Castor
Glowing, crystalline water pooled in the glass bowl, a steady stream falling from a crevasse in the ceiling of the viewing room. Everything was dark save the white light coming from the continuous movement of the water.
Castor approached the pool of magical water for the third time that evening, a command in his throat, but this time, the water sensed his desires and showed him Ianora before he could ask.
There she was. Her beautiful, flush cheeks coming into focus. Alone, they seemed to gain a pretty pink hue, whereas, with him, she was all cold and pale, simmering with barely controlled anger. While he had some sympathies for her situation and could have perhaps softened the blow, the end result would have been the same regardless.
She despised him. That was fine. Hewantedher to feel the depth of the anger and hate she had forced him to feel. Hate so consuming and raw it had driven him to become a war-hungry animal, prepared to burn down every house and farm between his lands and Rainada, claiming it all for himself if that was what it took to get her back in his arms.
His whole plan had been shaped around the possibility of that happening. But instead, he, and Elysium, had gotten lucky by securing a deal with Kel Eroch, Ianora's father.
The shift from the woman Castor had been faced with in his throne room earlier, to the woman locked away in her princess suite in the depths of the castle, was vast. Here, where she believed that no one could see her, she looked like a caged bird with a broken wing—trapped on the edge of despair, with a predator lurking beneath her.
She was right where he wanted her.
A few days locked in there, and she would have no choice but to learn to appreciate him and the luxuries out here. And if not, he had other tricks up his sleeves to make her more malleable.
The image in the pool zoomed out, giving a better picture of Ianora's whole body. She was sitting on her bed, neck craned as she inspected every detail of the room from afar. What was she looking for? Castor snorted. A way out? He had personally tested the room himself, spending days in there trying to break free, and there was no way out unless she had considerable magic she'd been hiding. Which he seriously doubted.
After a while, Ianora got up again, running her hands along the walls and trying the door again. Her image was silent through the pool, but when she slammed her fists in frustration at the door, he conjured the sound of her cries. He chuckled as he sipped a glass of sweet blood, finding far too much entertainment in watching her squirm.
Before long, however, Ianora did give up, and she finally laid down to rest. Castor watched her for a while longer, wondering what it would be like to sleep beside her. He imagined tucking himself behind her, holding her smooth body against his firm one. She would sigh and nuzzle closer to him, and he would bury his face in her hair, breathing in the sweet rose petals, jasmine, and feminine scents she favored.
She slept peacefully in bed, and his head reeled with thoughts of her. Castor left her in peace to get some rest of his own. He pushed the doors open to his main chambers, a long and narrow room furnished with red velvet cushions, gigantic oaken tables, and chairs he seldom sat in. The walls were covered with expensive paintings and tapestries depicting Pheazar landscapes and Castor in heroic poses.
This room was, by some miracle, one of the few left untouched by the curse that befell him and the castle. It was a remnant of what had been long ago, absent of the thorned vines creeping through the castle and bleeding flowers.
He stopped short of the golden embossed doors to his room, where two familiar trunks sat against the wall. He'd seen them hours ago when Ianora and Elan came to the palace.
What were they doing here?
A spark of rage burned in Castor's heart, and he snarled, grabbing the first trunk and ramming it against the wall, shattering the wood and sending clothes and trinkets belonging to the princess out onto the floor. He had ordered all her thingsdestroyed, not brought here to torment him. Whoever was responsible for this would pay.
Castor grabbed fistfuls of dresses and tossed them around, shredding fabric and leaving fragments discarded on the ground. She would never wear anything from her home again. He would leave her isolated and tormented, without any possessions from her homeland. All she would ever care about, all she would beableto care about, was him!
He ripped another dress in half, and by the time the seams around the corset and dress had fallen apart, Castor was breathing heavily, his rage burning out faster than he could fuel it. He rolled what was left of the maroon velvet and lace in his hands, more rational thoughts coming to him now. The dresses meant nothing to him. They were evidence of the vain and princess-like attributes he'd seen dripping from Ianora's every move.
Everything she did and said proved that she was a dolled-up, plain creature on the surface, but he knew, instinctually, that there was more to her. The scheming, dark, twisted woman he'd fallen for all those years ago. The very same woman who'd taken his heart and ripped it to shreds, just like he'd done to all these dresses.
But it occurred to him that, of all the things in the world she could have brought to her imprisonment and marriage to him, she had specifically chosen the items in these two trunks. Did these dresses hold sentimental value to her? What about the jewels and pearls?
Castor knelt on the floor, searching through the remains, for what he didn't exactly know. Perhaps for concrete proof that Ianora was more than just his torment. Buried beneath her dresses, he found two items that made him stop cold.
