Worse, she found that she could not move.
Alizeh blinked desperately against the jet black, willing her eyes to adjust to the impenetrable darkness, to widen their aperture enough to find a single spark of light, all to no avail. The more desperate she grew, the harder it became to remain calm; she felt her heart beat faster in her chest, her pulse fluttering in her throat.
The prince moved, suddenly, touching her as he shifted, his hands circling her waist. He lifted her, just slightly, to adjust himself, but he made no effort to put space between their bodies.
In fact, he drew her closer.
“I beg your pardon,” he whispered in her ear. “But do you intend to sit on me in perpetuity?”
Alizeh felt a bit faint, and she did not know then whether to blame the dark or the nearness of the prince, whose ever-increasing proximity had begun to brew a counterintuitive cure for her panic. His closeness somehow dulled the sharpest edge of her fear, imbuing in her now an unexpected calm.
She unclenched by degrees, sinking slowly against him with unconscious effort; every inch she conceded he easily claimed, drawing her deeper into his warmth, more fully into his embrace. His body heat soon enveloped her so completely that she imagined, for the length of the most sublime moment, that the ice in her veins had begun to thaw, that she might presently puddle at his feet. Without a sound she sighed, sighed as relief coursed through her frozen blood. Even her racing pulse began to steady.
She could not name this remedy.
She only knew he was strong—she could feel it even now—his limbs heavy and solid, his broad chest the ideal place to rest her head. Alizeh had been desperately fatigued for years; she was overwhelmed then by an illogical desire to wrap the comforting weight of his arms around her body and sleep. She wanted to close her eyes, wanted to drift off at long last without fear, without worry.
She’d not felt safe in so long.
The prince sat forward an inch and his jaw skimmed her cheek, hard and soft planes touching, retreating.
She heard him exhale.
“I haven’t the slightest idea what we’re doing,” he said softly. “Though if you mean to take me captive, you need only ask. I would come willingly.”
Alizeh almost laughed, grateful for the reprieve. She focused her fractured consciousness on the prince, allowing his voice, his weight, to orient her. He seemed to her so wonderfully concrete, so certain not only of himself, but of the world he occupied. Alizeh, by contrast, often felt like a ship lost at sea, tossed about in every storm, narrowly avoiding disaster at every turn. She was struck, then, by a strange thought: that she might never be shipwrecked if she had such an anchor to steady her.
“If I tell you something,” Alizeh whispered, her hand curling unconsciously around his forearm. “Will you promise not to tease me?”
“Absolutely not.”
She made a sound in her throat, something mournful.
“Very well.” He sighed. “Go on.”
“I’m a bit afraid of the dark.”
It was a moment before he said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Petrified, actually. I’m petrified of the dark. I feel very nearly paralyzed right now.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I am, quite.”
“You killed five men last night—in the dark—and you expect me to believe this blather?”
“It’s true,” she insisted.
“I see. If you’ve constructed this falsehood merely to safeguard your modesty, you should know that it only undermines your intelligence, for the lie is too weak to be believed. You would be better off simply admitting that you find me attractive and wish to be near m—”
Alizeh made a sound of protest, so horrified she shot straight up and stumbled, her injured knee having been locked in one position for too long. She caught herself against her old cot and stifled a cry, clinging to the thin mattress with both hands.
Her heart beat harder in her chest.
She shivered violently as her body filled again with frost; her terror, too, had returned, this time with a force that shook her knees. In the absence of the prince—the absence of his heat, his reliable form—Alizeh felt cold and exposed. The darkness had grown somehow more vicious without him near; more likely to devour her whole. She stretched trembling hands out before her, reaching blindly for an exit that refused to illuminate.
She knew, intellectually, that hers was an irrational fear—knew the illusion was only in her head—
Still, it claimed her.
It gripped her mind with two fists and spun her into a vortex of senselessness. It was all she could think, suddenly, that she did not want to die here, compressed by the darkness of the earth. She did not want to be abandoned by the sun, the moon, the stars; did not want to be inhaled whole by the force of the expanding universe.