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~Vaela 

"Ah!" My palms slap over my eyes, the image of the man burned into the back of my eyelids.

"Who are you?" The voice questions. It’s a deep, rich sound that spreads over me, slightly accented. 

I’m imagining this. 

I must be. There is no conceivable way that I just saw a tall man with silver tattoos standing at what I now realise is a doorway. Thankfully his bare chest was all I got an eyeful of, and not any lower down…

My fingers part slightly as I peek through them. I am not imagining this. 

The man is now fully dressed, which took him only mere moments. His dark shirt reveals the silver tattoos I thought were a trick of the light, patterned in an unfamiliar way.

They aren’t, however, as striking his eyes, which now regard me irritably. They too, are silver, although have a lighter hue than his tattoos. He’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. 

This isn’t a cave dweller…He’s far too pretty. 

"You were naked..." I whisper, mortified. 

"This is my home,” he responds.

There isn’t malice, like I would have expected from my intrusion. Instead, he’s rather stoic, unintimidated by my presence…If I had half his stature, I too wouldn’t find me to be much of a threat. 

And then it hits me.

"Pureblood?" My voice quivers, as my eyes trace over him. 

I don’t dare say Immortal Prince. There’s no confirmation of who he is, but he owns that title. I can even imagine a crown atop his obsidian hair, silver and jewelled. 

He examines me quietly. "Mortal?"

"How did you..."

"No one can get past the magic I shrouded this place in.” He gestures to the door, now ajar, which I stumbled through. "Unless, well, they are mortal."

This was a mistake. Would he make a lunge at me if I tried to run, or would he ensnare me with magic? His hands are seated casually in his pockets, but his gaze studies me with unrelenting pressure. 

"Are you trapping me?" It’s not as if running would do me any good. Would the cold get me first, or would I slip and hit my head against a rock? So now I’m stuck in a pureblood’s home, mortal, and with nothing around to defend myself. 

He dips his head forward, silken black waves brushing against his brows."You walked into my home."

"I touched your damn mortal pool out there and now I'm bleeding out the knee and so cold I don't think I'm going to have fingers next time I check!" I’m yelling, at this point. 

His gaze drops to where my pant leg is rolled up, revealing my gruesome wound. The blood has dried, but not before having trailed around my calf and into my shoe. 

"You seriously-"

"Climbed up here and fell into the pool by accident, and now my hair will likely grey..." I paw at my face, as if I can feel wrinkles beginning to show already. 

The pure blood sighs through their nose. "This is awfully tiresome. You can go now."

He extends his hand toward the door, brow quirked. 

I just gape at him. Maybe it’s because I’m so hopeless that I’ve accepted death may alleviate my misery, or I’m finally relieved of incoming hyperthermia, but I’m not frightened of him anymore. 

And I’m most definitely not frightened of the fireplace I inch closer toward. 

Strangely, this dark cave is inviting, albeit a bit imposing. The natural ceiling is tall, curved over into the walls, which are shade lighter and smoothed back. I don’t remember smoke coming out the top of the mountain, although the fire blazes, heating the space. And the furnishings are a surprise too. Not sure what I expected, but this isn’t it. 

 "You're the one with a creepy spell pool,” I grumble. 

He takes a step forward, my entire body tensing as a result. "You climbed up here, and fell into it. I'm failing to see how that has anything to do with me."

Does he have to look this good when he appears moments away from killing me?

I’ve heard legends about purebloods and their appearances before, but they always felt too exaggerated to believe. An old friend told me the creater of our lands hand-crafted their faces as the first instance of perfection, and since then the purebloods have used mortal proclivity for weakness in the face of beauty to ensure and manipulate them. 

All of a sudden, the legend has become very believable. 

"Proximity," I retort. “I need someone to blame, and it falls on you."

He tilts his head back and forth thoughtfully. He looks as though he’s restraining himself from tossing me against the wall and just being done with me. 

"To answer your question, yes, I am a pureblood."

Dread, like cold poison, shreds it’s way through me. I’ve spoken too much, dug myself a premature grave. Were the effects of this fireplace on my shuddering limbs not like a drug, I would be out of here. But wilfully subjecting myself to the bitter frost once again seems equally dooming. 

"Are you going to kill me?" I whisper. 

There’s a cruel tint to his eyes. "Tempted."

"I'm sorry, my head is spinning," I rest my hand against my head, squeezing my eyes shut. "And your fire feels amazing."

His gaze dips to my knee. "You're probably going to die."

He doesn’t want to kill me. I imagine it would be no more than a flick of his finger and I would be dead, so he’s not a murderer. That’s one legend about the Immortal Prince that stands to be a lie. As with the one about him luring poor girls into his cave…He wants me gone, at the very least. 

"Can't you..." I break off, testing his patience. 

He angles his head, "What?"

"Help me?"

"You walked into my home, blamed me for your own negligence, and now you want me to help you?” When he says it aloud, I realise how unravelled I sound. An infection is likely setting into my knee already. 

