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Kage rose and strode over to a short bookshelf, plucking free a large, thin book. With a groan, the bindings opened. Across thick, yellowed vellum pages was an old, intricate drawing of a flat lay globe.
The prince leaned over my shoulder, his strong body warm against my own. I held my breath, desperate not to react, desperate not to lean into his nearness.
“Here are the worlds before war and change divided us.” Kage tapped his finger over a mountainous area on the old map. “This is about where Magiaria is today. Our lore says all manner of folk lived together. You can imagine the chaos and the unfair balance of power for those born without any sort of magic in their blood. Their lifespans were a great deal shorter, their bodies weaker. They were enslaved, mistreated, abused. I suppose the goddess—if she exists—determined their lives would be more peaceful away from magical folk.”
I brushed my fingers along the next page where a shadowed line carved through new boundaries, new seas, new continents. “This is what divides humans from the rest?”
“We call it The Veil. There is an opening that occurs every fifty season weaves. The last one before this Havestia being the sacrifice—your sacrifice.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I’m only twenty-five, Kage.”
“And I am nearing eighty,” he said. “Do I look like I would be such an age in the land of mortals?”
I blinked, a little stunned. He appeared no older than late twenties. I’d learned enough about mage folk to know they aged incredibly slow. “But that isn’t how mortal’s age. If I were fifty, I would look much older than I do. It doesn’t fit.”
“What if your rebirth was not instant, Wildling? What if time passed before your soul entered the mortal realm?” he whispered. “What if you grew close to the age you were before the sacrifice, then Magiaria called you home?”
“Home?” I turned slightly, but breath caught in my chest. Fromthis angle our faces were near enough our noses nearly touched. “I sort of thought you still weren’t sure about me.”
Kage did not pull back, he didn’t move. His eyes bounced between mine, as though searching for something lost. “I am not sure about anything when it comes to you. Again, another reason you unsettle me.”
The flicker of candles brightened the rich darkness of his eyes. Only when the quiet grew thick enough it caused the room to shrink did he speak again. “It cannot be easy to live in our world under such a title and remember so little of it, but it is more infuriating that there is something undeniable about you . . .”
His words died as his index finger gently traced one trail of tattoos over the top of my palm. A touch fiercer than a flame. Such a simple act, yet my body was alight in desire. Unbidden, I leaned into him, my back nestled against his chest.
Kage tilted his face into me, drawing the tip of his nose along my temple, my hair.
Breaths came sharp, heavy—my head was lost as though in a fog.
“Who are you, Wildling?” he whispered against the curve of my ear. “Some punishment to torment me? Some final blade to stop my breath at the end?”
He drew his touch up my arm, painfully slow. The calluses on his palm scraped across my collarbone, until it curled gently around my throat, tugging me closer.
“Kage.” His name was like a plea for help—whether it was to save me from his touch, or a plea for more, I did not know. My head tilted back, butting against the thud of his own heart. Desire burned through my veins, pooling low in my belly.
His cheek aligned with mine, his grip on my throat tightened. I ought to be uncertain, there ought to be some sort of apprehension being locked in the grip of a man who’d deceived me, robbed me . . .torturedfor me.
I could not get close enough.
I turned in my chair. Kage’s grip on my neck eased, but he remained close, staring at me with such desperation I felt a sting behind my eyes. There was pain in his gaze, confusion much thesame as mine, but the fire of need, of furious want, flared above it all.
“Arm rings. Tattoos.” I held up my fingers. “Nightmares. Why does it seem like everything you are is all that I am?”
Kage’s eyes burned black with desire. His lips drew closer. I’d be wise to pull away, to stop this before I spun into the maddening intoxication that seemed to flow off this man like a unique scent, but I could not pull back, could not even consider it.
His lips brushed mine, a whisper of a kiss. It wasn’t enough.
“I don’t know,” he said, voice rough and low. “Perhaps I’ve lost my mind, but I cannot deny I want to find out.”
Kage slipped his fingers through mine. So close already, I did not expect such a simple touch to ignite a fire inside, as though boiling water replaced the blood in my veins.
I cried out when something ripped through me, fast and vicious, and collided into Kage.
With a grunt of pain the prince buckled over, coughing.
I fumbled off my chair, kneeling at his side, and clutched his shoulder. “Shit, are you . . . are you all right? I . . . I don’t know what that was.”
When Kage lifted his gaze to mine, blood spilled from one side of his nose. He dabbed it away when it trickled onto his lip.
