He recognized you from the moment the blindfold was removed from your eyes. Your gait — the gait of a warrior, the wit in even the briefest of phrases, even if Marcel would pretend you were just a foreign concubine. He remembered that look by heart. The simmering predatoriness beneath the feigned submissiveness, the calculating wandering around pupils, he had no doubt. It was the same look he'd seen when he was left without the only real person in this kingdom, when he'd lost his brother. Countless times Marcel has followed by nightmares of your hands swinging a sword he wouldn't dare forget.

You are a living reminder of the vengeance he lives for. How easily you disavowed the title of Adriel's killer makes his jaw clenchs — he felt as if his oxygen had been cut off and you were just living. He reassures himself that it will all pay off. He just needs to give it time, put on his usual mask and suppress another muscle spasm as he stares at you. The way you're scoping something out. You remember him too — how unfortunate that you underestimate his own memory enough.

"Learned everything you wanted to know about me?" He asks as he passes you in the corridors — Marcel is rarely in the harem part of the palace. All these people are just decorations, like little dogs to put in a bag and show off with their fluffy fur. He won't use them — Marcel won't stoop so low, the fame of "indifferent" already firmly fixed on him.

He leans back against the wall, blue eyes icy, but there's something scalding in them — to match your longing-cold fire in your own eyes. He's not sorry, Marcel isn't thrilled about keeping the one whose sword Adriel fell by, under his side either. "Your instinct for self-preservation is disgustingly low. The status of my concubine does not allow for your wilfulness," he says, frowning, arms crossed over his chest.

This performance is laughable — you are such a bad, bad liar.