by Bec McMaster
Besides, Thiago gave me the only key. He couldn’t have lied about that. Not if he promised thrice.
* * *
Everything is not as it seems, Princess. The only way to discover the truth is to remain close to the prince. Push him. He won’t be able to maintain the charade for long, as he’s desperate to reunite with his wife. Trust your instincts.
* * *
The note chills me to the bone. The one in the ballroom might have been left by chance, to be discovered by whoever came after, but this was deliberately placed here.
This was deliberately written for me.
“Hello?” I call, running my hands along the walls and coming up short. There’s no hollow echoing revealed by a rap of my knuckles. No hint of any gaps. It’s as though the note appeared via thin air.
I cock my head slowly, feeling something watching me.
The demi-fey are notorious tricksters. Rarely seen, never to be entirely trusted with anything important, but never malicious if you leave them a saucer of milk.
Which I’ve been doing ever since I arrived, since it never hurts to have the local sprites as allies.
“Did you leave this message for me?” I whisper, sensing one moving behind me.
It’s in the room. I know it is.
But there’s no answer, and suddenly, I feel a swift breeze course by me, the curtains fluttering.
Alone. Again.
But, as I hold up the paper, I realize I can’t be entirely alone.
Because the demi-fey can’t put pen to paper.
Someone here in Valerian is trying to send me a message.
9
Discovering what happened to the prince’s wife is imperative, now I know he thinks to somehow use me to get her back.
Unfortunately, I don’t know where to start. The demi-fey are impossible to capture, even if they’d give me a straight answer, and whoever is sending me the messages is either invisible or a figment of my imagination. Servants, he’d said, but I’ve not seen even a hint of anything living. There’s no one in the castle besides Eris and the prince, and I don’t want to draw his attention to the fact I’m looking for someone.
Which means the prince may be my only means of discovering the truth.
Push him, the note said.
After a week of avoiding him, I find him in the stables, muttering under his breath as he slips a sugar cube, of all things, to his horse. He’s wearing a heavy fur cloak and stiffened riding leathers that hint at armor. Not his usual attire. Hmm. There’s a bow at his side, an enormous goblin-forged sword at his hip, and enough arrows to down an entire hunting party of Unseelie.
The prince isn’t taking his usual route through the forest, which is perfect. I’d rather play a spy than an assassin.
The second he senses me, he straightens incredulously.
“Good morning,” I call, slinging a saddle over the edge of the mare’s stall.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.
I lead the white mare out of her stall and tie her up. “I’m coming with you. You’re the one who insisted that if I wanted to ride, then it had to be with you.”
“You’re the one who refused,” he comments coolly, his eyelids half-shuttered as he takes me in. “You’re up to something.”
“What could I possibly stand to gain?” I roll my eyes as I swiftly saddle the mare. “I’m bored. Your company is better than none. And I want to feel the bitter wind on my face and see something other than the inside of this cursed palace.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I would rather you didn’t.”
“I would rather I did.”
“And if I refuse?”
I pause. “Why would you refuse? I thought you wanted me to come with you.” I pretend to notice his sword. “You’re up to something.”
He stares at me for such a long time, I swear he’s going to deny me. “Fetch a cloak, a bow, and some warmer clothes. I’ll make a bedroll for you.”
“A bedroll?”
“Unless you want to share mine?”
When the Horned One walks the mortal realm again….
“I thought so,” he replies smoothly, as if my expression isn’t a complete insult right now. “I’d hurry. You have twenty minutes before I leave without you. And pack for a couple of days.”
Freedom.
I don’t waste any time.
Sprinting back to my rooms, I swiftly lace myself into warmer clothes, and then pause with my velvet-lined cloak in my hands. I don’t have anything warmer. I was expecting to be locked away in a palace when I packed, not invited to ride into the snowy wilderness.
And I was so furious at my mother that I hadn’t thought ahead.
By the time I return to the stables, I’m dressed, but not as I’d like to be.
The prince tosses a bedroll toward me, then arches a brow at my cloak. “You’ll freeze.”
“Some of us weren’t prepared for sub-arctic temperatures.”
“Then use your magic to ward yourself,” he says, leading his enormous stallion out of the stables.
My cheeks heat as I hurry after him. “I’ll be fine. Where are we going?”
“Beyond the range of Valerian’s warding spells,” he points out. “You may be warm now, Princess, but you won’t be warm where we’re going.”
Plenty of opportunity for him to suggest I curl up nice and close. I thought he’d like that. “Asturians have fire in their blood. We run hotter than most fae.”
“I know.”
It’s such a suggestive comment, I can’t help but arch my brows at him.
“Ward yourself,” he says, “or you’re not coming.”
The mare tugs at her reins as I stare at him.
Magic and I have never been close allies. I spent years trying to master the basics, only to have it slip through my fingers at the most inopportune times. It’s there, within me. I know, because I can feel it. But accessing it is like trying to capture pure moonlight in my hands. The only thing I have any success with is creating fire.
Sometimes.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t, curse you.”
