Click.
Click.
Click.
King Stefan locked each padlock on the door devotedly, grunting from the effort. Only when they were all secure did he dare to relax. No assassins would be able to enter his bedchamber tonight. Not his own guards- or even his own sniveling queen- would disturb him.
And then, to his horror, the king heard a cough behind him.
A young man stepped out of the shadows boldly, his teeth bared in a wolfish grin. The candlelight revealed the scars disfiguring his entire body, snaking down his arms and cupping his jawline.
"Not much of a king, are you?" The young man said easily, his hands tucked into his traveling coat. Veins of brilliant scarlet marred his pale face. "Not much of a man either, by the looks of it."
"I demand you leave this instant." Stefan spat, his face turning red from anger, his eyes bright with demented hate.
Diaval felt his stomach turn. This was the man that had broken his mistress. He was the cause of the anguish in her iridescent eyes, the reason she hid and hurt and hated. This loathsome beast had taken so much more than her wings. Diaval stepped closer, his eyes glinting dangerously in the dim light.
"Where are your guards? Are you so paranoid even in your own castle that you keep them away?"
Stefan's fists clenched and unclenched as he assessed the scarred intruderer, his caution emerging.
"Who are you?" Stefan asked, his back straightening. "Why are you here?"
Diaval cocked his head to the side peculiarly. The gesture was oddly birdlike.
"You perspire when you're nervous, you know that?" Stefan flushed with anger.
"Who the hell are you?!" Diaval's face darkened, shedding his sarcastic flair in an instant.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"I, oh king," Diaval snarled, standing tall. "I am Diaval the shape-shifter, the skin-changer, the storm-crow. Chosen attendant of the Lady of the Moors."
Stefan's proud face drained of color. He pointed a shaking finger at Diaval.
"Y-you belong to that- to that she-witch?!"
"Hold your tongue!" Diaval hissed, fury like he had never experienced before- never even imagined possible before- was roaring in his ears. "How dare you talk about her that way!"
"And you're one of them." Stefan laughed senselessly, his hands pulling at his graying hair as he paced agitatedly around the room. "A faerie. She's sent you to kill me then?"
"She doesn't know I'm here." Diaval replied tightly. "I wanted to see you for myself. You truly are the most foul-"
"COWARD!" The king shrieked, though not at Diaval. His raging eyes were at the ceiling, the bed, the door. "I should have slit your throat, you spineless witch!" Stefan grabbed a table next to the four-poster and threw it to the floor, the wood cracking with the force. Stefan's eyes searched the room hungrily, landing on Diaval. Stefan advanced, his hands shaking uncontrollably, his nostrils flared.
"I could have slit her throat right then." The king thundered, his voice husky. "Groveling at my feet she was, the disgusting creature. So desperate for me, so helpless. Not a day goes by that I don't regret that I didn't just murder her. If she were here, oh, I'd-"
CRACK!
The king stumbled away with a howl of pain, clutching his nose as blood dripped out onto the rich carpet. Diaval shook his fist, his knuckles stinging. He paid the pain no mind. His blood boiled beneath his skin.
"If I ever here you talk about her like that again…" Diaval growled, the shadows in the room clinging onto him. "You'll have more to worry about than her. Consider that a warning, your majesty. Stay away from the Moors. And if you touch Maleficent..." The threat hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine.
And with that the young man was gone, escaping out the tower window. King Stefan rushed to the window, but he had simply vanished into the night air.
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