CHAPTER FOUR
In the rush of the last few minutes, Tem had nearly forgotten that the basilisk had promised to feed her after their sessions. She nodded, still numb from everything that had just happened.
Caspen stood, pulling on his trousers. “Wait here. I will be right back.”
He disappeared into the shadows, and Tem used the time to redress.
Some minutes later, Caspen returned holding a tray. He crossed to the mat, sitting beside her and setting the tray between them. The food was fancy—far fancier than anything Tem was used to at home. There were candied nuts and dried fruit, cheeses, thin cuts of meat, raisin bread and small chocolates. This was a luxury beyond the simple stews her mother made, and Tem was almost afraid to touch it.
“Is it sufficient?” Caspen asked.
He was looking at her as if waiting for her approval.
“Oh—yes,” Tem said quickly. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” he said.
He was still looking at her.
“Won’t you have some too?”
Caspen raised an eyebrow. “Would you prefer I did?”
“Yes. It’s no fun to eat alone.”
He chuckled quietly, and Tem savored the sound.
“Very well,” he gestured at the tray. “But please. You first.”
Tem reached for the bread tentatively, aware of his eyes watching her. The basilisk waited until she took a bite before taking one himself, and for a minute, they ate in silence.
Presently, Caspen said:
“You are afraid of me.”
It wasn’t a question. Tem looked up at him. She’d denied it when they first met. But now it seemed pointless to do so.
“How can you tell?”
He shrugged. “I can sense it.”
“But how?”
He looked at her, his mouth tilting up.
“Your heartbeat,” he leaned forward, brushing the tips of his fingers gently across her chest. “It is irregular. And you flinch when I touch you.”
Tem blushed. “I don’t mean to flinch.”
Caspen shrugged. “It is a natural reaction. I am not offended.”
Tem nodded, although she wasn’t sure she believed him. Her mother’s warning was still fresh in her mind.
“I… like it when you touch me,” she said quietly.
The basilisk smiled fully, baring his teeth in the flickering firelight. It was a feral smile—one of triumph and victory.
“I know you do.”
Tem wanted to ask if he liked it when she touched him. But she was far too nervous to do so. Instead, she said:
“I suppose you can sense that too?”
He leaned back on the mat, tilting his head to look up at her.
“It would take an imbecile not to sense that.”
Tem felt herself blushing again. Was she so obvious? So predictable?
“Do you find me boring?” she asked before she could help it.
To her surprise, Caspen let out a low chuckle.
“Not in the least.”
Her heart leapt.
“But you must have met a thousand people in your lifetime.”
“Far more than a thousand.”
His words hung in the air, their meaning ambiguous. If he had met that many people in his lifetime and he didn’t find her boring, that must mean she had made some sort of impression on him—potentially a positive one. Was he saying that he found her interesting?
The thought was too much to bear. Rather than ask for clarification, Tem reached for another chocolate. Before she could touch it, the basilisk caught her arm. Tem froze as he raised her hand to the fire, turning it so that her freckles caught the light.
“Have you always had these?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
To Tem’s horror, a darkness passed over his face.
“Are they—I mean—is that bad?” she stammered.
Caspen blinked. “No,” he said quickly, dropping her hand. “Just…” he hesitated for an uncharacteristically long amount of time, as if choosing his next word carefully. “...Rare.”
“Rare?”
“Eat,” he insisted, ignoring her question. “We will not be meeting tomorrow.”
Doubt shot through her. “Why not?”
“The prince wishes to see his potential future wives. You will go to the castle with the other students.”
Students.
With a single word, Caspen had reestablished their relationship. It didn’t matter that she had pressed her lips to his neck, that he had pulled her closer when she had done so. It didn’t matter that he’d given her an orgasm and squeezed her throat when she came. He was her teacher and she was his student and he was training her for a role: nothing more.
Tem ate the rest of her food in silence.
When she was done, Caspen walked her to the head of the trail. Then he turned without a word and disappeared into the darkness.
