Syphon

3. Kaliah

The glass she was carrying slipped from her sweaty palms, and the strike against her cheek landed before she even had time to brace herself.

Her bones rattled in time with her thumping heart as she fell to her knees, desperately trying to scoop up the pieces of broken glass before any of the Nobel ladies' thinly slippered feet were cut.

"Stupid girl", One of these Nobel ladies hissed. The blush of the back of her hand told Kaliah that it was her who had struck her for dropping the glass. "You almost ruined my gown."

Kaliah kept her head low as she whispered a small apology and continued to pick up the glass. It cut deep into her unprotected hands, and soon, her apron was bloody from using it to catch the drops.

She dared not look up toward Alton, but she could feel his lecherous eyes on her all the same.

She'd just collected the last piece when a vice like grip secured around her bicep, tearing her upwards and nearly sending the pieces of glass to the floor once again.

Kaliah gasped, trying to take a small step back when she saw who held onto her arm, but the grip only tightened.

Zenna, Alton's personal attendant, glared at her with narrowed brown eyes.

Her face was pinched and looked too small against an unruly mass of chestnut curls that were starting to grey, as she began pulling her towards the kitchens and out of sight from Altons guests

"You've cut your hands up." She spat with disgust. "You're to attend to the Prince tonight, and you've cut yourself. He's not going to want you bloodied up and bruised. "

Zenna touched the side of her tender cheek where she'd been struck with hands that had a searing heat, causing Kaliah to flinch.

Zenna tasked through her teeth and set about pulling the shards from her hands and roughly securing a bandage around her hands.

"The prince wants you to serve him. You need to stop with the scared little bird act and do your duties."

"Yes, Zenna," Kaliah said quietly, holding her hands out gingerly in front of her. She could feel her heartbeat in each of the deep cuts.

"Lord knows he'll have my head if he can't have you." This Zenna said more to herself under her breath than to Kaliah.

Kaliah had to hold back her tears.

She didn't want this. Not like this. Not with the sickeningly infatuated prince.

Her panic got the better of her.

"Zenna..please," She whispered, her voice a horse croak.

Instead of warmth or understanding, Zenna took a fistfull of Kaliah's dark hair and wrenched it back hard.

"You will do your duty,"

Zenna enunciated each and every word, poison dripping from each word.

Kaliah could not stop the tears this time.

They leaked out, and when Zenna released her, she swiped at them roughly, not wanting the callous woman to see her weakness.

Run.

Kaliah knew she had to. She knew it was her only option.

She could not do this. She could not allow herself to be violated. Not by a Prince. Not by anyone.

She made her steely resolve and felt the tears cease almost instantly.

She would have to make it through the dinner service, ply the Prince with as much drink as possible, and flee when his wits were not so sharp.

Moving past Zenna, feeling for the first time in her life that she had a plan, she took up another fine glass of delicate clear liquid with pretty golden flasks swirling around within it.

It was Alton's favourite, as well as the strongest drink they brewed here in Stohl. Even the burliest of men could not withstand its effects for an entire night.

Zenna nodded in approval at Kaliah's newfound resolve but still stalked behind her, watching her every move.

They waded through the ballroom slowly, making sure to give the ladies in the impossibly enormous skirts a wide berth.

Kaliah almost tripped once again on one of said enormous skirts when she felt it.

A deep vibration that seemed to thrum right into her soul.

She gasped a goosebumps rose on every inch of her flesh, and an aroma of deep winter enveloped her. Snow. Fir Trees. Cold stinging air that made your lungs ache but made you feel more alive than ever before.

The solid oak doors flew open with a gust of icy air, making Kaliah's hair whip at her face and the entire room stopped.

Silence weighed heavy on the room, and the masses instinctively began backing up.

A man, tall and lean, strode into the ballroom, head held higher than any king who walked these halls ever had

The visitors' thundering footsteps were all that filled the air now.

The room vibrated with fear, Kaliah could almost smell it.

