Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,105
he asked again, then averted his eyes away before I could reply.
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid she’s busy, as well. I’ll request that one of the princesses accompany you until Prince Mazen gets here,” he said, nodding his head once, then left the room, closing the door.
She is busy, as well, he’d said. My throat closed just thinking of the possibility that she was being punished, too, for what I’d done. She didn’t want to leave me, and I told her to–ordered her even, and now…Dear God!
I stood unmoving for a while, watching the closed door with tears rolling down my cheeks, hugging my arms to myself tightly, in fear maybe, or was it in defense–I couldn’t tell. I waited, pacing a certain area of the room back and forth. My tears died, but fear and anxiety stayed pretty much alive. The wait became long enough that my legs started to ache from standing for so long. I had to sit down, and wait some more. After what felt like ages, I heard the doorknob turning and I got up, moving my hair out of my face, for it had gotten all messy when I took off the scarf earlier. The moments it took the person to come inside felt more like years. I didn’t know who it would be, and I was so scared it would be Jasem. And I didn’t even know how I felt about the thought that it could be the prince.
It wasn’t either of them. It was the one I’d thought looked like an angel on Earth. I could tell from her dress, though only the edges showed from underneath a black robe that wrapped her whole body.
When she closed the door, she let her cover loose and pulled it away in her hands, then she threw it onto one of the armchairs near the door, all the while looking at me with a smile on her face. A wary smile.
She moved her dark bangs out of her eyes with her fingertips. She had very long hair, a lot like Janna’s only much longer, reaching her backside or even farther. Her green eyes stared at mine for so long that it started to become uncomfortable. I waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. She just moved her eyes to look me up and down, coming closer and then circling me. It didn’t feel nice.
Finally, I heard her as she snorted, and I frowned at the sound. Who was this girl, and why was she looking at me that way?
“Your marriage to Prince Mazen was nothing but a compromise for both of the countries’ sakes, no more,” she said. Her accent was French, and her tone voiced her disgust at what she was saying as she kept circling me. “So don’t you even dream that he could fall for someone like you.” Her hand slung a lock of my hair that was on the side of my face back and my eyes widened. What was her problem? “It’s just that my fiancé would do anything for our kingdom.”
I inhaled sharply and held my breath at the sound of her words, almost choking up with it.
Fiancé! His cousin!
Explains the familiar shade of green in her eyes, I thought. And she didn’t even say ex-fiancé. What did that even mean? And why was it bothering me so much?
She stopped when she was to my right, brought her head closer to mine and then whispered, “And you should be aware that when he needs an heir, it’s my stomach that will bear his child, not yours. His seed will only get someone royal-born like me pregnant, not some commoner like you who only got the title four days ago.”
I swallowed thickly, my chest swelling and my heart hurting even greater than at any time before. The tears were stinging in my eyes and threatening to fall, but I wasn’t going to let them; I wasn’t going to give her that satisfaction. I tried my very best to appear whole and not like the pang of jealousy that was burning my insides was affecting me whatsoever–no idea if I was successful, though. It was like the situation I was in, and the fact that I most likely would be facing a very horrible time to come, was just lost on me. All I could think of was what that girl, who looked like an angel but spoke with a voice that could only belong to a demon, was saying to me.