The Cursed Kingdom

TWENTY-NINE

**Last warning: mature content ahead**

~ THE ECLIPSE ~

As soon as Henrik shut his bedroom door behind me, my attention was stolen by the thick smell that invaded the air, causing my mouth to water and my empty stomach to rumble in anticipation. I could practically taste the sweet tang of freshly smoked meat already on my tongue.

My head snapped to the left and towards the table in Henrik's sitting area, the one closest to a window and where we usually played board games because of the view. Now on top of it were two covered platters the sizes of carriage wheels and a ice-filled metal tin with a bottle of champagne inside. Two China plates, a plethora of napkins and silverware, and drinking glasses had been placed on it as well.

"I perceived you wouldn't want to eat in the ballroom," Henrik stated, my eyes transfixed by the steam coming from the platters, "so I had a few servants grab extras and bring them up here."

As soon as he was done speaking, the sound of fabric met my ears. I looked behind me and watched him in a dazed-like state shrug off his jacket, open his side of the wardrobe, and place it on the hanger furthest to the left.

Henrik wasn't exactly the most organized person ever and some of his habits irked me, such as how he bent the corners of books to save his reading place, squeezed his container of toothpaste near the top, and his office always had papers and books thrown around everywhere. But he did have a way of placing things that somehow seemed to work for him and his strange mind. An example of this was our wardrobe. His formal apparel he always hung on the left side while his casual outfits remained on the right, which was fine but I preferred to divide my clothes by both weather and color.

Henrik bent down and unlaced his black leather shoes with deft fingers, slipping them off and placing them in one of the cubbies of the wardrobe that was under the two shelves. When he looked back at me after he shut the wardrobe door, I could feel the inevitable tension enter the room as he processed that I'd been watching him.

My ears burned and I cast my eyes to the floor.

He cleared his throat and walked swiftly past me to the table, taking off his crown and placing it on the small side table beside his couch as he did so.

"They couldn't bring everything but I hope this all will suffice nonetheless," Henrik told me as he lifted the platters' metal coverings and revealed a steaming plate of meat and one that was entirely filled with colorful bite-sized desserts.

My eyes mindlessly drifted away from the mountain ranges of food and trailed over Henrik's room, as if I was seeing it for the first time all over again. I took in the myrpeople carved into his fireplace, every piece of furniture, the new bouquet of flowers on the table next to my side of the bed, and then finally I looked at the tidy bed, my stomach growing heavy.

I clasped my sweaty palms in front of me, my nails digging into the back of my hands.

Although I didn't have any intimate experience besides kissing, in my adolescent years, I learned quite a bit about sex in school alongside some books aimed at adult audiences.

There was a time where I'd come across an entire novel filled with provocative images in Tylem and Taylium's home hidden behind a pile of nicknacks and objects I'd perceived as unimportant in their living area. Whether it belonged to one of the twins or their parents, I didn't know. But I was young and curious, just beginning to walk through the first threshold of puberty, and looked at almost every single page while everyone was asleep one night. Afterwards, I never thought about it again—or at least I tried not to.