Page 56 of Haunted Crowns
Avaristo.
He looked every inch the ruler he imagined himself to be, draped in black lined with gold filigree, more shadow than man. The embroidery along his sleeves shimmered faintly, etched with the elegance of empire and the cruelty of permanence. His vest, woven from obsidian silk, caught the low light like the whisper of a blade, power made wearable. But it was his eyes that held true dominion, gold and predatory.
His gaze swept over her, taking in the torn lace, the smudged skirt, and the wild auburn hair spilling down her shoulders. It was a quiet inventory, a calculated study.
He examined her like an exquisite threat: something valuable, volatile, and already compromised. Then he smiled and reclined in a throne of polished obsidian, one leg crossed, a glass of aged blood resting between his fingers like a scepter he did not need to lift. The thick, dark liquid curled against the crystal.
When their eyes met, his smile deepened, amused. Eris felt it immediately—the way his gaze slid beneath skin and bone, the way the silence in the room bent to his will. It was the pressure of being observed not as a person, but as a piece on the board, already moved, already marked. Her breath caught, and a shiver slipped through her before she could stop it.
He saw it. He savored it.
“At last,” he drawled. “I was beginning to think you preferred confinement to conversation.”
Eris forced stillness over the nausea curling in her gut. “Avaristo.” Her voice was cool. “Let us not pretend this is a conversation.”
His lips twitched. “Oh, but it is. You’re just not the one asking the questions.” His gaze swept over her, slow and unbothered. Then his mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Tell me, Eris…how’s our hospitality? I trust my men were…courteous.”
Her fingers tightened against the cold metal beneath them. “Charming, really… A hospitality to remember,” she said flatly, her voice iron-clad despite the ache blooming under her skin.
His smirk widened. “Good. I’d hate to think you were uncomfortable.” Avaristo’s eyes stayed on her, amused. Then, with a tilt of the head: “You must be exhausted. The pressure. The scrutiny. The weight of…expectation.” His voice dipped, soft and serpentine. “You’re young, after all. It’s natural to stumble.”
Eris felt the trap coil before it snapped shut. Her brow arched, sharp. “Is evasion a personal quirk, or just another tactic?”
He chuckled softly, tapping a finger against his glass. “Let’s not dance around it. Your entanglement with the Lycans was always going to be…inconvenient. The Dragovs were bred to command, not consort.”
He sighed, as though speaking to a child. “But then, youth is famously reckless. I, for one, am forgiving.” He set the glass down, deliberate. “I wonder if your family will be.”
Ice laced her spine. There it was, the true strike. She didn’t move, but he caught it, the faint tension in her shoulders, the breath she didn’t quite control.
His eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Ah. So you do understand.”
Her voice sliced through the fog. “If you think they would turn on me, you are more deluded than I feared.”
The words slid out smooth as glass, but somewhere deep, a whisper curled, unwelcome. Avaristo wasn’t wrong. History had done worse.
He leaned forward, gold eyes darkening. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what happened to your great-grandmother…” He smiled cruelly. “Lady Seraphina.”
Eris’s breath hitched. He felt it, and it delighted him.
“You are young,” he murmured, “but surely not naïve.” He leaned in closer. “History always finds a way to repeatitself, Eris. And the Dragovs have never been kind to their disappointments.”
Eris’s heart thundered, but when her voice came, it was unflinching. She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I would not be so sure…”—her words slowed, deliberate as a blade unsheathing—“about history repeating itself.”
The silence thickened. The air did not settle; it stilled, unnaturally heavy, as if the room itself had drawn breath and forgotten how to exhale. A distant creak whispered through the stone, though nothing had moved. Then she spoke again. Not louder, but resonant, as if the words had chosen her.
“Your empire, built on chains, soaked in blood.” Each syllable fell with unsettling precision, like chimes struck out of time. “It will fall.”
The light above them flickered once—a blink. Avaristo’s fingers tightened on his glass. He did not move otherwise. He did not speak, but the skin at the corner of his eye twitched, involuntarily. He had felt it too. Something was wrong.
"And when it does…" Eris continued, her voice not just quieter but altered, no longer entirely her own, "the Lycans will be free. Their land will be theirs again. And your name"—she leaned forward, meeting him eye to eye—"will vanish, buried beneath roots deeper than your thrones ever reached."
Silence followed, not peace but absence. Something ancient had passed through, and the room had not caught up. For one second, for one breath, Avaristo faltered. His gaze swept across her face, searching for a seam, a crack in the illusion, anything to explain the wrongness. There was nothing.
He blinked once.A trick of the mind, tension and light, nothing more,he thought.The mask slid back into place, and he exhaled smoothly, too smoothly.
With a faint tilt of his head, he leaned in. "Then we had best make sure the ground stays salted." He shifted, the movementsurgical. The predator withdrew, replaced by the gentleman. Composure returned like a blade sheathed in silk.
A soft knock came at the door, timed, precise. Avaristo’s gaze shifted as amusement flickered in his eyes. He straightened, rolling his shoulders with languid ease. "Now then," he said, voice smooth as velvet. "There is someone quite eager to meet you." He gestured toward the door with casual flair. "Shall I let them in?"
