Filed To Story: Spit or Swallow: Kiss Of The Basilisk
With a single word, Caspen had reestablished distance between them. It didn’t matter that she had pressed her lips to his neck, that he had pulled her closer when she had done so. It didn’t matter that he’d given her an orgasm and squeezed her throat when she came. He was her teacher and she was his student and he was training her for a role-nothing more.
Tem ate the rest of her food in silence.
When she was done, Caspen walked her to the head of the trail. Then he turned without a word and disappeared into the darkness.
***
Tem was a mess of nerves the entire next day. Nothing she did alleviated the twist of anticipation she felt whenever she thought about going to the castle. Normally, she would seek out Gabriel for relief. But he was busy helping the kitchen staff prepare for the event tonight, so there was nothing left to do but help her mother around the farm and try not to think about how slowly time was passing. To make matters worse, she couldn’t stop picturing what had happened last night in the cave. Every time she thought about Caspen’s cock in her hand, she felt a deep ache between her legs that made her want to run to her bedroom and never see daylight again.
The afternoon passed in a daze of chores and errands, the hours sliding by in a meaningless blur. Caspen sent no pulses. Tem hardly heard her mother when she spoke; she barely registered the crowing of the roosters. It was only when she had to visit the bakery to drop off the daily allotment of eggs that Tem was forced to engage in a conversation that lasted more than two words. It was with Vera, and as always, it was unbearable.
“So, Tem, are you ready to meet the prince tonight? I have my dress picked out already, of course. Brand-new and made of the finest pink silk you’ve ever seen. What will you be wearing?”
“Oh,” Tem said, wishing she could drown herself in the vat of chocolate behind Vera. “I hadn’t thought about it. One of my mother’s dresses, I guess.”
“You’re going to wear something used in front of the prince?” Vera scoffed. She was counting the eggs so slowly Tem felt as if time were flowing backward. “That’s rather embarrassing, don’t you agree?”
Tem did agree, but it didn’t change the fact that she had no other dress to wear. “I’m in a hurry,” she said instead, which only made Vera’s sneer deepen.
“Where could you possibly have to be? Can’t the chickens lay eggs without you?”
“Would you just hurry the fuck up?” Tem snapped.
Vera’s mouth fell open. Tem was almost as surprised as she was. Throughout all the years of cruel teasing, Tem had never retaliated against Vera.
“There’s no need to be rude,” Vera said, her heart-shaped face scrunched in disapproval. “That kind of attitude won’t get you anywhere with the prince.”
“It got me somewhere with the Serpent King,” Tem shot back.
If Vera was shocked before, she was livid now. Her eyebrows pulled together, and she leaned over the counter, narrowing her eyes at Tem.
“You’re with the Serpent King? You’re joking.”
Tem leaned in too, holding eye contact. “I’m not joking. And as you know, his girls are always chosen. So I may not have a new dress, but I doubt I’ll need one to catch the eye of the prince.”
Tem snatched up her payment and left before Vera could say another word.
By the time it was finally evening, the thrill of defying Vera was long gone, and Tem was oscillating between tentative courage and absolute terror. The claw hadn’t pulsed all day, and she had no idea what that meant. Surely, on today of all days, Caspen would think of her. But then she remembered how he’d called her his “student,” and the wall of shame came crashing down once again. Of course he wasn’t thinking of her. She was thinking of him because she was an overeager girl who somehow kept forgetting that her teacher was a deadly creature who could kill her with a single glance. How painfully predictable of her.
She was in the garden aggressively weeding the walkway when her mother approached.
“A package came for you.”
Tem looked up in surprise. “What is it?”
Her mother shrugged. “I didn’t open it.”
“Who brought it by?”
“It was on the porch when I returned from the coop. I put it on your bed.”
For some reason, this news sent Tem’s heart into a canter. Before she had time to wonder who it was from, the claw pulsed. Caspen. It had to be.
Tem practically sprinted to her room, feeling lighter than she had in hours.
The package was wrapped in black paper and tied with gold ribbon. Tem touched the ribbon first, running the tip of her finger gently over its length. When she pulled on the end, the knot unraveled easily, the paper falling open to reveal a shimmering pile of fabric. Tem held it up and saw it was a dress. Unlike the linen dress she had planned to borrow from her mother, this one was made of silk, no doubt like the one Vera had bragged about earlier. It was deep emerald in color, and Tem knew Caspen had chosen it to complement her skin tone.
Tem was brutally torn by the gesture. If the dress was meant to make her prettier, did that mean the basilisk wanted the prince to find her attractive? And if he did, did last night mean nothing to him?
Something glinted on the bed, and Tem set the dress aside to see a gold necklace nestled in the paper. When she picked it up, she saw there was a small charm attached. It was deeply polished and shiny, glinting in the candlelight. With a gasp, she realized it was a claw-a perfect miniature of the one inside her. She stared at it in awe. Tem had never owned anything gold before. It was an expensive metal-a metal that Tem and her mother could never afford, a luxury reserved only for the royals. Tem had only one piece of jewelry to her name, a dull silver ring she wore on holidays. The ring paled in comparison to the necklace.
Tem immediately put it on.
