Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) (11 page)

“Sunroom?” I asked in confusion. “I can leave the room today?” Hope wrapped my voice.

“Uh, technically you wouldn’t leave the room if you went to the sunroom,” he told me.

“But, there is no sunroom here!”

He frowned. “Yes, there is. Hasn’t your brother shown you aroun-” He stopped mid-sentence, then looked down and shook his head, a bitter smile on his face. “Of course, he hasn’t.”

No. He was too busy pointing a gun to my head,
I thought sadly.

“Come,” he motioned for me to follow him as he walked toward the huge mirror that was next to the bed. I stood beside him and waited for whatever he wanted to show me in that mirror. I only saw our reflections.

“Uh...” Before I could say anything, the prince flipped a button that was on the wall beside the mirror, which made the line in the middle of it spread open to reveal a big room behind it.

I stepped inside unconsciously, noticing that it was a freakishly huge, enclosed sunroom.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. The room was a wide space. There was a nice table in the corner with two chairs, on the other side there was a set with a wrought iron couch and two armchairs, and at the far end, there was an elegant swing that looked so very comfortable that–for a moment–I imagined myself sitting there and having a good read.

“This is beautiful,” I said to no one, admiring the plants and roses that surrounded the place. The sunroom had windows all over it, floor to ceiling. It was brightly lit, the soft sunlight was making it even more beautiful, if that was possible. It was such a sight.

“Yes, it is,” the prince said, getting my attention back to him and making me realize that I wasn’t alone. “It’s my favorite spot in the whole palace.”

Oh!

“Was that your room before, uh-…” The thought crossed my mind, and I had to ask.

He smiled lightly. “No,” was how he started his respond. “This is new to me, too.”

I nodded, then gazed out of one of the windows after I took a few steps forward.

“I’ll go call Mona to bring breakfast in here,” he said before leaving.

Out of the windows, the view was as gorgeous as the inside of the place I was standing in. I could see a very large garden that I supposed surrounded the palace. There was a road that led to a huge gate at the end, but it seemed like quite a long walk to get there.

I sighed.

I had no idea how I was going to get out of here, but I wasn’t going to back down without even trying. Soon, I should try, once I get the chance.

“The food is getting cold.” The prince’s voice brought me once again from my thought-clouded mind. I didn’t even realize that Mona had already placed the tray on the table and left, or even that he was back and waiting.

“Yeah,” I said and made my way to the table. Everything looked delicious. The plates alone looked so good that I would’ve eaten them if I could.

“I’m going to go and take a quick shower, if you need anything, just call Mona,” he told me.

‘‘Won’t you eat something?” I found myself asking.

A small smile. “No, I’m fine,” and he left.

I huffed, suddenly not feeling so hungry, but I knew I had to eat something or I was going to faint.

The food was amazing. I didn’t know what half of the dishes were called, but it was
so
wonderfully good, I thought I’d never get enough.

A while later, my eyes widened as a guy entered the room; I had no idea who he was. And for a moment, I panicked. I only felt comforted once the bright green of his eyes met my blue ones.

The prince offered me one of his small smiles, but I just sat there gaping at him. He was dressed in black sweatpants and a short-sleeved white shirt. His brown hair was a mess on top of his head, but looked unbelievably organized at the same time. He looked so different than when he was wearing his
thawb
, like he wasn’t the same person, and, to be honest, both versions were incredibly beautiful.

I was taken aback by the fact that seeing it was
him
comforted me. I mean, I’d just met the guy not two days ago, and a few hours earlier, I’d held a weapon intending to hurt him.

He was still scary to me, nonetheless.

I frowned in confusion when he came to the table and dipped his yet-to-be-used fork into the honey bowl then put it down on his yet-to-be-touched plate, messing his napkin that had lain neatly on the table in front of his chair. My confusion was gone once I saw Mona stepping back into the sunroom, clearing the table and asking us if we needed something to drink.
He made it look like he had eaten with me.
I went for coffee and the prince asked for tea. We didn’t even have the liking-the-same-drink thing in common. Pathetic.

“Was the food okay?” he asked once Mona had left after bringing our drinks. I figured he was trying to make small talk. I wished he wouldn’t. It made me want to believe that he was a nice person. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible for him to be nice. He was raised to be rude and tough, I was sure of it. But pretending was something he’d been taught as well. He just did it with his servant–he pretended. Maybe that’s why he was acting like that. Maybe…

“Uh, yeah, it was really good, actually. Mona seems to be a great cook,” I replied.

“I’m glad,” he said. “Mona didn’t make it, though. It was my mother.”

I choked on my coffee when he said that and coughed a few times. If I’d known it was his mother who’d cooked, I think I would’ve thought twice about eating it. She could’ve poisoned the food or spit on it or something. I still worried she’d actually done that, but then thought that she wouldn’t do it since her son was supposed to eat with me. Or so I hoped.

“Your mother? The queen?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“Wow!” I said. “You don’t, uh, hire cooks?” I couldn’t imagine the queen having nothing better to do.

