Chapter 4: A Compliment and a Confrontation
The walk back to her chambers was a journey through a gallery of silent portraits and flickering torchlight. Gareth walked beside her, a solid, quiet presence. The earlier softness was gone, replaced by a stiff formality, as if he’d realized he’d shown a card he meant to keep hidden. Their footsteps were the only sound on the polished oak floors, echoing in the vast, empty corridor that smelled of beeswax and cold stone.
At her door, a lone guard snapped to attention. Gareth dismissed him with a sharp nod. The man’s retreating boots tapped a rhythm into the distance.
They were alone again.
Elowen turned, the question about Aldorian poetry still warm in her mind, but the words died on her lips. Gareth was staring at the wall just above her head, his jaw working. He shuffled his feet, an achingly boyish gesture at odds with his broad shoulders and the scar on his brow.
“You, uh…” he began, then stopped. He cleared his throat, finally looking at her. The torchlight caught the dark burn of his eyes. “You looked. You look.Pretty. Tonight. In that dress.”
The words were gruff, awkward, each one pushed out like a stone. They hung in the air, simple and devastatingly sincere.
Elowen felt a smile bloom, genuine and warm. “Thank you, Gareth.”
His name, spoken so softly, seemed to startle him. He blinked, gave a jerky, almost imperceptible bow, and then turned on his heel. He left her there, striding away so quickly his cloak billowed behind him like a fleeing shadow.
She watched him disappear around a corner, her hand on the cold metal of her door handle. Her heart beat a curious, light rhythm. Pretty.
Then she went inside, leaving the silent corridor behind.
Gareth did not go to his rooms. The compliment felt like a foreign object stuck in his chest, a pleasant, terrifying warmth. He needed to shatter it. He needed the clarity of anger.
His steps were long and purposeful, carrying him not to the royal wing, but to the administrative quarters. To Evander’s door. It stood slightly ajar, a sliver of yellow light cutting across the darkened hall. From within, he could hear the soft scratch of a quill.
He didn’t knock.
He shoved the heavy oak door open so hard it slammed against the stone wall. Evander, seated at a desk piled with ledgers, looked up. He didn’t jump. He simply set his quill down, a slow, deliberate motion.
“Prince Gareth,” he said, his voice smooth as oil. “To what do I owe this… energetic visit?”
Gareth crossed the room in three strides. The single window showed a slice of black, starless sky. He placed his hands flat on the desk, leaning over the glowing ledger, his face inches from his brother’s.
“What did you say to her?”
Evander leaned back in his chair, the picture of calm. He steepled his fingers. “To whom? I say so many things to so many people. You’ll need to be specific.”
“You know damn well.” Gareth’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble. “Before dinner. To Elowen. What poison did you drip in her ear?”
A slow smile spread across Evander’s face. “Ah, the little bird. I merely gave her a friendly warning. A bit of elder brotherly advice. This court can be… sharp. I suggested she might cut herself on you.”
Gareth’s control snapped. He moved faster than Evander anticipated. One hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of Evander’s embroidered tunic. He hauled him out of the chair and slammed him back against the cold stone wall beside the window. A ledger thumped to the floor, pages fluttering.
“Try again,” Gareth breathed, his voice deadly quiet. The ink stains on his fingers stood out against the rich fabric.
Evander’s composure cracked. A flicker of real fear showed in his eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by spite. He didn’t struggle. He just sneered up at his taller brother.
“Fine. I told her the truth. That she’s a sacrificial lamb sent to placate the monster. That you’re a hollow crown on a broken man. That your own father can’t stand the sight of you because you’d rather muck out stables than rule an empire.” He let out a choked laugh. “I told her you write poetry about your horses. How was dinner, by the way? Did you recite a sonnet to her? Did she laugh?”
The words were daggers, each one finding a seam in Gareth’s armor, each one true enough to bleed. The monster wearing a prince’s skin.
Gareth’s fist tightened. He felt the urge to drive it into Evander’s smiling face, to smash the superior smirk into blood and bone. The violence vibrated through him, hot and immediate.
But he saw Elowen’s face then. Not frightened, but curious. Tilting her head like a sparrow. Offering him a slice of apple.
He shoved Evander hard against the wall once more, then released him with a disgusted snarl. Evander stumbled, straightening his tunic with trembling, furious hands.
“You’re a worm, Evander,” Gareth said, the heat gone from his voice, replaced by a chilling frost. “You spend your life counting coins and weaving whispers because you know you’ll never have the strength to carry anything real. You want the throne? It’s a weight. It crushes. You’d break on the first day.”
He turned to leave.
“She pitied you,” Evander spat from behind him, his voice raw now, all pretense stripped away. “I saw it on her face when I left. Not fear. Pity. That’s what you won tonight, brother. The pity of a conquered princess. How very royal of you.”
Gareth stopped at the door. He didn’t look back.
“Stay away from her,” he said, and it was not a request from a prince, but a promise from something darker.
He walked out, leaving the door open. The torchlit corridor felt colder than before. Evander’s words chased him, snapping at his heels. Hollow. Monster. Pity.
He passed a narrow window, catching his own reflection in the night-blackened glass: a sharp-angled shadow, a furrowed brow. A man who wrote secret, terrible verses about the only creatures he believed he couldn’t fail.
He lifted his hand, the one that had held the apple slice. He closed it slowly into a fist, hiding the ink stain, hiding the callouses, making it just a weapon again.
But in the quiet of his own mind, against his will, a single, clear thought formed.
She hadn’t laughed.