Tem was a mess of nerves the entire next day. Nothing she did alleviated the twist of anticipation she felt whenever she thought about going to the castle. Normally, she would seek out Gabriel for relief. But he was busy helping the kitchen staff prepare for the event that night, so there was nothing left to do but help her mother around the farm and try not to think about how slowly time was passing. To make matters worse, she couldn’t stop picturing what had happened last night in the cave. Every time she thought about Caspen’s cock in her hand, she felt a deep ache between her legs that made her want to run to her bedroom and never see daylight again.
The afternoon passed in a daze of chores and errands, the hours sliding by in a meaningless blur. Tem hardly heard her mother when she spoke; she barely registered the crowing of the roosters. It was only when she had to visit the bakery to drop off the daily allotment of eggs that Tem was forced to engage in a conversation that lasted more than two words. It was with Vera, and as always, it was unbearable.
“So, Tem, are you ready to meet the prince tonight? I have my dress picked out already, of course. Brand new, and made of the finest pink silk you’ve ever seen. What will you be wearing?”
“Oh,” Tem said, wishing she could drown herself in the vat of chocolate behind Vera. “I hadn’t thought about it. One of my mother’s dresses, I guess.”
“You’re going to wear something used in front of the prince?” Vera scoffed. She was counting the eggs so slowly Tem felt as if time were flowing backwards. “That’s rather embarrassing, don’t you agree?”
Tem did agree, but it didn’t change the fact that she had no other dress to wear.
“I’m in a hurry,” she said instead, which only made Vera’s sneer deepen.
“Where could you possibly have to be? Can’t the chickens lay eggs without you?”
“Would you just hurry the fuck up?” Tem snapped.
Vera’s mouth fell open. Tem was almost as surprised as she was. Throughout all the years of cruel teasing, Tem had never retaliated against Vera.
“There’s no need to be rude,” Vera said, her heart-shaped face scrunched in disapproval. “That kind of attitude won’t get you anywhere with the prince.”
“It got me somewhere with the Serpent King,” Tem shot back.
If Vera was shocked before, she was livid now. Her eyebrows pulled together, and she leaned over the counter, narrowing her eyes at Tem.
“You’re with the Serpent King? You’re joking.”
Tem leaned in too, holding eye contact.
“I’m not joking. And as you know, his girls are always chosen. So I may not have a new dress, but I doubt I’ll need one.”
Tem snatched up her payment and left before Vera could say another word.
By the time it was finally evening, the thrill of defying Vera was long gone, and Tem was oscillating between tentative courage and absolute terror. The claw hadn’t pulsed all day, and she had no idea what that meant. Surely, on today of all days, Caspen would think of her. But then she remembered how he’d called her his “student”, and the wall of shame came crashing down once again. Of course he wasn’t thinking of her. She was thinking of him because she was an overeager girl who somehow kept forgetting that her teacher was a deadly creature who could kill her with a single glance. How painfully predictable of her.
She was in the garden aggressively weeding the walkway when her mother approached.
“Something came for you.”
Tem looked up in surprise. “What is it?”
Her mother shrugged. “I didn’t open it.”
“Who brought it by?”
“It was on the porch when I returned from the coop. I put it on your bed.”
For some reason, this news sent Tem’s heart into a canter. Before she had time to wonder who it was from, the claw pulsed. Caspen. It had to be.
Tem practically sprinted to her room, feeling lighter than she had in hours.
The package was wrapped in black paper and tied with gold ribbon. Tem touched the ribbon first, running the tip of her finger gently over its length. When she pulled on the end, the knot unraveled easily, and the paper fell open to reveal a shimmering pile of fabric. Tem held it up and saw it was a dress. Unlike the linen dress she had planned on borrowing from her mother, this one was made of silk, no doubt like the one Vera had bragged about earlier. It was deep emerald in color, and Tem knew Caspen had chosen it to compliment her skin tone.
Tem was brutally torn by the gesture. If the dress was meant to make her prettier, did that mean the basilisk wanted the prince to find her attractive? And if he did, did last night mean nothing to him?