The chain was long; the charm fell directly between her breasts. She knew Caspen had made it so, and at the thought, a pulse immediately began to build. Here he was finally, after an unbearable day of silence. Tem barely had time to close the door to her room before she was on the bed, her hand between her legs. Her other hand was clasped over her mouth; she knew her mother was mere feet away and would surely hear her cry out. She tried to stay silent through the pulses, but it was utterly useless. Caspen was sending them so quickly, she could barely catch her breath. It was as if he wanted to overwhelm her, forcing her to feel his presence one last time before tonight.
Tem could hear her mother making dinner and knew she would leave soon to get vegetables from the garden. The moment she heard the door slam, Tem finished triumphantly, arching her back with a moan. She could feel Caspen’s pleasure, and it matched her own. There was something desperate about their connection tonight, and she wondered if it was because of what would happen later that evening. She lay gasping on the bed, trying to catch her breath, the gold chain tangled around her neck.
She bathed before putting on the dress, finding that it fit perfectly. It hugged her in all the right places, turning her body into something it had never been before-something meant to entice a prince. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to accentuate its length before realizing what she was doing and stopping immediately. She liked her curls. The prince had better like them too.
“Tem?” Her mother was knocking on her bedroom door. “It’s time.”
When Tem emerged into the kitchen, her mother’s hands flew to her mouth in shock.
Her mother spoke before she could. “There’s a carriage waiting for you outside. It will take you to the castle.”
Tem nodded. She had no cloak that would match the luxury of the dress, so instead she went without, stepping into the chilly night and winding down the garden path to the awaiting black carriage. A footman helped her inside, and she sat on the soft velvet bench before looking up at the ceiling, where the royal insignia was etched in gold leaf. It depicted a snake dueling with a rooster. The snake was twisted in obvious pain, trampled beneath the spiny feet of the rooster. It was a clear homage to the war, specifically to the victors. Tem knew that the royals bore the snake on many of their personal items as a reminder of what they had overcome. Personally, she saw it as a taunt. She couldn’t imagine how a basilisk would feel looking at it.
As the carriage climbed the long hill to the castle, Tem thought about the evening. She was looking forward to seeing Gabriel, since she knew he would be working. But that was the extent of her excitement. The night was sure to be a long, insufferable sequence of formalities. No doubt she would be put on display, paraded around to the royals so they could see their potential newest member.
Tem clasped her hands together tightly.
And then there was the prince. She wondered if she would meet him tonight or if he’d keep his distance from the contestants. Caspen had said he wished to “see” his potential future wives. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk to them. If it were Tem choosing her future partner, she’d want ample opportunity to get to know them. But that would come later, she supposed. After all, the elimination process hadn’t even begun. The first elimination would happen next week, after the prince had a chance to kiss each girl. That was the traditional timeline, and that was the way things had been done for centuries.
The carriage wound to a halt.
“We’ve arrived, miss,” the footman said when he opened the door.
Tem took a deep breath, unclasped her hands, and climbed out of the carriage. They had parked right in front of the castle, and Tem stared up at the enormous double doors in awe. She had never been here before. She’d only looked up at the castle from down in the village, seeing it from the very bottom of the hill, where it resembled a fancy dollhouse. Now that she was seeing it in person, she realized just how large it was. It sprawled for what felt like miles, its walls made of stones that almost seemed to glitter. When Tem got closer, she saw that the grout holding the bricks together was full of crushed pieces of mirror. Of course the castle would have a last line of defense built right into its structure. As she reached the doors, they swung open.
The first thing Tem noticed was the gold.
It was everywhere: framing the oil paintings on the walls, brushed in intricate patterns on the wallpaper, interlaced in whorls of wood. It was even beneath her feet, flecked into the marble tile of the entryway. Tem had never seen such a blatant display of wealth.
“Name?” a voice asked her.
Tem turned to see a man in a black robe holding a ledger and looking at her expectantly. “Temperance Verus.”
The man consulted the ledger before giving her a brief nod. “Right this way.”
He ushered her through the entryway into a long hall lined with thick maroon carpet. Tem barely had time to blink before he pushed her through another door.
“Don’t wander,” he said before snapping it shut behind her.
Tem was immediately overwhelmed with noise.
She was standing at the edge of a giant ballroom filled with people, most of whom seemed to be well on their way to getting drunk. Tem spotted a few residents of the village, but mostly she was in the presence of royals. She remembered how Gabriel had mentioned that Henry would be ferrying people in from neighboring villages. She could tell which royals weren’t from around here by the way they dressed. Some were wearing furs despite the fact that snow wouldn’t arrive for several more weeks.
Tem set her sights on the tables at the far end of the ballroom, which were piled high with food. The selection resembled the food that Caspen had given her in the cave: fancy meats and cheeses arranged in delicate displays. Tem grabbed a handful of nuts and shoved them into her mouth as she scanned the crowd for Gabriel. To her dismay, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, her eyes fell on Vera, who was giggling in a corner with another girl. When they looked over at Tem, the giggling stopped immediately. Tem gave them a condescending wave, knowing full well that by now, Vera would have told everyone who would listen that Tem was being trained by the Serpent King. The wave was not returned.
The ballroom was lined with thick marble columns, elaborately decorated with carvings of Kora. Like everything else in the castle, they were accented with gold. Tem couldn’t comprehend why such an excessive display of wealth was necessary. Everyone knew the royals were rich, but she had no idea the inside of the castle looked like this. She stared at the tables loaded with food. She thought of the many nights in her cottage when she and her mother had gone to bed hungry. It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right.