One, a small, delicate volume with gilded edges and a blue velvet ribbon wrapped around it. The blue binding had faded, making it appear well-loved and read many times over. He recognized it instantly as a book of poems he'd given her as one of his first tokens of love. Back before either of them knew what the word meant. They had spent hours reading to each other, memorizing the contents, and changing the lines for fun.
He thumbed through the pages, flipping to a random page near the middle and seeing his own handwriting in the margins.
A Rose to the Heart
Prick your finger on a thorn
a hand to hold and heart to mourn
a life to believe in, only to be torn.
Break a heart, break a man,
only take as much as he can stand.
Castor traced the words and the notes he'd made along the edge of the pages, and the anger he felt moments before was gradually replaced by sadness and longing for those simpler times.
Castor stared at the book for a long time, not really seeing it anymore as he thought back to when he and Ianora were first together. It had been a lifetime ago, but they had been so happy then, so in love, even though neither of them had said the words yet. She used to laugh at all his jokes—Gods, he used to make a fool out of himself just to see her laugh—and her eyes would light up when she saw him—nothing like the dark, searing glare she had when she looked at him now.
He remembered the quiet reverb of her voice as she read her favorite poems to him, the way she would snuggle close when it was his turn. Those were the good times before everything went wrong.
Castor snapped out of his reverie when he realized he was still holding the book. He flipped to the back of the book, where he found a date scrawled in Ianora's neat hand, along with a pressed flower. One of the blood roses he'd given her thirty-four years ago.
The date was two days after she'd left him.
He ran his fingers over the cover lovingly before setting it down on one of the trunks. Discovering the book was like a suckerpunch to the gut, but he didn't know yet what it could mean.
The second object of note was a delicate, ornate music box. He knew what it was before cracking the lid open to let the familiar lullaby filter through the room because he had also given it to her. The song, which he hadn't heard since he'd last seen Ianora, hit him like a ton of bricks.
He had given Ianora the box one day when, during one of her later visits to his palace, he had found her crying on the terrace overlooking the garden. Of course, he had asked her what was wrong, but she would not breathe a word about the source of her sorrows. She had been inconsolable.
The only thing that had brought her tears to pause—they had not stopped completely that night—was presenting her with this music box. As he wound up the trinket to play the song inside, he had told her that it was a song that his mother had played for him a very, very long time ago, back when he had still been human. And when he handed the box to her, he had told her that whenever she played the song, he would be there with her, no matter where she was.
The thought that she still had this music box after all these years ... brought tears to his eyes. He didn't realize that they were streaming down his face until a droplet patted down onto his hand, and then he wiped them away. When was the last time he had cried? For so long, Castor had been filled with anger and bent on vengeance. He had not the time to feel sorrow nor the inclination to.
It was just like Ianora to bring out these strange, lost feelings in him again. While he let the sadness flow through him, he could not let the emotions trick him.
Still, he couldn't help but wonder if finding these trinkets was a sign. Despite everything that had happened between them, could she still hold some affection for him? Could he have been truly mistaken about her?
Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for them to be together again someday?
Or had she anticipated that he would root through her things, and had left them here to torment him?
But why would she have kept them this long in the first place? He couldn't come up with a reason.
Castor snapped the music box shut, cutting off the music mid-swell. Just days after he gave her this music box, he had professed his love to her and asked him to marry her.
By the next night, she had been gone.
Regardless of these discoveries, Castor couldn't dwell on what might have been. He had to focus on the now. Ianora was his prisoner until they were married, and it was very possible that she would remain so even after they'd consummated their marriage until she decided to be more cooperative with him.
Perhaps through a little prodding, he would be able to discover the truth of her feelings soon enough. If there was any sentiment left on her end toward him, perhaps he could find it in himself to lessen the punishments he had planned for her.
Perhaps he could unlock the love he'd once felt for her again.
But until then, the only priority was seeing to it that the wedding went off without a hitch. With her locked away in her suite, she couldn't cause him any trouble unless he welcomed it. Considering how much damage he knew she could cause if he gave her free reign, it seemed best to keep her in isolation until the time was right.
The only trouble would be the ceremony itself. No one he had invited was under the illusion that Ianora was willingly wedding herself to him, yet he did want the proceedings to go as smoothly as possible. His usual go-to for something so important would be to threaten his opponent's family, but because of the curse that caused him pain whenever he so much as thought of harming Ianora or her family, that wouldn't work in this case.
It was a challenge, to be sure. However, Castor was a master at getting what he wanted. Given some more time, he was sure he could come up with a way to keep her obedient.