Something glinted on the bed, and Tem set the dress aside to see a gold necklace nestled in the paper. When she picked it up, she saw there was a small charm attached. It was deeply polished and shiny, the little charm glinting in the candlelight. With a gasp, she realized it was a claw—a perfect miniature of the one inside her. She stared at it in awe. Tem had never owned anything gold before. It was an expensive metal—a metal that Tem and mother could never afford—a luxury reserved only for the royals. Tem had only one piece of jewelry to her name, a dull silver ring that she wore on holidays. The ring paled in comparison to the necklace.
Tem immediately put it on.
The chain was long; the charm fell directly between her breasts. She knew Caspen had made it so, and at the thought, the pulse immediately began to build. Here he was, finally, after an unbearable day of silence. Tem barely had time to close the door to her room before she was on the bed, her hand between her legs. Her other hand was clasped over her mouth; she knew her mother was mere feet away, and would surely hear her cry out. She tried to stay silent through the pulses but it was utterly useless. Caspen was sending them so quickly she could barely catch her breath—it was like he wanted to overwhelm her, forcing her to feel his presence one last time before tonight.
Tem could hear her mother making dinner, and knew she would leave to get vegetables from the garden. The moment she heard the door slam, Tem finished triumphantly, arching her back with a moan. She could feel Caspen’s pleasure, and it matched her own. There was something desperate about their connection tonight, and she wondered if it was because of what would happen later that evening. She lay gasping on the bed, trying to catch her breath, the gold chain tangled around her neck.
She bathed before putting on the dress, finding that it fit perfectly. It hugged her in all the right places, turning her body into something it had never been before—something meant to entice a prince. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to accentuate its length before realizing what she was doing and stopping immediately. She liked her curls. The prince had better like them too.
“Tem?” her mother was knocking on her bedroom door. “It’s time.”
When Tem emerged into the kitchen, her mother’s hands flew to her mouth in shock.
Her mother spoke before she had to:
“There’s a carriage waiting for you outside. It will take you to the castle.”
Tem nodded. She had no cloak that would match the luxury of the dress, so instead she went without, stepping into the chilly night and winding down the garden path to the awaiting black carriage. A footman helped her inside, and she sat on the soft velvet bench before looking up at the ceiling, where the royal insignia was etched in gold leaf. It depicted a snake dueling with a rooster. The snake was twisted in obvious pain, trampled beneath the spiny feet of the rooster. It was a clear homage to the war, specifically to the victors. Tem knew that the royals bore the snake on many of their personal items, as a reminder of what they had overcome. Personally, she saw it as a taunt. She couldn’t imagine how a basilisk would feel looking at it.
As the carriage climbed the long hill to the castle, Tem thought about the evening. She was looking forward to seeing Gabriel, since she knew he would be working. But that was the extent of her excitement. The night was sure to be a long, insufferable sequence of formalities. No doubt she would be put on display, paraded around to the royals so they could see their potential newest member.
Tem clasped her hands together tightly.
And then there was the prince. She wondered if she would meet him tonight, or if he’d keep his distance from the contestants. Caspen had said he wished to “see” his potential future wives. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk to them. If it were Tem choosing her future partner, she’d want ample opportunity to get to know them. But that would come later, she supposed. After all, the elimination process hadn’t even begun. The first elimination would happen next week, after the prince had a chance to kiss each girl. That was the traditional timeline, and that was the way things had been done for centuries.
The carriage wound to a halt.
“We’ve arrived, miss,” the footman said when he opened the door.
Tem took a deep breath, unclasped her hands, and climbed out of the carriage. They had parked right in front of the castle, and Tem stared up at the enormous double doors in awe. She had never been here before. She’d only looked up at the castle from down in the village, seeing it from the very bottom of the hill, where it resembled a fancy dollhouse. Now that she was seeing it in person, she realized just how large it was. It sprawled for what seemed like miles, its walls made of stones that almost seemed to glitter. When Tem got closer she saw that the grout holding the bricks together was full of crushed pieces of mirror. Of course the castle would have a last line of defense built right into its structure. As she reached the doors, they swung open.
