Beneath Shadows and Secrets

♔ 𝕿𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔳𝔢 ♔

♔ 𝔑𝔦𝔯𝔞 ♔

If he was not expecting us, Calix still manages to keep an unruffled composure about him. He remains seated until Libitina and I are stood opposite him, hardly letting his eyes deviate from me. He shows nothing, no ounce of surprise at the human girl presumed dead now wounded in his home, nor the telling characteristics that suggest she is human no more. He only watches with light interest, wearing that same smile which he presented when he handed me the knife to throw at Blite the night before the final task of the Equinox, many weeks ago.

It is frightfully different to the look of fury that adorned his features the night Zaire stabbed me. So different, in fact, I begin to think I may have imagined it altogether.

He lets us stand in silence for a few moments before he rises. He remains stood on the platform which raises his throne from the expanse of space that Libitina and I wait on. It grants him the ability to look down upon us, while we must look up. Almost as though we are bowing, without having to take the knee.

"Calix." Libitina greets, nodding her head with brief acknowledgement. I watch her, gauging her composure. Though it is but a single word, it is not clipped with venom. If anything, it is softer than I have ever heard he speak before. It carries respect, despite the absence of title, and among it all, I watch her submit to his authority, before he has so much as uttered a word. It is obscure to see, considering all I know about Libitina. I've seen myself how little respect she harbours for others. She did not even care for hierarchy when she sat herself on that throne during the Solstice, when Calix considered himself above attendance. He exudes power, enough that it leashes her, but he does not lord it over her. She respects him by choice. A dynamic which already seems far different than that which I became familiar with in Abutilon.

"I do wonder, Libitina," Calix begins in a drawl, his voice unhurried and lacking sternness. "How is it that you manage to seek out the most unfavourable circumstances whenever you leave this place?"

Libitina lifts her eyes to meet his, and the corners of her lips follow. Grinning. Even though this could become something of a berating. She doesn't care – or knows him well enough to know this monotonous nature is nothing short of humour. "In fairness, this particular event wasn't sought. The huntress has a knack for summoning marks." She explains.

It is then that Calix regards me beyond a weighted stare. His eyes drop to my feet, and rise to my face, swallowing the state of my complexion. I'm filthy, coated in dirt and vomit and blood. My hair is a tangled mess, and I know, without even a comment on it, I am in the most emaciated condition of my life.

"Should you not be dead?" He says, tilting his head. He regards me so different than before. Colder. Not the Fae who taunted me in the Royal Gardens or danced with me the first night of the Equinox. I am no longer a plaything, but a problem.

I hold my chin up, fighting off the tiredness that looms. "Your kind always seem shocked by my tenacity to live."

His eyes rove over me again. "Your kind, now, it seems." He remarks. I refrain from hiding my ears beneath my hair. "But no. It never shocked me before. However, we all saw that dagger sink into your chest, a wound that even the most audacious human would not survive."

"Life does find a way." I tell him. He hums.

"Always the schemer - Zaire. Plans shrouded beneath ploys. It is a shame no one else recognises such a conniving mind." I say nothing. I know Calix enough to give nothing away. To offer him ammunition would be foolish. "I suspect you have foiled it, to be stood before me now."

"If you are scrounging for answers, I have no plans to give them to you." He lets himself grin, somehow feline, icy enough that it turns my blood cold.