Ch 84: Amber And Lucien

Princess Amber sat rigid in the chair, petrified to her very soul as she gazed at those silver pupils of Lucien. His eyes belonged to a man who would, without a moment's notice, cut her in half without granting her even the faintest chance to react.

She was so unnerved by his expression that she began clenching her fists tightly, desperately searching for strength in whatever thing she could find.

Amber cursed herself for coming to visit him. She should have never walked into this den of a beast, should have refrained from approaching him alone, but she was inside the academy's building and within the office of the most esteemed youngest professor, so she had not thought much of it. Rather, she had not once imagined she would encounter this side of Lucien.

Lucien was throwing daggers at her with his gaze alone. His face was tilted, his chin resting on his right hand curled into a fist, his elbow propped on the armrest. He stared at her with such ferocious intensity, without a single blink, that she felt her chest tightening and her breathing growing harder. Her heart hammered against her ribcage and electric currents zipped down her spine from fear alone.

Why is he so intense today? the princess thought. And why is he glaring at me with such intensity?

Amber did not have the answers to her questions and she could find none either, because Lucien's face was utterly impassive, not betraying even a single emotion, as though he had sealed his feelings away in a box and cast it into the ocean, never to be retrieved.

"Speak," Lucien said, in a quiet voice, and yet she could tell immediately that something in it was not quite right. It was strained and cold, laced with a barely restrained anger that coiled beneath every syllable.

Amber drew a deep breath and held his gaze despite how tightly her hands clenched, her nails just short of breaking the skin of her palms and drawing blood.

"What have you done to Eleena? She has not been herself since this morning," the princess said, and she did not stop, unwilling to let the hard-won courage she had scraped together to die so easily. "Eleena had not been well since yesterday, but today she is even worse, she is walking around like a corpse."

Lucien did not react. He did not blink. His silver pupils did not waver even once and continued boring into the princess with that same unrelenting calm.

"How would I know the reason for that?" Lucien returned, his voice thick with restrained irritation, as though he was holding himself back from slamming his fist straight through the desk that stood between them.

Amber felt a shudder crawl down her spine at the sound of his voice. It was thin and controlled, as though he was suppressing the very strong urge to cut her tongue out.

She would have taken a step back had she been standing, but since she was seated, she placed both hands flat on the armrests, ready to spring to her feet and run if Lucien so much as twitched.

"I believe you are the reason for it," the princess pressed, her voice steadier than she felt. "She was well on her very first day, but ever since you returned to the academy, she has changed." The princess had come this far, and despite the fear flooding every corner of her chest, she refused to leave empty-handed. She needed answers, or at the very least some kind of clue, because since morning Eleena had become a completely different person, so hollow and distant that it seemed as though her soul had been stripped clean from her body. Even her lips were still, bearing none of the warmth or excitement that Amber had witnessed on the very first day.

Lucien kept his chin resting on his right fist. He extended his left hand, which had been resting on the opposite armrest, out toward the desk, and for one terrible moment Amber imagined he meant to reach for her throat. Instead, his fingers landed on the wooden surface and began tapping it hard and sharp.

"I don't know," Lucien said, and his voice dropped to something even quieter and more dangerous, "and it would be wise of you to stop asking me this. Unless..."

"Unless what?" the princess pressed, even as fear crept through her body entirely. She was still within the academy walls and she was the princess of the empire. What could Lucien possibly do to her here? He was rumoured to fear no one, she knew that well enough, but that did not mean he had lost all reason. He would not do something reckless and unnecessary.

Right?

“Aaaahhhh!” Amber screamed as a hand suddenly came down on her right shoulder.

She spun around instantly and found Lucien standing directly before her. Her eyes flew to the chair where he had been seated a breath ago but it was empty, and the blood drained from her face so fast she felt the very fabric of reality was turning upside down.

She looked up at Lucien with wide, meek eyes.

"You should go back to your class," Lucien said, and with a flick of his hand, the door of the room swung open on its own.

The princess had barely parted her lips to speak when he leaned toward her and silenced her by pressing the tip of his index finger against her lips. "I strongly advise you to leave this room," Lucien murmured, his voice so utterly cold it was completely devoid of feeling. Being this close to his face made her stumble backward, the legs of her chair scraping sharply against the floor.

"Who are you?" the princess breathed, unable to believe how much Lucien had changed.

She had played with him as a child, had seen him smile and laugh, and the memory felt like it belonged to a different person entirely. Over the years she had watched every trace of warmth disappear from him, and after his engagement to Eleena had been broken, she had seen him far less, only at the occasional banquet where they had barely exchanged a word. But even so, she had no memory of him being like this. He had become cold over the years, yes, but having not truly interacted with him in so many years, she was entirely unprepared for this version of Lucien.

"I am Lucien," he replied, and stepped toward her. The princess shot to her feet at once. He stopped just before her and angled his head down to look at her, his height making her feel small and cornered. He reached out and took her chin between his fingers. "I asked you to leave my room right now," he said, his voice measured and deliberate. "Do you hear me?"

His voice was cold and his touch was even more cold.

The princess nodded quickly, the fear having gutted her completely from the inside. She turned on her heel and walked in hurried strides toward the open door, and just before stepping out, she glanced back one final time at Lucien, who had already turned away.

All Princess Amber could see was his back, perfectly straight like a pillar, bearing not even the faintest resemblance to that of a human.

***

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