The first thing Tem noticed was the gold.
It was everywhere: framing the oil paintings on the walls, brushed in intricate patterns on the wallpaper, interlaced in whorls of wood. It was even beneath her feet, flecked into the marble tile of the entryway. Tem had never seen such a blatant display of wealth.
“Name?” a voice asked her.
Tem turned to see a man in a black robe holding a ledger and looking at her expectantly.
“Temperance Verus.”
The man consulted the ledger before giving her a brief nod.
“Right this way.”
He ushered her through the entranceway into a long hall lined with thick maroon carpet. Tem barely had time to blink before he pushed her through another door.
“Don’t wander,” he said before snapping it shut behind her.
Tem was immediately overwhelmed with noise.
She was standing at the edge of a giant ballroom filled with people, most of whom seemed to be well on their way to getting drunk. Tem spotted a few residents of the village, but mostly she was in the presence of royals. She remembered how Gabriel had mentioned that Henry would be ferrying people in from neighboring villages. She could tell which royals weren’t from here by the way they dressed. Some were wearing furs despite the fact that snow wouldn’t arrive for several more weeks.
Tem set her sights on the tables at the far end of the ballroom, which were piled high with food. The selection resembled the food that Caspen had given her in the cave: fancy meats and cheeses arranged in delicate displays. Tem grabbed a handful of nuts and shoved them into her mouth as she scanned the crowd for Gabriel. To her dismay, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, her eyes fell on Vera, who was giggling in a corner with another girl. When they looked over at Tem, the giggling stopped immediately. Tem gave them a condescending wave, knowing full well that by now, Vera would have told everyone who would listen that Tem was being trained by the Serpent King. The wave was not returned.
The hall was lined with thick marble columns, elaborately decorated with carvings of Kora. Like everything else in the castle, they were accented with gold. Tem couldn’t comprehend why such an excessive display of wealth was necessary. Everyone knew the royals were rich. But she had no idea the inside of the castle looked like this. She stared at the tables, loaded with food. She thought of the many nights in her cottage when she and her mother had gone to bed hungry. It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right.
Tem wished she could go find Gabriel, but the man at the door had told her not to wander. And why shouldn’t I wander? She thought with sudden conviction. This could be my castle someday.
So Tem grabbed another handful of nuts before turning on her heel and making her way back through the crowd. She slipped into the hallway and sighed in relief at the sudden silence. The hallway stretched out for what seemed like forever in both directions. The walls were covered in dark oil paintings depicting long dead members of the royal family. There was centuries of history here—centuries of heirs birthed solely because of the help of the basilisks.
Tem stopped in front of a particularly large painting of a battle scene. It reminded her of the insignia on the roof of the carriage. Dozens of snakes—huge snakes—were slithering over the ground, headed for a group of horse-bound riders. Some of the riders held roosters, some held mirrored shields. It was the final battle before the war was won; Tem could tell by the way the sky was painted deep blood red. All the old songs spoke of the red sky on that final day. They said that Kora herself bled to make it that color.
Tem felt suddenly overwhelmed. There was a tight, twisting pain in her chest that had nothing to do with her nerves. She turned away from the painting, heading toward the first door she could find. By pure happenstance, it was a bathroom. The sink was gold, of course, and Tem splashed her face with water in an effort to cool down. She was just reaching for the towel when the door banged open.
A girl with a head of thick, icy blonde hair bound in. She was clutching a flute of champagne, her cheeks tinged with pink. One of the other contestants.
“Oh—” the girl said when she saw Tem, “—sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone in here.”
“It’s fine,” Tem said quickly. “I was just leaving.”
“No, no,” the girl waved her off, sloshing her champagne in the process. “Don’t leave on my account. I’m only here because I needed a break from the party. It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered Tem honestly.
“I’m Lilly,” the girl said, extending the hand that wasn’t holding the champagne. “Well, technically Lilibet.”
“I’m Tem. Well, technically Temperance.”
