The moment Lucy could see again, she drank in what little light there was inside the lavish but still dark room she found herself in. "What in Aslan's name was that?" she asked.
"That's not a saint I'm familiar with, your Majesty." He'd put a mask of eerie calm on to cover his earlier anger, to what purpose she wasn't sure, as the anger still rolled off him in waves.
"Aslan isn't a saint…"
"Is it commonplace for you to scream out random men's names then?" Lucy doubted this Darkling cared that Aslan wasn't a man, but she wasn't quite sure what to do. She'd always been far too direct to be much of a diplomat, and in England, nobody cared to listen to a little girl. What would Susan do? That increasingly common line of thought was interrupted by a voice she knew as well as her own.
"Don't doubt your value." Aslan's voice rang out clear as day, though she was sure she was the only one to hear it. The question then became, what should she do? If this man, she assumed, wanted her dead, he would have killed her already. Getting information about this world seemed a good place to start, and the best way she'd found to get it out of Peter was to annoy it out of him. If this Darkling needed her alive, she doubted an inquisitive nature would change his mind.
"Someone in the middle of a coup has far more important concerns than any friends I might have that bear a passing resemblance." The shock on his face, however brief, calmed her. "I've been a part of a couple coups. Not much use unless you actually deal with royalty in question."
"You seem quite young to have experienced so much."
"I also have a good bit of experience with people that are older than they look. How old are you, or did you lose track after the first couple of centuries?"/
"Your hostility is unnecessary, and it won't do you any good, no matter how perceptive you imagine yourself to be. All I want is a little information. I'm not the villain in this scenario, your Majesty. If I were, this conversation would be taking place somewhere far less pleasant." He was obviously used to getting what he wanted, either through charm or the threat of violence, and he obviously didn't think too much of her.
"You obviously got your title by rescuing puppies, my apologies. Do you have a name to go with it, or have you forgotten that too?" She might not be terribly diplomatic, but if Aslan was in this strange place, she had nothing to fear.
"My name is none of your concern. All I need from you is Alina's location."
"Who is this Alina to you?"
"The light of my life." The way he said it, she assumed it was a joke of some kind, though she didn't understand why or what it meant.
"I meant it when I said I don't know and have never met an Alina. Wherever she is though, I hope it's a good deal better than here."/
"Do you actually have a purpose where you're from, otkazat'sya,or are you just as useless as all royals?" he asked.
"I'm a healer."
"We will discuss this again. I'll find someone to escort you to some quarters in the meantime."
"You mean a cell."
"There's no need for that, your Majesty. You're powerless, alone, and in a stronghold of my power with a Grisha army that has trained for years. Even if you escaped, where would you go and to whom?"
"Is Grisha what you call your magic?" She asked as a man in a red uniform walked into the room.
"It's science. Only the ignorant think otherwise," he said as he had the man escort her out.