Chapter 157: Apparently, Zorathys Has ’Always Cared About His Subjects’
Chapter 157: Apparently, Zorathys Has ’Always Cared About His Subjects’
Elyn’s POV
I noticed the distance first.
Or rather—the lack of it.
I was still catching my breath when the music cut off, the echo of the last note dissolving into the high ceilings, leaving only the sound of my own heartbeat pounding far too loudly in my ears. Zorathys’s arm was firm around my waist, his hand steady at my back, and I was close enough to him that the warmth of his body seeped through the thin layers of fabric between us.
Too close.
There was barely any space at all.
If I leaned forward even slightly—just a fraction—I could kiss him.
The thought hit me like a spark to dry tinder, sudden and alarming and very unwelcome, considering how fast my heart immediately betrayed me. My pulse leapt, racing as if it had somewhere urgent to be, and I became acutely aware of everything at once: the slow rise and fall of his chest, the faint scent of smoke—I don’t know how, but I’m certain it was smoke—clinging to him, the way his ruby eyes were fixed on my face with an intensity that made my stomach do something deeply unhelpful. The way his earrings glinted in the light and how it seemed to just enhance his beauty.
I didn’t even register the words he said to me. I didn’t care that he even said anything.
This was bad.
Very bad.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry, and forced myself not to stare at his mouth like a fool who had never seen lips before.
Say something, Elyn. Anything. Right now would be a good time to talk about the weather or how it should be called flip-flops and not glop flips.
But before I could manage even a single coherent thought, Zorathys blinked.
Then he yawned loudly.
A full, unapologetic, jaw-stretching yawn that pulled his attention entirely away from me and shattered the moment immediately.
"I’m tired," he said flatly, voice rough with exhaustion. "We’re done for today."
I froze in shock.
"...What?"
"That lesson," he continued, releasing me as if I weighed nothing at all, already stepping back and creating a very deliberate amount of space between us, "just took several years off my life, and I’m tired. I preferred when you had no idea how to dance. That gave me more energy."
He turned away, rubbing at his eyes as though he hadn’t just obliterated my internal organs with emotional whiplash. The air between us felt abruptly colder without his presence, and I stood there, stupidly staring at the spot where his hand had been seconds ago.
How was it that I had been thinking about how close we were and how, if I closed the distance between us, our lips could touch—and this... this demon was instead thinking of how he would love to rest because he was apparently tired from teaching me?
"What?" I asked in disbelief.
My ears were playing a trick on me. I was sure of it.
He waved a hand dismissively. "I need to rest, Firefly. The lecture we just had was exhausting. I’m sure I just got older."
I was this close to hitting him upside the head.
I folded my arms, trying very hard to ignore how fast my heart was still beating—don’t ask me why it was still beating fast. As far as I’m concerned, my heart was a traitor.
Who would have thought I’d react to someone as lazy and as infuriating as Zorathys? Definitely not me.
"Aren’t you immortal?" I asked Zorathys.
He shrugged lazily. "Yes."
"Then how exactly did I take years off your life?"
He glanced back at me, eyes half-lidded with fatigue. "Immortality doesn’t mean you can’t suffer."
I stared at him for a moment before rolling my eyes. "That doesn’t make any sense. How did I make you suffer?"
"By taking years off my life."
"But you are immortal."
"Even immortals wither at some point, Firefly."
I paused. "Really?"
"No, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen," he told me.
I took a slow breath, then another, focusing on calming myself down before my face decided to reveal just how close I had come to doing something that would result in picking up Zorathys and dropping him on his head from the tallest building in the realm. I turned slightly away from him, pretending to adjust my sleeves while willing my traitorous pulse to behave.
"Anyway," I said, once I was confident my voice wouldn’t crack.
I turned and noticed he was trying to sneak out of the room.
"Where do you think you are going?" I asked him.
He turned to me with a frown. "To rest. You just told me to get some rest."
"No, I didn’t tell you to get some rest," I told him.
"But I told you I was tired."
"Yes, and you said you needed to rest, not that I told you to rest," I said to him.
He blinked. "Isn’t that the same thing?"
"No!" I said to him. "And besides, you shouldn’t even think about leaving."
"But why, Firefly?" he whined. "I’m exhausted."
"I don’t care."
"But I do," he told me.
That wasn’t my problem.
"You’re not going anywhere," I continued, "until you call Naviel and explain why there’s suddenly a date set for the introductory ball."
The effect was immediate.
Zorathys went completely still.
Shock flickered across his face so quickly I almost missed it—just a brief, unguarded moment before his expression smoothed back into something far more controlled. He stared at me as though I’d just spoken in an ancient, forgotten tongue.
"...Why," he asked slowly, "are you still concerned about the date of the ball?"
I tilted my head. "Because you still haven’t given me a suitable answer."
His eyes sharpened. "I told you to ask Naviel."
"Yes," I said patiently, "and that wasn’t a suitable answer."
"But I said Naviel would have more knowledge about the date," he argued.
I nodded. "You did, and I told you to summon Naviel now so I could ask him, but you said you couldn’t disturb him because apparently he was sleeping."
"But it’s not my fault that he was sleeping, though," he told me.
"And that’s why I’m telling you to call him or summon him here so I can clarify for myself."
"But he’s asleep," Zorathys argued. "I don’t disturb my subjects when they’re sleeping. Naviel deserves his rest—especially considering how much he’s been working."
I stared at him in shock. Anyone hearing him now would think he actually cared about Naviel that much—to not put him through too much work—but that wasn’t true. Zorathys abandoned all his work to Naviel and Ignivar whenever he had the opportunity.
"...Since when do you care about Naviel’s rest?" I asked him.
"I always care," he said quickly—and I didn’t even need someone to tell me it was a lie to know it was. "Sometimes the work we do makes me incapable of acting like I care," he said to me.
"Zorathys... I’m going to hold your hand while I say this, but you and I both know what you just said was a lie—and a terrible one at that," I told him. "It’s not going to work on me."
He paused. "That bad, huh?" he asked me.
I nodded. "Extremely so."
"Oh."
"Summon Naviel," I told him.
He looked back at me, unimpressed. "You’re persistent."
"We both know that," I told him.
He opened his mouth to retort—then stopped as a sharp knock echoed through the hall.
We both turned toward the door.
There was a brief pause, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone clearing their throat—polite, restrained, and far too familiar.
"You summoned me, Your Highness?" Naviel said, adjusting his glasses.