Chapter Forty Seven: Your Promised Prize

Carnen tumbled through blackness and breathless pain, then finally awoke to suffocating heat. He was lying shirtless in a tangle of silken sheets, and Aya was lying exposed right beside him, smiling most wickedly. “You’re dead, you bastard,” she informed him, “gone straight to hell.”

“Then why are you here?” he pressed, eyeing her up and down. She was not a burnt nightmare of a corpse as he might have feared. Her lips were lush with color and her hair was shining like drips of honey, with not a single bruise in sight upon her naked flesh.

“I belong in hell too, most obviously,” she retorted. “I’ve been down here since you killed me.”

“This isn’t hell,” he breathed, because though his brow was damp with sweat and this room so flushed with heat, there was no pain in his chest anymore and his fingers had full sensation. He was free to move against his assassin however he wished, and even if she gouged out his flesh as he did so, he would not care, because she smelled so alluring. She smelled of nothing but sweetness and eager invitation. “This is heaven. How in god’s name did we make it into heaven?” he grated, pulling her into a kiss. He would be doing this dance with Aya for eternity, forever lost in the feel of her against him, and that was no punishment. That was paradise.

Only… why was she holding herself so rigid? Her lips were stiff and frozen, like a statue…

He pulled back, and he most certainly was not dead, and he most certainly was not in bed with Aya. It was Charlotte stretched out right beside him, though in his delirious state he had allowed dream to bleed into reality and he’d taken her for her doppelganger.

Charlotte’s cheeks were burning bright red now, but she had not fainted. Her lips were twitching back and forth between smile and nervous breakdown, and she pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. “You’re flush,” she squeaked. “I mean, feverish. Little feverish. Still. That should wear off in,” She swallowed. “...few hours. So I can go now. You must wish that I… go.”

She started to scramble out from beneath the tangle of sheets. She was still fully clothed, in outerwear, not just sleeping wear, still wearing her socks even. He had not been brought up to his own bed in the tower. This bed was triple the size of that one. He let his eyes drift around the room and realized they were in the royal bedchambers.

Clara was sitting right there at the side of the room in fact, and she told Charlotte playfully, “Don’t go running off when your prince has only just now awoken, Charlotte. I’m sure he wants you to stay, so he can thank you for saving his life.”

“Saving my…?”

“Charlotte crafted an antivenom for the poison of that sneaking maid.”

“Well, n-not an antivenom perse,” Charlotte laughed. “This compound binds to the poison on the needle, changing its composition so it can’t prevent your blood cells from carrying oxygen any longer. Then the rest is just your own immune system…”

Charlotte rambled on and on with nonsensical words and confusing details, as Carnen tuned her out and turned his eyes to Clara. She was giving him a most pointed stare, and he clued in finally that he should do as she had indicated.

He took Charlotte into his arms, and her words cut out with a startled squeak. “Thank you, my lady, for saving my life. Whatever do you wish from me in repayment?” Charlotte turned bright red, and Carnen knew exactly what it is she was wishing for. This was the perfect opportunity to do as his father insisted and ‘make her a real woman’. “It is your birthday, after all, now isn’t it?” he teased, pushing his hand through her hair. He could do this, he insisted. She was pretty enough, and so what if his sex-drive had instantly died at one taste of her petrified lips? He could get it up again. He just… Well, he just had to pretend she was Aya.

“It’s not. It’s tomorrow now,” she murmured, and he had no idea what she was talking about for a moment. Then he remembered enough to be irritated. “I was locked up in your tower all of yesterday, right up until Clara brought me to treat you, but now it’s nearing dawn, so my birthday is over. You… you lied again.”

“Lied about what, dear?” Clara most gently pressed, before Carnen had the chance.

Charlotte’s blush further deepened. “It’s okay. I don’t… I don’t need anything. I don’t need a party.”

“But all our lords and guests would so enjoy the event!” Clara proclaimed, already starting to her feet. “And I am so sorry we missed the proper date for your ball, my dearest niece, but it shall take place this very evening. I will see to it.”

“A ball?” Charlotte squeaked, and Carnen took the lead from his stepmother, rising to his feet and taking Charlotte’s hand.

“Of course. I did promise you a dance, now didn’t I?” He pulled her gently against him in what he believed to be a proper waltzing pose, though in truth he had no idea how to dance. He knew that every noble in Stalis was expected to know how to perform a proper waltz, but a man of noble blood in Carnen’s country would never do something so silly as to dance out in the open. Dancing was for drunken peasants around their bonfires or for female entertainers hired to please their lords. Still, Carnen had no wish to ruin all Clara’s perfect maneuvering by blurting that out now. Though how the hell would Clara ever get his father to agree to such a shameful spectacle as a ball?

“The two of you shall dance all this eve alongside the full host of Stalis lords and ladies,” Clara carried on merrily. “And we shall present the most decadent cuisine and the most colorful of streamers for the reception, a birthday feast and a wedding feast combined!”

“W-wedding?” Charlotte stammered. Then her eyes locked right back with Carnen’s in helpless entrancement. “But… Ay--”

“We were promised to be married, my Charlotte,” Carnen cut her off before she could once again speak that dreaded name. “And I must keep my promises, as you have reminded me this day, so we shall be married this very night.”

“Oh… oh my…” was all she seemed capable of voicing, and Clara once again took firm control of the situation.

“Now get dressed, both of you.” She clapped. “I think it time for breakfast, the perfect venue to inform our noble guests that they are finally to witness a wedding.”