“What? Oh, no, of course we hire cooks, but it’s a tradition for the mother-in-law to cook for the bride for a week,” he explained.

Oh!

“Even the queen?”

“I’ve told you before, Princess. We don’t make up the rules or traditions, we only obey them.”

I nodded, taking what he’d just said in. “Is that only for the royal family?”

“No, for everyone,” he said. “The bride is–how do you put it?–um,
spoiled rotten
during her first week of marriage. They serve her–her whole family and friends–even if she was a servant herself.”

That’s why Mona seemed offended that I did my hair by myself,
I thought.

We went silent for a few moments as we both gazed out of the windows. I watched the bright sun, as it filled everywhere I could see from my spot on the chair I sat on, while the prince stood right in front of the biggest glass window and sipped his tea.

The sight was mesmerizing, there was no doubt, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything prettier than the birds that were flying together in the baby blue sky. It seemed like they were dancing, like they were surfing waves, going up and down, separating and then uniting once again to draw the same shape, or an even better one than they had made not moments ago.

“This is
so
beautiful,” I repeated the same words I had said a few times earlier. My voice was full of amazement at the magical sight in front of me.

The price looked at me over his shoulder and smiled, a small one like the rest of his smiles, and nodded when I pointed with a shrug of my chin to what I was looking at.

“I’m going to give you a tour once Mona goes to sleep, but we’ll have to be very quiet since she’s practically living here for the week,” he told me. “If you’re up to it, of course.”

My eyes widened. “The whole palace?” I couldn’t believe it; it would make my escape plan a tiny bit easier if I knew the directions and what was where.

“No, I’ve already told you we can’t leave,” he said. “I meant a tour of what will be your home for a while. Our wing.”

My shoulders hunched down. It was very disappointing. I really wanted to look around the palace and see if there was an easy way out, but alas…or, could I convince him?

“But you left this morning,” I tried.

“Yes, but that’s the only time the groom can leave his bride, so her family can see if she needs anything after her fir-…you know.”

“So, you won’t leave the room again for the rest of the week?” I asked.

“No. Not unless it’s an emergency or something very important.”

I sighed when he said that. If he wasn’t going to leave my side, it meant that I’d have to wait for the whole week to end before I could get the chance to escape.

But, I
knew
I’d figure it out. I always did.

“Do you want to go inside?” His question came when I put my empty cup on the table and yawned, sleepiness poking its head out and waving at me.

“No, I’d like to stay in here for a while. You can go ahead, though,” I told him.

“Oh! You want to stay alone?”

“Yeah,” I replied. His company made me have alien feelings–some things like unease, discomfort or something like that, I didn’t know. I only knew that I wanted him far away. “Would Mona frown upon it?”

Would she go and run her tongue all over the kingdom?
The question stayed in.

“Not really, I’ve already asked her not to come unless one of us calls.”

“Good.” I sat back comfortably in my chair, as he put his mug beside mine on the table. But he didn’t leave. He just stood there awkwardly, not looking at me.

“I mean,” he finally said, “It might get really cold in here.”

“I’ll be okay,” I told him, wishing he’d just leave.

He did.

Everything after that was a haze, and I remembered how sleepy I was. It had been over twenty-eight hours since the last time I’d slept. The events of the day before, the emotions, the hurt, the confusion…it all got the best of me. I felt so tired and my eyelids grew heavy. I fell fast asleep in my chair, right there in the sunroom, surrounded by green and blue, just like the prince’s eyes and mine. My last thought was of a leaf the exact shade of green as the prince’s eyes.

My head was pounding at some point. I felt as if my body was drowning in heat, burning my skin, and covering me with cold sweat.

I felt myself shaking, I felt myself talking, but I didn’t know why I was shaking or what I was saying. I only felt so tired.

I heard voices, people were speaking–two of them, maybe three–no, just two, but their language was foreign to me. I tried opening my eyes, but I couldn’t. I tried moving my hand, but it was a lost cause. So tired.

I saw things behind my closed eyelids, shadows of things I’d already seen, though some were new to me. It was like a dream. I saw my brother, he was hurting me, the prince, too. I begged them to stop it, but they didn’t.

I felt a tear falling, it burned. I felt a hand brushing it away, it soothed.

The hand was strange to me, but I came to like its touch more and even more every time it touched my face. It felt like I wanted to feel it on me to no end.

The throbbing in my head was fading away slowly. The pain was easing. The heat was waning. And when my eyelids felt lighter, I opened them.

I wasn’t in the sunroom anymore, I was in a bed I’d never slept in before. It was a bit dark in the room, and pitch black outside the window.

On the other side of me there wasn’t a window, but there was a shockingly beautiful sight. The shocking part wasn’t related to the beauty–I’d already known of that. Nor was it the fact that the prince was lying in the bed beside me–sleeping. What shocked me was the fact that I found myself comforted by his closeness, and that deep down inside me, I wondered what it’d feel like to wake up to this face every morning. Forever.