The prince turns to stare at me. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
I hate having to divulge my worst weaknesses. In Asturia, I shouldn’t even have them, let alone admit to them. Never show your underbelly. Never reveal your throat. And never, ever grant your trust to someone who hasn’t earned it.
“I can’t… ward.” I shrug. “It’s not one of my abilities.”
“Warding is one of the earliest magics we learn,” he says.
“Well, I can’t.”
And if he wants to cursed well push me for more information, then I’ll stay here.
Thiago gives me a sleepy-eyed look. I hate the fact I can’t read it. “Fine.” He steps closer, bringing both hands up to touch my face.
I bat them away, instantly on guard, and he holds them up in surrender.
“I was going to ward you myself.”
My hands hover in the air. He’s up to something and I need to know what it is. Does this have anything to do with that Unseelie spy he met in the woods the other day? Where is he going that’s going to take him away for a night or two?
But I also know that letting him touch me like this is a mistake.
Because his touch is another weakness I don’t like admitting to.
Every night I grant him the kiss I bartered, and every night I have to fight the instinctive response that begs me to lean into his touch.
“Warn me next time.”
It’s consent enough. The second his thumbs brush my cheeks, I feel a warm caress glide over every inch of my skin. It’s intimate and sensual and makes me shiver. His magic feels like silken sheets whispering against my skin, and the cool embrace of moonlight. Mine is a gush of hot, electric summer storms, but Thiago’s magic is a dangerous, smoky lure.
“Done,” he whispers.
I s
hake his hands off me, trying not to shiver again. “You just wanted to touch me.”
“Perhaps.” With the faintest of smiles, he grabs his horse’s reins again. “But consider, if you will, the fact I wasn’t the one who refused to try.”
“You think I wanted that?”
Incredible. His arrogance knows no bounds.
“I think you like dancing around the truth. You’re awfully defensive for someone who merely doesn’t know how to ward.”
“Maybe I just don’t trust you with the truth.”
For a second, his eyes darken, and he turns to me. “Are we going to spend the next three days stabbing at each other with words? Because I need to keep my wits about me and not focused on you. So here are the rules: If you intend to come, then you’ll need to keep your mouth shut at all times. And if I tell you to do something, then you don’t argue. You do it. Agreed?”
Three days?
“Where in the Underworld are we going?”
“Iskvien,” he growls.
“Agreed.”
He mounts up. “You’re the one who was listening to my private conversation the other day. You tell me where we’re going.”
I think about everything the Unseelie said, and the breath rushes out of me. “You’re going to Mistmere?”
The ruined keep was once the capital city of Mistmere Kingdom, which borders Thiago’s territories. During the wars, the castle was ruined and the lands blighted by the backlash of magic. Most of the territories were divided by the Seelie Alliance—including the disputed borders between my mother’s kingdom and the prince’s—but the north was never claimed. It holds direct passage to the northern half of the continent where the Unseelie kingdoms reside, and anyone who claimed it would need to be able to protect it.
“I need to know what Angharad is up to. Cian claims she’s poking about the ruins. I want to know why.”
I glance behind him. “I’m fairly certain you intended to go alone. It’s almost as though you want the witch queen to capture you.”
He snorts. “Get your ass on your horse if you’re going to come.”
“This is foolish. You need an army to confront her.” I’m rethinking my decision to join him.
“I am an army,” he replies softly, “Anyone else is only a weak flank I would need to protect. And I don’t intend to confront her. If she sees me, then I deserve to lose my crown. Perhaps you can learn to be a little quieter this time, Princess? You blunder through the woods like a troll.”
A little quieter? “You had no idea I was in the trees above you.”
“I didn’t need to know. The only road through those trees was the one I’d followed, so I knew where you’d return to. Strategy, Princess. By the time I found your horse, I could hear you floundering through the snow like a crippled bane.”
I swear to the Old Ones, I ought to kick him off a cliff.
“Fine.” I swing into the saddle. “Let’s see what Angharad is doing at Mistmere. Lead the way, oh, dangerous one. I promise I’ll shed a tear if a troll eats you.”
“If a troll eats anyone, it’s going to be you,” he says as I ride out of the stables ahead of him. “All those soft delicious curves and tender flesh. Why would he want to pick over my rangy bones and sinew when he has you to salivate over?”
I shoot him a baleful glare. “You’d best be talking about the troll.”
There’s a smile on the prince’s face. “Of course I am, Princess. Because if I were to get my hands on you, it wouldn’t be your flesh I’d devour. Nor would I use my teeth. Unless you wanted me to.”
Mother of Night. Heat blooms in my cheeks. The Prince of Evernight is dangerous in more ways than one.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re never going to get your hands on me.”
“We’ll see. After all, it’s going to be cold out there, Princess.”
10
“Why Mistmere? I thought there was nothing here but ruins after the Great Wars,” I say as we use the Valerian Hallow to transport ourselves to the Hallow in the mountains above Mistmere.
We had to leave the horses—they don’t like portals very much—which means we’re on foot. In snow up to my knees. I’m trying very hard to remind myself why I volunteered for this mission.