He steps forward, gait far too graceful considering his staggering build. The closer he gets to me, the more aware I come of his overwhelming beauty. A dimple is etched into his left cheek, complimenting his raised cheekbones and straight jawline. The fine contours of his face alone must be created by magic, because it can’t be possible to look like this naturally.

"I could just kill you." His tone is light, but I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

My throat tightens, painfully dry. "You're a Sin, aren't you?"

He dips his head. "Yes."

I suppress a shudder, flexing and unflexing my fingers as I consider my next move. Some part of me, buried deep, is gleeful. So many people doubted this expedition would be worth it, doubted that the immortal Prince actually lived up here. I’ve proved them wrong, and finally doubted all the months of study I’ve put into this trip. 

"Surely you have that transportation magic that the old lady had that got my friend and I up here in the first place,” I say hopefully. 

"I do."

I take a step forward, despite my better judgment. "Then take me back, please."

I’m not sure how much begging is required to persuade an Immortal Sin, but I’m willing to fall to my battered knee and plead with him to not only spare my life, but return me to my home, where another fireplace lies in wait for my freezing form. 

"You'll get torn to shreds for being a mortal,” he notes, face drawn. "You're better off jumping off the cliff and hoping Death will accept you again."

He's not going to help me. I need to reason with him, make him realise I'm a person, that I'm real and standing in front of him needing help. "My name is Vaela...I can't risk dying."

He’s silent, as his gaze sweeps over me again. My entire body tenses as a result, as if he can see under my clothes, under my skin to my now mortal soul. 

"I don't particularly like mortals,” he mutters drily.

"You don't know me..." This is promising. 

"Fine, sit in front of that fire and heat up,” he says after a while. 

My body draws towards the fire, eager for it’s warmth, until it hits me. In my desperation, I’ve forgotten my best friend, waiting out in the cold for me, probably thinking I’ve been murdered. A few moments ago, she could have been very right about that. 

I grimace. "Wait, I need to tell my friend that I'm okay."

The Pureblood frowns. "Friend?"

Snatching my flashlight which I dropped upon entry, I race back down the rocky hallway, ignoring the bite of cold as I stagger unevenly with my injured knee. The end door is ajar, my failing light flickering against it. When I push it open, emerging back into the main part of the cave, my heart plummets in my chest. 

Eyla is gone. 

"Oh no..." I grit my teeth, crying not to let panic overwhelm me. 

Stalking back and forth down each fork in the road, I look for Eyla, until I realise I’m not going to survive this cold any longer. She gave up and returned home, likely thinking I’m dead. Now I’m stranded up here, melting ice from the cave roof dripping down onto my head. 

My gaze falls back to the door, to where beyond, the Immortal Prince awaits.

With whatever last shred of hope I had now ripped out of me, I wander slowly back down the narrow hallway, emerging back into the purebloods warm home again. 

He’s standing by the fireplace, arms crossed over the chest as he faces the blazing flames, shadows crawling around his impressive frame. 

"Bad news." I chew the edge of my lip as he turns around, eyes darkening. 

"You're a mortal, I don't think it gets any worse,” he retorts, the slightest hint of a smile playing at his lips. 

"My friend, who I came up here with, is gone,” I tell him. I’m unsure of whether I should weep, or scream. Both seem tempting, although neither would put me in any greater favour than the man who my entire life now relies on. 

He looks toward the door, brow furrowed with concern. "Already?"

"I told her to get help if I took more than five minutes...Didn't know she would be so literal.” I press my hand against my forehead, beginning to pace, even with my knee protesting as it does.

When I look back at the Prince, he’s watching me with a calm expression, although his eyes suggest otherwise. They are ablaze with unreadable emotion, his full lips settled in a line. 

"My name is Hale,” he murmurs. 

He doesn’t offer his hand, and he doesn’t need to, because there is no way I would dare touch a pureblood. Even if his skin does look perfectly unflawed and temptingly…I shake my head. What am I thinking?

"Hale? You really are that Sin.” I twist the thin silver ring around my finger, which colour now seems dull when I look at Hale’s tattoo’s and eyes. 

"Sloth," he affirms, tucking his hands behind his back. "You know, the lack of feeling, being very passive etc. That's why I haven't killed you yet."

"Didn't know it was so literal,” I exclaim quietly. Maybe my research is for nothing, that I’ve been wrong about purebloods this entire time…

"It's not always, but I suppose me living in this cave speaks for itself.” He extends his arms, giving me unspoken permission to look anywhere other than him without fear of being attacked, as unreasonable as I’m coming to realise that thought is. 

It truly is a stunning space, considering it’s in a cave. 

A few doors come off the main area, likely leading to other rooms. The room seems to be lit with magic, as I see no bulbs anywhere in sight. There is even art hung on the walls, all depicting various landscapes in a variety of biomes. He must have collected these throughout his years of being an Immortal Pureblood. 

"It's a beautiful cave,” I tell him honestly. 

"Hmm..."

"So you're not going to kill me?" I ask sheepishly. Hale studies me, and then my knee. I just stand, like I’m bare to him.

He exhales, turning toward one of the doors. "Not tonight..."