“Temperance is a pretty name.”
“So is Lilibet.”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Hardly. It sounds like a toilet accessory.”
“Does it?”
“I think so. But that’s what nicknames are for.”
The girl tipped the rest of her champagne into her mouth before asking:
“So, what do you think of the prince?”
Tem shrugged. “I haven’t met him yet.”
“Hm. Well, when you do, tell him he lost a bet.”
“Excuse me?”
“He bet me he wouldn’t find any of the girls pretty,” her eyes flicked over Tem’s dress. “But I have a feeling he won’t be able to resist you.”
Tem was becoming more confused by the moment.
“I’m sorry—I thought you were—”
“In the running to marry my own brother? That would be the scandal of the century.”
Tem’s mouth fell open. She was talking to the prince’s older sister. She should’ve known by the name Lilibet. Everyone had to memorize the royal family tree in school, but Tem hadn’t thought about it in years.
Lilly laughed at the expression on Tem’s face. “So? Aren’t you going to ask me how to win his heart?”
Tem didn’t know how to answer that. The only heart she really wanted to win was Caspen’s.
At her silence, Lilly’s face split into a grin.
“Ah, so you’re not here to grovel at his feet. Interesting. Come to think of it, that might be exactly what wins you his heart. He always wants what he can’t have.”
A sudden cheer echoed outside the bathroom. Lilly glanced at the door.
“I’d better go. It was nice to meet you, Tem. And good luck! Not that you’ll need it.”
With that, the princess was gone.
Tem stared at the place where she had stood, wondering what the hell had just happened. Another cheer broke out, but Tem had no desire to return to the party. Instead, she splashed some more water on her face, glanced at her reflection in the mirror, and slipped back into the hallway.
She wandered aimlessly through the castle halls, heading vaguely upwards, taking a staircase whenever she encountered one. Eventually, she found herself in a room that looked like a study, with books on the walls and a heavy wooden desk at one end.
Tem took in the ornate rugs, the golden trim, the rich oil paintings. It was utterly different from her humble home, with its rough wooden floors and shuttered windows. She couldn’t believe such wealth existed. She could understand why her mother admired such things when she had none of her own. For the first time, Tem felt compassion for what she’d interpreted as her mother’s endless coveting. Maybe she had simply yearned for more, as Tem did.
Her eyes traced along the deep mahogany shelves, landing on an enormous fanged skull that rested on a velvet pillow. As if in a trance, Tem reached for it. Just as her fingers were about to touch the bone, a jolt shot through the claw, up her spine and down her arm, forcing her to yank her hand back immediately. Caspen’s voice thundered through her head, as strong and clear as if he were standing in the room with her:
Do not touch that.
“Why?” Tem whispered aloud to the empty room, cradling her hand against her chest. It still throbbed with his energy.
Because it does not belong to you.
His voice was so angry she wanted to cry. Too late, Tem realized what she had been reaching for. Without warning, Caspen’s mind overtook hers, and she saw a horrible montage of war: basilisks against humans, battles fought deep within the caves, the eventual near-extinction of Caspen’s entire family. Tem felt devastation, and didn’t know whether it was his or hers.
I’m so sorry, she thought, but Caspen was already gone. Her mind was empty, the claw suddenly cold. She stared at the skull numbly, wondering how humans could be so cruel. She couldn’t get the images out of her head—so much blood, so much death. Both sides had suffered, but was clear that the basilisks had sustained far greater losses. It was just like the painting she had seen downstairs.
Tem was just about to try to call Caspen back when she heard:
“Looking for something?”
Tem whipped around.
A young man stood in the doorway, staring at her. He leaned against the doorframe, his angular face cocked to the side. His hair was parted and slicked back, his sharp cheekbones catching the dim light of the candles. He wore a velvet suit of deep maroon, with a jeweled snake pinned to his lapel. There was a slim elegance to him that seemed vaguely familiar, and Tem realized he looked just like Lilly. They had the same white-blonde hair, the same full lips.
So this was the prince.