Daring to move from her postion hidden amongst the coutiers, Kaliah arched to the tips of her toes, angling her head to see past a lady's large purple headdress.

And then Kaliah herself went rigid.

The first thing she saw was the vicious, stark scar that ran the entire length of the left side strangers face.

Over his forehead, past his wicked frost coloured eye, a shade lighter than it's slightly bluer twin on the right, down to his chin, slashing his throat and disappearing beneath his fine black tunic and overcoat.

Despite the scar, he was unnervingly beautiful, his face was hard and angular, and the smirk that tilted his marred lips was worn well.

Devilish.

His hair was a shade of midnight black, his skin pale but glowing with a whispering power aching to be released.

The swagger, the sheer arrogance, the stranger emanated from his every pore as he strode towards the dais was enough to tell Kaliah that this male was powerful, as if the glowing skin and the thrilling power choking the very air from the room wasn't already enough of an indication.

When the dark-haired stranger paused at the foot of the dais, his wicked blue-white eyes pulsing with benevolent glee, he offered the King and Prince Alton the barest of nods.

Alton clicked his tongue in distaste at the newcomers' disrespect.

King Jesophis gave his son a pointed look, at which Alton clacked his teeth shut and tried to mask the disdain on his face as he looked over the swaggering man from head to toe.

"Prince Rowe," King Jesophis said quietly. "I will admit this is quite the surprise, I had expected one of your brothers to act as envoy to The Ethereal Isle."

The male, Prince Rowe, grinned, his scar pulling at his lips and setting the attempted smile crooked.

He looked positively terrifying.

Seeing movement to the Kings left, Kaliah tore her gaze away from the foreign Prince and watched as Alton discreetlsignalled something to Zenna.

The curly haired slave nodded once before skittering away.

She seemed happy about putting distance between herself and the Ethereal Prince.

Divinities only knew what power he possessed.

If Prince Rowe was affronted by Alton's distraction, he did not show it, addressing the King with a liquid smooth, purring voice;

"Sorry to disappoint you, Jesophis," the gathered crowd sucked in a unified gasp at Prince Rowe's brazen disrespect, and his tone conveyed anything but apology.

"Prince's Roddic and Roman are otherwise engaged. And as for my arrival, well I could not miss the nobel Prince Alton's birthday feast. Even from our lonely Isles, we heard rumour that it was to be a grand event."

Alton speared Rowe with a scathing look, but those wicked lips only pulled up further.

"Perhaps it would have been wise to wait for an invitation, Deamon Prince."

"Hush!" King Jesophis hissed at his son.

Kaliah could have sworn she saw fear flash in the King's eyes. And when Jesophis next addressed Prince Rowe, a slight tremor to his words, she knew it to be true.

The King was frightened of this Prince.

"Forgive Alton, Prince Rowe. He has had too much wine and forgets himself."

"So it would seem," the Ethereal Prince said quietly.

Calmly.

Kaliah followed the King and Prince Alton's gaze down to Rowe's fingertips.

He was rubbing his index finger and thumb against one another, and Kaliah had to bite down on her lip to stop the gasp from leaving her at the sight of bright, powerful blue sparks that dropped from his fingertips onto the floor, hissing as they hit the stone.

A deadly reminder to Alton to remember his place.

Kaliah felt her pulse kick up, blood pounding through her veins, making her head pound.

She had never seen real magic before.

The shock of it almost bought her to her knees.

She realised after a moment that she was mirroring the dark-haired Prince's actions with her own fingers, and for a whisper of a second, she swore she could feel heat sting at her fingertips.

Kaliah jerked in surprise as a small cold hand wrapped around her wrist.

"Come now, girl. The Prince wants you out of here immediately" Zenna tried to pull her out of the sea of courtiers but she was frozen with fear, glued to her position on the floor as she watched the Etheral Prince.

That scent still overwhelmed senses, keeping her rooted in place.

She could not bring herself to leave or to look away.

She could feel him.

And then...he stilled.