AERYN'S POV

I was grateful for Edge's silence as we walked, allowing me to concentrate on filling in the missing gaps of my mental map of the castle. We made it to the entranceway of the building with the banner of the kingdom's crest and took to the spiraling staircase and wound our way around it to the second floor.

The entire floor was an open space with a long table dominating the center of the room. King Kristos was seated at the head of the table with his son and wife on either side of him. The Demon Queen's black robe was identical to her husband's and the silver crown on her head was twice the size of mine. Half of her face was covered by an ivory mask and the other displayed a beautiful woman with vibrant silver hair that touched her waist. She had the same dark eyes as her son, minus the milky white one Shade possessed, and she exuded an air of confidence and austerity.

The queen had never been spoken about in the academy. I hadn't even been sure she existed.

Sweeping an arm out, she welcomed, "Hello, Princess Aeryn. Please take a seat wherever you'd like."

She dipped her chin and narrowed her eyes on her son sitting across from her, saying, "You're too close. Back up." 

Shade's chair scraped along the floor as he moved his chair back a few inches, smoke curling around his ankles.

Edge remained rooted in place by the stairs, assuming his bodyguard duty as I bowed my head and joined the royal family. I pulled out the chair next to Shade and smoothed my dress out, sitting down. The demon prince braced and moved his chair closer to King Kristos.

"Radarys, would you introduce yourself to our new family member?" the king requested.

Queen Radarys shot her son a stern look, then extended her hand to me with a forced smile. "I'm Radarys, but you can call me Queen."

"Okay..." I said, taking her hand. "I'm Aeryn."

The Queen retracted her hand and coolly replied, "I'm aware of who you are."

The remainder of the meal proceeded in the same stiff manner. I listened to the family talk about giving their warriors time to rest from fighting in the war while they restored their kingdom along with the help of the Nyrial Empire's resources.

The war really was over. I'd saved my empire.

But I was paying for it by straining through an unbearable meal with the demonic royalty. Despite the discomfort, I scarfed down my entire meal and felt embarrassed when I noticed Shade's untouched plate of food. The king and queen hadn't consumed much either. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt full after eating and hadn't realized how famished I'd been. It didn't help that my body was overexerting itself due to being separated from Zoran's essence. When I was finally dismissed, I had to abstain from sprinting to Edge.

As I started the descent down the stairs, I heard Queen Radarys' harsh tone reprimand her son, saying, "If you keep her locked up in a separate room for much longer, the marriage will look as fabricated as the treaty. If you can convince me that it is authentic, then the Nyrial Emperor will blindly accept it."

Shade's furious response rumbled low in his throat. "There is nothing authentic about an arranged marriage, especially one in which I can kill the princess without batting an eye."

Edge ushered me down the steps until their conversation was out of earshot.

He really was going to kill me.

"That is not your demise, my princess."

"I didn't mean to say that out loud," I admitted, angry at myself for giving volume to my thoughts yet again. "You're just defending him to give me a false sense of security."

I stepped through the cloud of smoke wrapping around my ankles as I landed on the first floor and took a step in the direction of my room.

"Nope, you heard the Queen," Edge said, hooking his fingers around my elbow, "No more separate rooms for the prince and his princess."

Yikes.

"Do not panic. You are safe with your husband so long you do not touch him."

"I know," I grumbled as he turned down a different hallway. "You have both told me what would happen to me if I did."

The shifter navigated through a series of passages and came to a set of double doors marked with another crest.

"You will both reside here," he said, pushing them open. "Enjoy."

"I won't."

"Not yet."

I went inside the room and Edge pulled on the doors, shutting himself and his arbitrariness out.

A large four poster bed with unmade plaid black and red sheets was pressed against the far wall, a table and chairs were positioned next to another fireplace, a dresser like the one in the room I'd just vacated was across from those, a trunk sat at the foot of the bed beside a nightstand, and another door led to what I figured was a bathroom.

Not much longer after Edge had drawn the doors shut, they reopened with a bothered Shade. His lips thinned and his unruly hair had escaped the bun, and he had his whole plate of food in his hand. Placing it on the table, he announced, "I'm going to bathe. You're hungry, so eat."

Suspicious, I made a face at the food as my stomach growled. There was no chance he'd saved his food for me out of the goodness of his black heart. I suspected he had some ulterior motive, butShade dismissed himself and went to wash up before I could interrogate him.

