The Empress' Descent

Chapter 15 - A Price Not Worth the Risk

[Derek]

Derek had behaved foolishly. He was aware of it. And now he was filled with nothing but shame and regret.

When he saw Clary, vulnerable and cornered—albeit bright and stunning in the water—he had seen what seemed to him an opportunity and grabbed it.

What he had wanted to do was to test her. Although he wasn't entirely sure for what.

He'd seen her mingling with the nobles. Clary acted like a normal lady in the palace would. But there was something Derek saw in her which none of them did.

A mask. He knew that beneath her pleasant smiles, she was hiding something. For each and every one of her words and movements were calculated. Planned according to the kind of scenario she was in.

As though she were a prey in a hunting ground, her quick eyes constantly observing.

Derek had been keenly watching her for the past days she'd been here. He longed to know why she was usually on guard.

Nevertheless, Clary had always appeared to him as a woman who'd built walls around her. Derek took a shot at destroying these walls. He tried stepping across the lines she'd drawn.

What reaction had he expected to see? That she would suddenly unsheathe a sword from nowhere and kill him?

Because that was what his Empress would have done. She wouldn't even let anyone, no less a man, make a toy out of her.

Athelina wouldn't have blushed like Clary had. She would have chopped his head off without a second thought.

Derek was searching for a confirmation. And he had it.

Along with this confirmation, Clary had decided she was done with him.

She was the sole person who didn't look at him like he was some commoner scum. A rat. A peasant dirt. As the others had whispered behind his back.

She treated him normally, as though he deserved to be respected. As though she believed he was her equal, and since she called him by his title, perhaps a bit above equal.

Playing with her should have been the last thing he would do.

Was the price worth the risk? Definitely not. What he'd done, it was utterly stupid.

Apologizing for his poor decisions was the only goal he'd been wanting to accomplish after that day. Just yesterday, Derek tried approaching her for the fifth time.

"Clary, I want to talk to you," he had pleaded.

Clary had only turned the other way without casting a single glance at him.

Earlier this morning, on his sixth try, he saw Clary by the courtyard.

"Can we talk?"

Clary had merely turned away.

It went like his previous attempts as he'd predicted.

"Clary, listen to me, please," he'd said once, to the point of almost kneeling.

"I would like to apologize." He was ignored.

Oftentimes, Clary wouldn't even let him finish speaking.

"Clary—"

"Can we—"

"Lady Clarisse—"

"I want to—"

"Perhaps if you could allow me to—"

And every time, her maid would leer at him as if she was saying, "Serves you right, you indecent toad."