"What did I tell you, princess?" His voice was a low, husky rumble, a silken thread of menace that wrapped around me, tightening with each word. "Didn't I tell you to stay in the carriage?" He took a step closer, his piercing blue eyes boring into mine, his gaze like a physical weight pinning me to the spot.
"Y-y-you did," I stammered, my voice barely a whisper, "but I'm not one to follow orders blindly, especially when I have no idea what's going on." The words felt brave, but they were tinged with a desperation that he, a king of darkness, could surely smell.
A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face, a fleeting shift in the stony mask that was his expression. He remained silent for a while, the air thick with unspoken things. "And what do you think is going on?"
The question was a trap, a lure into his deadly game. I knew it, yet I couldn't resist. "We were under attack, and I wasn't going to hide in the carriage while you walked into danger."
His lips, once so gentle, now curled into a humorless smile. It was the first real reaction I'd seen from him, and it was more terrifying than any snarl. "Danger? You think you know what danger looks like?" He took another step forward, his proximity suffocating. My breath caught in my throat, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Sometimes the greatest danger is what's right in front of you, and not the one you can't see."
Was that a warning? My eyes locked onto his, and the unspoken message was a sharp blade between us. He wasn't just talking about external threats; he was warning me about himself, the monster whose face I had just seen. The king of darkness was not my protector; he was the eye of the storm, and I had just walked willingly into his path.
"What happened to the attackers?" I asked, taking two steps back, trying to create a physical and emotional distance between us. The space was instantly filled with the oppressive weight of his presence. "How are you the only person out here? Why were they following us? What did they want?" So many questions, a frantic cascade of thoughts trying to make sense of the incomprehensible.
I replayed the scene in my head: the battle, the clash of swords, the sudden, impossible silence, and then him, emerging from the darkness as if from a forgotten dream. Did he kill them? But their bodies would be in sight, wouldn't they? There's no way they would just disappear.
The king took his time, his eyes never leaving mine. The silence stretched, a taut wire of suspense. He was enjoying this, the slow unraveling of my composure. "Now are you going to get back in the carriage," he finally spoke, his voice no longer husky but cold as winter, "or do I need to take matters into my own hands?"
The question was not a choice. It was a command disguised as one, and the glint in his eye told me that disobedience would be met with a consequence far more terrifying than the darkness I had just faced. I had stepped out of my cage, and now he was going to show me the full extent of his power. He wasn't going to drag me back; he was going to make me want to go back, to beg for the safety of my gilded prison. He had a plan, a twisted game of manipulation, and I was the unsuspecting queen. I had defied him once, and now he was going to teach me the true meaning of fear. The princess was dead; long live the pawn.