Staring at the food, I admitted, "Honestly, I don't even care if he poisoned it at this point," and shoveled the contents in my mouth.

I figured this was as good a chance as any to do some snooping and try to learn more about the Ravos demons or discover any beacon that would alert me to the plan Shade had for me. 

The prince and his mother had both said we had to make the marriage look convincing to persuade my father of the legality. Not to mention, Bastion had known the prince was planning to kill me when he read the lie from King Kristos' deceitful lips during the Consul meeting in what felt like another lifetime ago.

Before I could kill Shade myself, I had to figure out the Ravos Kingdom's true intentions for following through with the treaty and abiding by the armistice to end the war they were winning. They were acting, well, as shady as the demon prince's name suggested.

It was a surreal experience to pry around in my assassin's room. Once he eradicated me, the Ravos Kingdom would only need to take out my father to overthrow the Glastos rule...which was why I would not allow that to happen.

Wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, I left the empty dish and went to kneel in front of the large chest. Intricate designs of red and black were stained into the dark wood, and a gold keyhole locked the item from being opened. Peering into the hole, I wondered where the key could be and hurried to the nightstand.

I pulled out the drawer and nearly jumped out of my skin when an angry voice demanded, "What are you doing?"

Slamming the drawer closed, I whirled around and leaned against the nightstand with my hands behind my back as I tried to calm my breathing. I opened my mouth to defend myself only to gawk at the prince standing half-naked in front of me as steam rolled out of the bathroom along with the delightful aroma of lavender.

A loose towel hung low on his hips and the sculpted muscles on his abdomen flexed as he crossed his well-defined arms over his broad chest. I couldn't help but trace the dark veins pulsing under his opaque skin, dipping beneath small patches of bone spaced along his body.

"Don't go searching for answers to questions you don't want to know," Shade warned, knotting his hair in a haphazard bun, leaving most of the wet strands to dangle atop his shoulders as he scowled. The disdainful frown reminded me of Zoran, and I watched in silence as the demon prince headed for the trunk and opened it without using a key.

Guess it wasn't locked.

Shade took out a black t-shirt and slipped it over his head, then grabbed a pair of navy blue sweatpants and I turned away as he started to unwind his towel. I heard the damp fabric smack the ground and waited another minute before I faced him again.

"Don't you know you're not supposed to wear navy blue with black?" I blurted, assessing the baggy, navy blue sweatpants.

Shade looked down at his clothes and scrunched his brows. "I don't see colors," he said and pointed at his milky white iris outlined in red, "and I can't see anything out of this eye."

The prince had a vulnerability.

"Oh, that's – "

My sentence got interrupted by a dark piece of clothing landing on my crown, blocking my sight of Shade.

"Put that on until we send an escort to gather your belongings from your father," Shade said as I pulled the shirt off along with my crown and threw the apparel on over my dress. The shirt hung around my smaller frame and rustled around the top of my knees. He gave me a pair of sweatpants next, and I made him face the other way as I skillfully took the dress off under the shirt and put on the other borrowed garment. I had to roll the waistband a few times to ensure I wouldn't trip over the bottom of the loose pants, but I felt much more comfortable than wearing the exposing dress.

Once we were both fully clothed, Shade offered, "You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

Relief flowed through me, and I hefted myself onto the bed, burying myself under the sheets. Shade was much more tolerable than I'd assumed which was ominously more frightening than had he been treating me with the hatred and contempt I knew he felt for me.

I had to be cautious. His ruthless reputation and damning lethality were known for a reason. The faux attempts of making me feel content by giving me his entire dinner and letting me borrow his clothes were just to make my guard drop. Taking the floor tonight was another effort to get me to trust him.

Shade shut the light, immersing the room in pitch blackness. A small fire illuminated the room when he spit a flame onto a candle with a spark. I spun on my side and kept my back to him as he shuffled around the room and created a makeshift bed on the floor with the carpet and spare blanket at the base of the bed. When he was finished, he blew out the candle and laid down with a massive sigh.

My nerves skyrocketed as I laid still in consuming darkness, lavender flooding my nostrils with his close proximity. I preferred the pleasing smell over the usual rotting stench trailing him.

"Rest up, Glastos. Tomorrow is a big day."

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