It took me only a couple of seconds to realize what it was. My cheek was pressed against a sweaty chest. I pulled back, my nose wrinkling in disgust while I wiped my hand across my cheek dramatically. I looked up at an amused Untouchable prince. “Really?” escaped my lips.
He let out a laugh. “Why is it you’re always sneaking around my palace?”
“It’s not yours, but I can see that you’ve been trying to make it your own,” I said, glancing at his bare chest meaningfully, but then a frown pulled on my lips. “Why are you sweaty anyway?” My eyes ran to the doorway he’d been exiting when I’d run into him, something dawning on me. “Please tell me that’s not your . . .” harem, I finished in my head.
He chuckled, running a hand across the aforementioned chest. “No.”
“Then what were you—” I cut myself off when an equally sweaty man exited behind him. Roldan. “Oh, how nice. Brawling. Because you both need to learn how to be more violent,” I said wryly.
Roldan eyed me like I was a bug beneath his feet, but never said a word. His stare crept under my skin, and I itched to leave his presence. But when my gaze dropped to his stomach, I faltered. I imagined I left a good scar on him, as I did his brother ages ago, though I’d never know because scars crisscrossed his entire torso. It looked like he took the brunt of severe beatings. I imagined this was the proof of why he was the way he was.
I cleared my throat. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Maxim grabbed my arm before I could walk around them. “What are you doing here? Weston’s room is not in this direction.”
I pulled my arm out of his grip. “I’ve business here. And it’s not with Weston,” I bit out. I didn’t like the way his tone insinuated that I was Weston’s whore.
He shook his head, letting out a breath of annoyance. “With whom?”
“The palace’s true prince.”
His eyes narrowed in thought. “Who?”
Did he not know about Talon? Symbia’s prince with his own room in the dungeons? A wrinkle of suspicion went through me. Maybe no one had told Maxim of his presence. But surely Maxim would know . . . right? My chest tightened. Had Talon somehow been another trick of the seal’s all together?
“Fine,” he said. “I don’t care what you’re up to. But stay out of trouble.” Then he walked away, muttering, “I do not envy him.”
Roldan watched me for a moment, while I returned his gaze, before tossing his shirt over his shoulder and heading down the hallway.
I let out a breath as he left, my heart beating heavily in my chest. So heavily that I was worried he could hear it. I couldn’t do anything to protect myself from him as a Sister. And I couldn’t deny the man’s presence sent a shiver of fear down my spine every time he was near. I shook it off, heading down the stairs, but with the curling suspicion building about the Mad Prince, I stopped a servant girl rushing up the stone steps. “Miss?”
She halted, her
eyes wide. “Don’t ask me to go back down there, missus.”
I let out a relieved breath. Talon’s existence must have been kept from Maxim for whatever reason. “What’d he do now?”
“He just gives me the shivers, that prince. Going on and on about time, and then when I gave him his food, and there wasn’t a fork, I thought he would kill me.”
“Yea, probably best not to give him that fork.”
She did a small curtsy before running up the stairs.
I pushed open his door, closing it with a quiet click behind me. He was working on his clock with a full tray of food sitting on the table beside him. Relief filled me and my suspicions dissipated.
“How do you know what is real and what is illusion?” I asked, leaning against the door.
“Everything is an illusion.”
My brows knitted. “How so?”
“Everything you see is processed by your eyes to your mind. It’s only your illusion of what is real.”
“Huh. So how do you know what an illusion is within an illusion?” That sentence was confusing to even myself, but I had to work with this prince to get any of the answers I sought.
“Easy.” I waited for a response, and finally, “You don’t. Not if it is a good one.”
I frowned. “So you just let this illusion run its course in your life? What do you do when it haunts you?”