The prince’s dark eyes hood as he glances my way, and I know instinctively he’s fighting to form the right words—to tell me just enough truth without giving away his secrets.
“Don’t bother finding a means to skirt a lie. It’s not as though I can report directly to my mother. Not until spring breaks, anyway.”
I stalk past him, but I’ve only taken two steps when he catches my arm. I look down at the firm fingers locked around my wrist, and then up into those mercurial eyes. Sometimes I forget how tall he is, how powerful. And its not until he touches me that I feel the skim of tension light over my arms.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he says.
“And yet you refuse to tell me a wretched thing. I’ve seen you all watching me, whispering behind my back. I know you’re keeping secrets. Well, I don’t care. I have nearly six weeks remaining of this sentence, and then I’m free of your company and you of mine.”
His thumb strokes over the inside of my wrist, over my pulse. “Are you certain you’ll be free of me?”
I tear my arm free. “Quite.”
The faintest of smiles touches his mouth. Thiago leans closer. “And yet, you kissed me last night.”
“I seem to recall it being the other way around.”
“Let me rephrase: You kissed me. Back.”
Heat fills my cheeks, because there’s no way I can deny it and not call myself a liar. I’d definitely lingered. “That’s beside the point. You don’t—"
“What’s wrong? It was a good kiss. You’ve naught to be ashamed about.”
“I thought we weren’t going to mention it again.”
“I don’t believe I agreed with that statement.” He’s definitely smiling to himself. “And you don’t give the orders here, in my kingdom.”
“We’re not in your kingdom,” I point out sweetly.
Thiago growls under his breath. “Stubborn.”
“Always.”
“As to your earlier question—before I had a chance to reply—you were right. There isn’t anything in Mistmere,” Thiago says, slipping through the forest with the grace of a ghost. “Only the ruins of a powerful kingdom.”
“Then why…?”
“Because maybe they’re trying to resurrect something within those ruins,” he shoots over his shoulder.
“What does that even mean?”
“You’ll see. It’s why I brought you, anyway.”
“I didn’t think you had much of a choice.”
“Oh, I had a choice. I could have chained you in the dungeon.”
“You have a dungeon?” I haven’t seen one anywhere in the ruins.
“I would have one made if you annoy me enough. Trust me, I’m starting to consider it.”
“If you locked me in a dungeon, I’d spend the rest of my life making you regret it.”
“How? You can’t even ward. And come to think of it, I’ve never even seen you use your magic. What are you going to do? Whine at me for the rest of my life? Call me bad names? Or stab me with a spoon?”
“Not a spoon, no.”
I reach down and scoop up a fistful of snow.
“I’m starting to like this idea. I might even make the chains gold. I think gold would suit your skin. You’d be my very pretty prisoner. If you’re nice to me, I might even bring you a book to read.”
He’s striding along in front of me as if he owns the forest. A smug, insufferable asshole who thinks everyone he meets should kiss the ground he walks upon.
The snowball shatters on the back of his head.
Thiago stiffens. Then turns. Slowly.
The second I see the look in his eyes, I bolt.
Back the way we came, floundering in the tracks we made. Too late. Something hoo
ks my foot, and I slam face-first into the snow.
Slow footsteps stalk me. “Look at that. I didn’t even have to run.”
The fucker used his magic.
“If you could ward, then you’d have been able to escape your punishment.” The grin on his face is pure evil as he glides toward me.
“You son of a phooka,” I spit, wiping snow off my face.
The prince rests his hands on his thighs, a merry smile practically begging for my fist. “I could bury you in snow if I choose, and there’s nothing you could do about it.”
“I’m patient, Your Highness. I’d sleep very lightly if I were you.”
“I always sleep lightly,” he replies. “Though you’re quite welcome to join me in bed. I’ll consider any trespass into my bedchamber to be consent. Your plotting may not work out the way you’d like.”
“Fine.”Clambering to my feet, I settle into a defensive stance. “No magic.”
The prince dusts imaginary snowflakes off his black cloak. “No rules. We can use magic if we like.”
“Are you afraid I’m going to wipe that pretty smirk off your face?”
Thiago snorts. “Terrified.”
The fight’s been brewing for days.
I don’t know why, but I feel stretched thin. Dancing around him hasn’t solved this.
I toss my cloak aside, then draw the knife. The prince’s gaze drops to the iron blade, but his eyebrow merely quirks.
I hate that eyebrow. I hate its arrogance. Its mockery.
“If I draw blood, then I win.”
Not even fae magic can conquer iron.
I lash out, the knife cutting toward his arm, but the prince merely sidesteps and blocks the blow.
It’s like trying to fight a will-o’-the-wisp.
One second he’s there, and then next he simply isn’t. I don’t know what sort of magic this is, but he moves like no one I’ve ever fought.
“Curse you.”
A thumb digs into the pressure point in my hand, and I drop the knife.
That doesn’t mean I give up. I simply spin beneath his hand, slamming the flat of my palm against his side. It’s like hitting a stone wall.