He stood in front of her with a soft smile on his face and if Jasmine hadn't known exactly who he was, she would have assumed that he was only a masked young and handsome man from a noble house who truly cared about her plight and wanted to help her.
"I am sure you are already aware of what you did," he spoke softly without rushing any of his words, as he subtly passed across the message that he had all the time in the world to spend there and he wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere.
Gesturing to one of the two men who now stood a few steps behind him to bring a chair for him to sit on, even although they had formerly been talking to each other a few minutes ago in front of the same door.
One of them, immediately jerked up as if from a deep sleep and quickly picked one of the few chairs in the room and brought it for the prince to sit on while Jasmine remained on the floor in her former position as it seemed like no one had any intention of getting her, her own chair.
With the bright light ball that one of the two men at the back was holding, Jasmine was able to see the room she was in clearly and what kind of room it was.
The walls and the floor were bare and only a few chairs had been placed in the room. Jasmine didn't really notice anything spectacular about it and almost decided to ignore the room entirely only for her to shift a little to the left to adjust the skirts of the now rumpled cream gown that servants usually wore, and see a few red stains in the space where she had been previously sitting in.
She couldn't help but jump a little away, as far as she could before taking a kneeling position some distance away from the stains on the ground with a horrified look on her face.
"I'm sure that dried-up blood doesn't belong to me," Jasmine thought scanning her arms and clothes for any signs that she had been injured and was in no way surprised to find none.
"It belonged to the previous person who had been locked up in this particular room for days," said Tamen, the third prince who had been watching her every move the moment he sat down in front of her.
It was only by chance that he had been at the banquet, and he had even been slightly distracted by a young beautiful girl in a red gown who had been successful in catching his eye, only for him to catch a maid cursing a member of a noble family.
He was furious but reining it under control, he had every intention of getting the truth of why she would do such a thing in the presence of the queen, knowing fully well that with the number of guards and mages guarding his mother, there was no way she wouldn't be caught and executed.
Without showing any emotion whatsoever, he continued speaking to her, staring right into her eyes to ensure that her attention was on him.
"She was also a maid just like you. She had been paid a huge sum of money by one of the high-ranking nobles to poison one of the twelve Imperial council members closest to the king to delay the passing of a particular rule into law. She was pretty clever and she almost succeeded but... still, she was caught," he said bending closer, moving his masked face towards her instead of the erect position he usually took while sitting.
" Would you like me to tell you what happened to her?" he said with a soft smile at the corner of his lips no longer having a cold and indifferent expression on his face.
At a loss for the right words to say and at the same time not wanting to hear the story of a woman whom she was absolutely sure was dead, Jasmine managed to shake her head strongly from side to side as an answer to his question.
However she was shocked when she heard him speak,
" I'll tell you anyway," he said leaning against the back of his chair and sitting properly before proceeding to tell her about it.
" Her name was Adina. She was young and sweet and from what I was told, she broke in three days and finally confessed after the King gave the Punishers the authority to hurt and involve her family members. Sadly, she didn't choose to speak until her younger sister's toes were cut off," the third prince said as he continued to watch the expressions on Jasmine's face change from one of fear to horror.
"I heard that you also have a younger sister and family whom I assume you care deeply about. I wouldn't want one of your family members to get hurt just because you promised or received a large sum of money in exchange for killing an innocent person," he said before reaching into the pocket of the beautifully designed coat he had put on before bringing out a small book pad and a pen.
"You don't look to be such a heartless person but I might be wro..." and was still speaking when he was unexpectedly interrupted by Jasmine.
" You are wrong," she said in a higher pitch than she would have liked to use, aware that just because he was speaking to her did not change the fact that she was a criminal while he was still the third prince of the empire.
Jasmine was also terrified because of all the things she had heard him say and she saw no reason for the third prince to lie to her when the king had the power to do all that he had mentioned and more.
"I...I'm sorry but you're wrong," she immediately said, stammering when she saw the prince raise his eyebrows in what she presumed to be a sign of disapproval to her initial outburst
"I would never collect money as payment to kill someone," she moaned in distress.
"Still, anyone willing to kill an innocent young woman for no reason at all is a heartless human being whose family doesn't deserve any pity whatsoever," he said before abruptly getting to his feet.
Fearful that he was really about to leave and taking a glance behind him to look at the two people whom she was sure were involved in blackmailing her after hearing the entire conversation they had outside the room she had been locked in.
From the way they were staring at her, Jasmine was sure that they would definitely find a mysterious and untraceable way to hurt her and might even hurt her family, the moment the prince left.
"I was blackmailed," she quickly shouted before the prince could take a single step and loud enough for anyone that felt like eavesdropping outside the door to hear as she watched the reactions of the two people behind the prince whose jaws had already dropped open, wondering what they intended to do next.