Arabella looked up from her book with a slow, almost languid as though she had just stirred from a nap.
When her gaze t Morpheus’s, she softened the corners of her lips into sothing that resembled a smile, yet it was the kind of smile that lived on a razor’s edge, teetering between mockery and gentle affection.
It was a smile that could be read a dozen ways depending on what one hoped to find in her eyes. With a thoughtful hum, she closed the book and allowed the faintest tune to slip from between her lips, as if she were rely passing the ti rather than sparring with one of the most powerful beings in the castle.
"I’m not sure," she said lightly, as if discussing the weather. "What do you an by hiding? I’ve been here, in my room, as I always am. And I et you during dinner and luncheon. Surely that is hardly considered ’hiding.’"
Morpheus studied her calm expression, and suspicion curled through him. She already returned to her gentle self again even though he knows well that Arabella wasn’t soone who would have just allowed pain that had cut through her skin to be brushed off as if it was nothing.
And that quietness unsettled him more than any of her anger ever had.
But perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps this obedience ca from her realizing that no matter what she tries to do, in the end he is above her, that she has no choice but to choose him.
He began to see this as how his influence must have seeped deeper into her than he could asure. Perhaps she was finally becoming pliant. Or perhaps she was simply becoming harder to read.
He didn’t question her further. Instead, he lifted a hand, and his aide hurried forward with a chair, placing it behind him with trembling hands. Morpheus sat with deliberate grace, never breaking eye contact with her.
"The marriage is only a few weeks away," he began, tone soft but laced with warning. "I worry that your third test will take more ti than we have. It would be unfortunate.... if you intended to delay it simply to avoid the wedding. You wouldn’t be trying to prolong the promise just to run, would you?"
Arabella’s fingers brushed her cheek in a thoughtful gesture, and for a mont she looked almost amused. "Hardly. I’ve been considering your tests, you see. The first was simple: to see whether you could be responsible enough to give what I asked for. In a marriage, a husband must be willing to sacrifice comfort for his wife. A man who cannot offer that shouldn’t bother aiming for vows."
Morpheus tilted his head. "And the second? Was it truly to test my strength?"
"Of course," she said matter of factly, eting his green eyes with her brown ones, unblinking. "I can’t possibly marry a weak man. That would be a tragedy for us both, don’t you think?"
A small twitch appeared at the edge of Morpheus’s brow, brief, but it spoke volu. He prided himself on being the Lord of all sorcerers, the strongest of their kind. But the truth he hated admitting, hated even thinking, was that Arabella’s power eclipsed his in ways he couldn’t easily dismiss. Her innate magic has always been more than him, more than what he could ever produce, a genius above all geniuses.
It didn’t help that she absorbed knowledge faster than seasoned sorcerers who had trained for decades.
He had feared her once purely because of that power. But now? Now the fear ran deeper, more personal.
If he could have just blad the difference in their magic was due to how artificial Arabella was, he couldn’t deny the other quality that she clearly has above him.
Because he had learned who she was beneath the magic, her unwavering heart, her calm authority, and her natural leadership.
It terrified him in ways strength alone never could. When he thought of how the sorcerers who followed him might one day turn their eyes to her. They might kneel for her. They might swear loyalty not to him, but to the future she could create.
That quiet insecurity, one he would never confess or admit, was the splinter lodged beneath his skin, the thing that festered each ti she ntioned strength, power, or leadership. So her comnt, simple as it was, struck a sore spot so precisely it was as if she’d pressed her thumb onto an open wound.
Morpheus’s aura cooled, then heated, anger simring dangerously. The air shimred faintly, magic prickling like static around him.
But Arabella continued as though nothing were amiss. She even smiled faintly, a deliberate ignorance that only made his temper twist tighter.
"The third test," Arabella announced calmly, "should be about loyalty."
Morpheus blinked once, then slowly turned to glance behind him as if expecting soone else to clarify her aning. When he found no such salvation, he looked back at her and let out a laugh, muffled behind his hand, the kind of laugh that thinly veiled unease. "I don’t think I quite understand."
"Is loyalty such a difficult thing for soone of your caliber to understand?" she replied, her voice light with mockery, but her eyes sharp enough to wound.
He lowered his hand, frowning. "Haven’t you already removed the won around ? Hasn’t that proved enough?"
Arabella’s brow arched elegantly. She smiled slowly before chuckling. Then she stared at him as though he had died, resurrected, and returned to the world with half his intelligence missing.
She rose from her chair with a sigh, her fingers brushing the tabletop as she made her way toward the window. Her silhouette cut elegantly against the light, and when she crossed her arms, the gesture held both command and disappointnt.
"Eliminating the source of an affair doesn’t make you loyal, Morpheus," she said, shrugging lightly, as if addressing a child’s misconception. "So you don’t cheat because there are no won left around you. And I’m supposed to comnd you for that?" She scoffed. "No, dear. I would only comnd you if you were surrounded by naked won writhing on your lap, yet you never touched them. Never looked at them. Never once entertained the idea of their beauty." She tilted her head, her voice growing silkier. "Only then would your loyalty an sothing. Only then would you be a man worth calling mine."
Morpheus listened, and despite himself, smiled. He looked at her as if she’s a child that hadn’t yet learnt the ways of world.
"Won are symbols of power for n, dear," he began, using the tone of a schooling adult that always got under her skin. "You haven’t learned it yet, but as a King if I have more won—"
"You’re not a king, Morpheus."
The interruption hit him like a slap. Arabella turned her gaze back to him slowly, deliberately, looking at him as though she were studying a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. "If soone is ant to control this place... this land..." She lifted her chin, confidence rolling off her in quiet waves. "Wouldn’t that soone be ?"
Morpheus’s eyes widened. For a mont, the world around him dulled, fading into distant haze. Never, not once, had he expected such a confession to co from her lips.
Yes, he always feared her power. He feared her capability. He feared how effortlessly she surpassed him.
But it had never crossed his mind, never, that Arabella might also want his throne. His position that he had controlled for so long.
She didn’t rely threaten his pride but also his reign with just a few world, enough to send Morpheus into a fright as if she had just lost her soul.
The hold he has over this world he controls so perfectly suddenly felt as if it had slipped and he looked at her no more as a doll but rather as a wild beast that he thought was ant to serve him yet sohow managed to lose itself from the leash.
And for the first ti, Morpheus realized Arabella wasn’t simply the girl he wanted.
She was the woman who could destroy him.
"Anyway," she then looked back at him with a wide bright smile, "So the third test is simple. Loyalty. In coming four days, I want you to trust . Always trust no matter what I do."
"For four days?" He was about to set his own argunt but she raised her hands towards him.
"You’re about to marry , I don’t think four days is too much to ask."
Morpheus narrowed his eyes, as if he was going to agree to it as it was already the last test anyway but was still torn, worried at what she would pull that would instead ruin this third test chance on him.
"Just four days, Morpheus. No matter what you hear, you have to trust , only keep your eyes on and never be swayed by others."
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