Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 29

Cole didn't know what to do. Her instinct was to answer the voice, try and make it sound normal that she had just doused her torch in a hurry and hunkered down in a forbidden part of the palace. Another part of her wanted to run forward, hoping she could barrel past whoever it was and disappear in the massive palace. But she knew both of those options would only put everyone on high alert, and she'd be caught eventually. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that the strange girl who was so very not the right person for the prince's servants, was the one to be questioned first.

She let loose a string of silent curses in her head, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping it would all just go away. She should have listened to Tanwyn. She should have stuck with his plan. Now she was going to, at the very least, be thrown from the castle and never be able to see her mother again. And at the very worst, she could be thrown in a matching cell or killed.

"Hello? Who is it?" the person asked again, and Cole noticed it was a male. She was beginning to pick out his outline at the other end of the hallway, and she saw that he was headed her way. He grabbed a torch and she closed her eyes shut again, muttering under her breath a quiet prayer that he would give up before seeing her.

He didn't.

She heard his footsteps stop a few feet away from her, and could feel his presence like a weight against her skin. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes.

A long paused hung in the air between them, and then he spoke again.

"Don't I know you?"

She knew the voice.

Her eyes flew open.

Prince Bastian stood above her, his eyebrows drawn and the torch light dancing across his face.

She gasped and scrambled to her feet, dipping into a curtsey in some last ditch hope that she could salvage the situation.

"Your highness," she stuttered out, putting on an innocent voice and wide eyes that she hoped would disarm him. "I was just fetching something from the cellar when I heard noises down here. I thought perhaps someone was stuck, so I came to see. I think I found the dungeons, though."

Bastian didn't answer her right away, and when he did, she could see he wasn't taking the bait she so desperately hoped he would.

"You're that new girl who showed up to serve me," he said, staring at her face with an intensity that almost made Cole look away.

"Uh, yes," she said, seeing no reason to deny it when he'd already figured it out.

"A soldier told me that an officer told him to take a rest while they took over," Bastian said. "Where is he?"

"Oh? Yes, I saw him. The gruff man. He went to fetch that soldier back. I think he didn't think I was much of threat." She lifted her arm in a demonstration of her half-starved state, while also hoping he wouldn't notice the hard muscles that could easily have given her an advantage in a fight.

Bastian shook his head, his eyes searching her face. It was as if he was looking for something deeper, not just what she was doing there. It was if he was searching out her very being. Like he was trying to find her. "No. I came down here because I saw that someone had used... The crystal..." He didn't finish any of his thoughts. Instead, his hand came out before him, and before she could react, he held the curve of her cheek in his palm.