Oath of Steel

15 |A Semblance of Collaboration|

Guilt was not what she'd experienced when she decided to say nothing to both Pharah and her majesty, she would have brought up the argument soon, but there were still many things she needed to find out before even trying to explain what exactly Verity seemed to be.

Verity, Madame Hellenia, the dried windflower that seemed to connect them all. Too many variables that Rosalynde had to keep her eyes on without fail.

For a moment Rosalynde nearly forgot why she'd been sent there, and taking the papers that her majesty had entrusted her she handed them to Grey, who in response raised an eyebrow at her gesture.

The document now in Grey's hand represented a temporary truce from both sides.

"Come on Mary Clark, open those traitor eyes of yours," Rosalynde chuckled with a venomous sweetness as she made her fingers dig holes in the passed out woman's wrists.

"That's going to leave a nasty mark," she side-eyed him with what the philosophers of the ancient times would call sheer exasperation, her eyes narrowing before a whimper made her snap back to meet the now terrorized eyes of Clark.

Keeping her nails locked on the woman's carpus, Rosalynde tilted her head slowly, her smile widening once before it started morphing into a predatory grin.

"Hello Mary Clark, you and I are going to have a long chat, you know?" She heard Grey's footsteps before his handsome face came into view, taking position behind the armchair where Clark had been placed.

He said nothing, his perpetual silence making her deemed it right to continue the unilateral chat she'd been having with Clark.

"Do you know why I'm here Mary?" Clark shook her head violently at that, the purest form of dread showing up in her eyes, a deep brown the same color of the chestnuts before they fell in autumn.

"It's because you've been lurking behind my back Mary," Rosalynde patted Mary's right cheek twice gently, as if praising a child for a test gone good.

Rosalynde had learned from a young age that calling people with their first name instead of their surname had more chance of destabilizing their psyche, Lord Regulus had once told her how the effect took place, but the reason seemed to fail her mind as she kept her eyes on the latter.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Clark replied, a whisper of reply coming out of her lips.

"She's lying," Grey stated all of a sudden, his eyes never leaving Clark's back from where he was standing.

Rosalynde raised her gaze to stare at him, her inquisitive eyes silently asking how he knew that in the first place. If, of course, he hadn't said that to see if she was able to come up with a strategy to actually use that three word long sentence to her advantage.

"No I'm not!" Clark screamed back. But Rosalynde had now shifted her attention to gaze, leaving Clark to scream at the four winds.

"You say she's lying?"

"Oh yes, I can vouch for that if you want, cross my heart with my soul descending to the deepest pits of the Helian definition of Hell if that's what you want. That, or whatever futile gesture to make you trust me for the affordable time we can define as half a minute," he sounded sincere, eyes not lying as she agreed with an obvious tone of sufficiency pending from her lips.

Turning back to Clark, Rosalynde took out from under her sleeves the same knife from before, making its sharp edge slide down the cheek of the latter, a thin line of red all that was left in its path.

"Let's play a game, it's called yes or no. I'm going to ask you a question and you'll have to answer, no shake or nod of head, if you convince me I'll spare your life," She heard a foot stomping to the floor, Grey's polish sole being the culprit of such despising single sound.