Chapter 11: Chapter 11
“Be my wife,” he repeated the words again with an icy resolution in his voice.
Any woman would have easily swooned over if they had heard of what he had said. Shia might have cried or laughed herself out if everything happened under normal circumstances, but none of these things were real. Everything that has happened to her since yesterday felt far too unreal to Shia.
She let go of his hold against her right hand and pinched her own cheek as hard as she could. The pinched skin was far too painful that she gave a loud and sudden yell. That felt real! This must really be happening!
As she rubbed her fingers against her swollen cheek, another fact began dawning in to Shia, and she felt even more mortified. The lady referred to this boy as ‘his majesty’ and ‘the prince’ several times during their conversation earlier... Could it really be that she is face to face with the royal heir to Gascone’s throne? Bad rumors have frequently circulated about the Imperial Family, and each one was always more gruesome than the one before it, but Shia does not need to confirm any of those gossips to fear them. The fact that they hunt down cursed ones is enough to run a chill down her spine, and even more so that someone from their family has a curse of this magnitude. She wondered: how were they able to hide it so well? She thought of all the cursed ones who perished because they did not belong to any high-born family, and it broke Shia’s heart to pieces. All these facts made Shia’s heart hate and fear the Imperial Family even more.
However, it won’t be any wiser to show her hatred at the moment. She immediately bowed low to him, and stammered a few words of respect despite how her blood boiled to the brim. “Y-your highness...My apologies...” she croaked.
The boy pulled her face upright and looked at her squarely in the eyes. “There is no need to apologize or to change your demeanour. You may continue to act as you have done so far. Being my betrothed does not put you in a lesser position. However, I would really appreciate it if you refrain from attacking me with knives and punches,” he said in an icy tone that felt like he was mocking Shia. Surprisingly though, his eyes were gentle. This contradiction made Shia even more frightened as she realized that she could not read what’s going on in his mind, and therefore, she cannot fully plan out her approach.
Although she felt like she would pass out anytime from fright and revulsion, Shia tried to meet his stare as confidently as she could.
“Never show your real emotions to your enemies,” Shia heard her father’s voice from within her say. He looked sincere, but frankly, she does not trust this boy. Did he not almost admit to her that he had killed her family? Just now, the fire of rage seemed to increase a thousand times more inside of her when he apologized, but Shia’s father trained her in the art of mind games, and now, she is putting all that she had learn from him all those years to the test.
“Why do you need me so badly?” she inquired. She needed to know his motives. She needed to know why he insisted on this outrageous idea of marriage.
“I will tell you the truth, but first, can you put back that dagger from where it should be?” His voice sounded more of a command than a request. Shia did as she was told and returned the dagger from within her boots.
“Let us get to know each other before anything else too. My name is Langrion. How about you?”
Shia would have laughed it all out if she could. He was proposing to her when he did not even know her name. “I am Shia,” she said.
“Shia... It sounds pretty...” he mouthed once again, “Shia...”
Shia did not like the sound of her name being mentioned by a murderer, but she held her peace and waited for him to speak.
“My family is the richest and the most powerful clan in Gascone, but its reputation is at stake because I was born inflicted with a curse,” he began. His eyes looked extremely sad. Shia wondered so much why his voice did not lose its iciness as he spoke while his eyes showed too much tenderness. “Only a handful of people know what I am capable of. Not even the present king, my uncle, knew about this matter. If this information goes out of hand, the Imperial Palace would crumble.”
Prince Langrion began to pull a dark object from his side. Shia recognized it as the half metal mask she saw inside his pouch when they were stuck in the cave the night before.
“My father commissioned this mask for me, and as long as I wear it, I could control my power, and no one’s life will be put in danger. But it got broken a while back in the woods. I think I could still use it for a few minutes, but as soon as my eye turns red, it will mean danger to everyone else around me... except for you it seems.”
He held her hands once more and continued, “I have seen what you are capable of. The Capitol could hurt you once they discover what you can do. If you marry me, I could protect you, and in turn, you could help me protect those around me, at least until the time that I can fix this mask.”
“Your highness,” Shia began. Although she had fully heard what he had to say and can comprehend his reasons, it still felt too preposterous in her ears. “I understand what you mean... I feel humbled that you have thought of my welfare in spite of everything that has happened. But why would you offer me marriage?... I can stay by your side without that sort of predicament as long as you find it necessary. I don’t have to be your betrothed to be of service to you...”
“I cannot risk incurring suspicions, especially those from within the palace,” he said calmly. “I am an unwed prince, and I will soon be of age for marriage. I don’t know how long I can find a replacement for my mask, but until then, it would do no good if I were forced to attend balls and parties and wedding matches. That would only complicate things,” he continued on.
‘So, he had meant to use me as a protection both for the sake of his reputation and his status,’ Shia thought ruefully. He had followed his reasons objectively from the start, but now he is beginning to sound like a typical spoiled tyrant. What she heard next made her impressions of him even more sordid than it already was.
“I also needed an excuse to sleep with you every night, so I think it is best that we should be engaged... Unless of course it would be against your best interest and would like to make our relationship to remain purely transactional...”
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Langrion immediately regretted the words that came out of his mouth; they sounded like he was insinuating something lustful and inappropriate for a young lady, but there was nothing more he can do about it. As a prince, the first thing he was taught was to never be so easily apologetic with your words. “Making an apology is a weakness,” his father had told him a million times, “no son of mine can be that weak as to apologize!” But then again, he had never really treated Langrion as his son. In his eyes, he is nothing but a monster.
In his mind, Langrion began rationalizing his statement. He imagined that what he said did have some grain of sense in it. He needed to be in constant physical contact with her for his curse to remain inactive; therefore, they must sleep side by side with each other, and they probably must try to hold hands or link arms as they take their slumber, at the very least.
The girl’s big, brown eyes widened further after hearing those last few words, but she did not say anything. She just clutched her hand tightly into a fist. Her lips began to curve into a half-smile, and as Langrion began to relax, he found that her hand immediately landed on his left cheek.
“Sleep together!” she began to say out loud. Her small body shook with seemingly uncontrollable rage. “Never in a million years, your highness!”
He wanted to say something to appease her, but she bolted right out of the tent.
Donning his mask as quickly as he could, and thinking of himself as an idiot for enraging the very person whom he needed the most to win over, Langrion had no choice but to follow her outside in the midst of the night with nothing but his flimsy bathrobe shielding his body against the wind.