and holds it to the light.

Unless he has special skills I don’t know of, I can fight my way out, even though my dagger is still in the ballroom and I have no clothes on. But it’s not as if the entire palace, including him, hasn’t seen me naked. So I oblige, ready to punish him if he tries anything at all.

I look him in the eye as I slip my underwear down my legs.

“Don’t worry, I’m not attracted to women who fight and talk like men,” he says icily, needle in hand.

I try not to focus on the syringe. “So the women here can’t defend themselves? And if what I saw in the ballroom was the men fighting , I’d say the sexes are equal. No one came to your rescue but me.”

The night air slipping through the curtains pricks my skin.

The tiny hairs on my neck stand on end as Toryl scrutinizes me.

True to his word, he doesn’t touch me but sits beside me on his bed, his weight sinking both of us deeper into the mattress.

He’s lean but quite tall, so I rebalance myself to avoid sliding into him.

He tips toward my right ear. Studying me.

What is he staring at? He’s so close I can feel his hot breath and the heat from his face.

He smells like the iceflower trees that sweeten the air in the midst of winter, dropping their three-pointed blooms around my family’s old farm.

It’s familiar, nostalgic even, evoking memories of snow-covered florals.

Frosty, yet sweet. It strikes me that it must be his soap or cologne, which means he purposely chose the scent.

Do they have those trees along this river too?

“Name?” he asks sharply, jolting me back into the moment.

I flinch at the sudden break in silence, and he notices with a raised brow.

“Delphine,” I say confidently, recovering quickly.

He scrutinizes me before tipping backward to inspect my stitched upper back.

“How’d you get that injury? And all those other scars?”

“Syf attacks. It’s common in the Outer Riverlands, but I’m sure you know that.”

His expression doesn’t change, so I know that at least the Syf were truthful about that piece of information.

“Why did you risk your life to stop that Syf, if you’re already injured?”

“It’s what I do. Try to make a difference in the world, one life at a time.”

“Even if it’s your life?” The momentary surprise reveals a boyish face under his ash brown facial hair.

“Even if it’s mine.”

He stares at me as if he can’t comprehend my words. I glower at him in disapproval.

“Stand,” he commands.

The thought occurs to me that perhaps he’s overbearing simply because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I see it in newer recruits. They overcompensate for inexperience with false bravado. With such men, I pretend to offer power while actually undermining them. They don’t know what hits them.

“High Lord of the North.” I use the title that he seems to love, and he snaps to attention. “I do not pretend to understand the absurdity of your court. But I certainly applaud your commitment to it.”

It works. A vein in his neck swells. His cheeks color, and he can’t return my gaze.

I look away and stand for him, as instructed.

He drops back behind me, as if staring at my backside, and lingers there long enough so the silence becomes uncomfortable. I have no idea if this is “normal” in this kingdom, but I can’t imagine any modern-day woman being okay with this.

But then I notice that he purposely avoids scrutinizing the front of my body, though from his vantage point on the edge of the bed, I’m certain he sees the peak of my breasts, cold and pebbled.

When I turn over my shoulder and glance down at his trousers, they bulge unevenly up front. My eyes roll. Men. They are the same in any land.

Finally, he says, “You’re not Syf. No wing or tail scars. Ears, normal.”