Kaelric's glacial gaze swept over her like winter's first breath, cruel and cutting.
His pale eyes—the color of arctic storms—lingered with predatory patience on every visible wound: the purple bruise blooming across her collarbone like spilled wine, the constellation of cuts mapping her forearms, the way her makeshift bindings pressed into her ribs with each labored breath.
She could feel his scrutiny peeling back layers of her carefully constructed facade, and her skin crawled with the weight of his attention.
"Why are you always injured?" His voice carried the deceptive softness of snow before an avalanche—stern command wrapped in velvet restraint.
Yet beneath that controlled surface, something darker stirred, something that made her throat constrict with primal fear.
The question hung in the stale air of her cramped quarters like an executioner's blade.
Oh no. He's going to know. He's going to kill me for making a fool of him all these years.
The thought crashed through her mind like shattered glass. Her fingers trembled as she turned away, scrambling desperately for her discarded shirt.
The rough fabric felt like salvation against her exposed skin. "I—I don't know the way to the infirmary, so I couldn't go." The lie crawled from her lips, tasting of copper and desperation, bitter as poison on her tongue.
Even as she spoke, she knew how pathetic it sounded.
A sudden chill descended upon the room, as if death itself had crossed the threshold.
Kaelric's gloved hand shot out with quick precision, his fingers closing around her wrist like manacles forged from winter itself.
Frost immediately began crackling across her skin, crystalline patterns spreading like frozen spider webs.
The cold burned worse than fire, searing into her bones until she gasped, her blood felt cold yet comforting, making her shoulders relax.
Shit. This is it.
"Let me heal you." The words fell from his lips with the inevitability of an avalanche, soft yet absolutely unyielding.
She yanked back with every ounce of strength in her battle-worn body, but his grip was iron wrapped in ice—utterly immovable. "No. I'm fine."
Desperation cracked her voice like breaking glass. "Your Highness shouldn't trouble himself with a slave's pathetic life." The formal words felt like shards in her throat, each one a small surrender.
His fingers tightened until she felt her bones might snap like twigs. "I don't take no for an answer." The statement carried the weight of absolute authority, the kind that had toppled kingdoms and crushed rebellions without mercy.
Her vision blurred with unshed tears of frustration and terror. What are you even doing in a low-class boy's room? Why do you care?
The questions screamed through her mind, but she couldn't voice them—couldn't risk revealing how desperately she needed to understand his motives.
Kaelric's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, each word crystallizing in the air between them like frozen breath. "Do you want to hurt yourself and die? Then blame it all on me?" The accusation sliced through her defenses with surgical precision.
Something inside her snapped—years of swallowed pride, of biting back truths, of bleeding in silence for his amusement.
"You are to blame!" The words tore free from her chest like a battle cry, raw and ragged with accumulated pain. "You send me on deadly missions designed to break me, then act surprised when I come back bleeding!" Her voice rose with each word, years of suppressed rage finally finding its voice.
His expression remained maddeningly calm, carved from marble and winter starlight. "Don't blame me. Blame your own stupidity."
Yet his thumb began tracing slow, hypnotic circles on the inside of her wrist—a gesture so intimate it felt like betrayal.
"You were supposed to infiltrate the, not draw the attention of three kings to yourself like some spotlight-seeking fool."
She glared up at him through the curtain of her disheveled hair, her chest heaving with emotion and exhaustion. The contradiction of his words and his touch sent confused signals racing through her nervous system.
He bought me when we were children. He used to smile at me then—genuine warmth that lit up his face although not entirely. Was that all calculated manipulation to ensure my loyalty?
The memory was a rusty knife twisting in her gut, cutting deeper with each turn. She remembered trembling in the slave market, and seeing that beautiful boy with snow-white hair reach out his hand like salvation itself.
Then—his gaze dropped.
To her chest.
To the carefully wrapped bandages that bound her secrets.
To the way they strained and shifted with every panicked breath.
The silence stretched between them like a taut wire, electric and dangerous. She could hear her own heartbeat thundering in her ears, could feel sweat beading despite the supernatural cold radiating from his touch.
Blazar fumbled desperately with her shirt, somehow managing to clutch it against her chest like armor made of cloth. All while trying to adjust her face to be in a calm expression.
Her knuckles went white with the force of her grip, as if the thin fabric could protect her from his penetrating stare.
Kaelric's expression darkened.
A metallic snap shattered the charged air like breaking bones.
Something cold materialized around her throat—a collar of black metal that seemed to absorb light itself. Her hands flew to the foreign weight, fingers tracing intricate frost-forged runes that pulsed with energy. The metal was smooth as silk.
Safe? Or trapped like a bird in a cage? Why did he do this? What does he want?
"Win tomorrow's tournament," he murmured, and she could feel his lips barely brushing her ear, sending forbidden shivers down her spine, "or I'll make you wish I'd killed you tonight instead of showing mercy."
Then—impossible, inconceivable—his thumb brushed across her cheek with devastating gentleness.
A tear.
She hadn't even realized she'd started crying, but there it was—crystalline evidence of her breaking composure sliding down her face like liquid diamonds.
"You give off girlie vibes," Kaelric observed, his voice now a winter-kissed blade as his gloved fingers traced the dampness on her cheek.
He didn't wipe the tear away—instead, he smeared it like war paint, claiming it. His touch lingered far too long on the treacherously smooth curve of her jaw, those ice-blue eyes dissecting her with the precision of a master anatomist.
Blazar stopped breathing entirely.
"Even men cry when life becomes unbearable," she forced out through gritted teeth, deliberately roughening her voice to mask its natural timber.
She tried to wrench her face away from his touch, but his other hand snaked around her throat—not squeezing, just caging her like a delicate bird.
Kaelric leaned in closer, his exhale frosting her lips and making her shiver. "You can always confide in me, you know." The lie wrapped itself in perverse gentleness, is it false intimacy? "I'm not that much of a monster."
Liar. The word burned like acid in her throat. You're not a monster—you're the devil incarnate, wearing an angel's face.
The door exploded inward with the force of a battering ram.
Dante stood silhouetted in the metalic dented door, his shirt hanging open and his bronze chest still heaving like he'd run through the fires of hell to reach this moment.
His golden eyes—bright as molten coins—locked onto Kaelric's possessive hand on her face with the intensity of a predator spotting prey.
"What the fuck," he snarled through bared teeth, his voice carrying the promise of violence, "is going on here?"
Blazar's heart stopped beating entirely.
What is he even doing here! No. What are they even doing here!