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The look he gives me feels so honest, so true.
I ask, “Do you want to go back home?”
He leans his forehead on his hand. “Like a coward?”
“You’re not a coward.”
“Oh. I am.” He looks around him, as if only now realizing where he is. “I need to attend this ceremony. Show them I’m not afraid. Let them see you.”
I try to think. The bonfires are bothering him, and yet they are just in front of the palace. “Is there a back entrance? We could go around?—”
“It won’t look right to sneak in like that.” He looks at me. “I’m not afraid of fire. If I focus, I think I can walk through that, then we’ll be inside. It will be fast.”
“I’ll hold your arm and make sure you don’t feel that again.”
He nods and gets up. “Let’s do it. While we can.”
I’m not sure he’s ready, but I also know that the anxiety of facing a fear will only increase the longer we wait. I get up and take his arm, making sure to hold his wrist, from where I accidentally glimpsed his thoughts before. There’s nothing there, not even any fear. He turns to me and gives me a tight, lip-only smile.
“Let’s go, wife.”
I keep touching his wrist, my arm entwined with his, which looks normal for a married couple. Like that, we’re back to the road, where a few carriages approach the castle. Down there, the bonfires look much smaller than when I first saw them, just eight in total, surrounding the grass-covered front of the beautiful castle.
I can hear my heart as if it was beating behind my ear. Or is it his heart? The door is just there, a huge, open door, with a fae man receiving guests. We just have to make it to that door. My heart is so loud. There are no more sounds around me, no hooves, no chatter, no wind rustling leaves. Just two hearts.
The door is there. And so are the bonfires. So much fire. For a second, I’m in the Crystal Palace again. So much dreadful, fetid smoke.
No, it’s an illusion. I focus on light. We’re walking to the Bee Palace. My heart is so loud. And getting faster. Can we make it? It’s such a long path, and so much fire. Fire then surrounds me, fire and dread and despair.
I focus on light. We’re just walking to the palace. There’s nothing to fear now. Yet my heart is loud and my breath is ragged, and I feel a strange type of cold covering all my skin from the inside, while fire roars in front of me. So much fire. And light. there’s light protecting us. There’s fire burning everyone I love.
There’s light. Light. We’re approaching the door. I focus on the door and light and nothing else, amidst the strange silence and emptiness surrounding us. It feels as if there’s dark smoke in my stomach, dark smoke poisoning everything, turning everything into ice. I feel I’m going to be frozen to death and I embrace the thought.
No. We just have to get to the door. There’s light protecting us. None of this is happening now. And yet there’s smoke, so much smoke. Burned flesh and hair and I’m burning.
No, we’re not burning. The door is there. This is just a path to the main door of the palace. The smoke here smells of lavender. And yet all I smell is hair burning. Everything is burning inside and out, and I’m about to collapse.
Three more steps, just three more steps.
The mouth of the fae by the door moves, but I hear no sound other than my heart. He gestures for us to enter, and then we’re inside the palace—and I can hear again. Trembling, I take a deep breath, glad to fill my lungs with clean, refreshing air, and get rid of that dread weighing me down.
These were the most horrible steps I ever took. Still, I smile at him. “We made it.”
Marlak is pale and slightly trembling, but he squeezes my hand and gives me a look. There’s so much in that look. Gratitude, appreciation, admiration. My heart speeds up for a different reason now, but then the look is gone, and he lets go of my hand.
In a second, his expression is haughty, princely, and distant as he looks around the room. There’s no trace of the prince who was panicking a few seconds before. If I hadn’t felt it, I could easily believe he had pretended it all—but nobody can pretend horror like that.
At least I don’t have to feel any… compassion for him anymore. He’s quite capable of taking care of himself, as long as there’s no fire around him. Perhaps I was wishing he’d show at least some appreciation for more than a fraction of a second, but this is Marlak we’re talking about.
Marlak, the disgraced prince who burned his family. The boy I saw wouldn’t have done that, at least not on purpose.
The man I know can’t wield fire.
That story is all wrong. No doubt something tragic and traumatic happened, but not in the way his brother told the world. I don’t even know Renel, and I hate him already.
We’re in a massive ballroom, with windows from floor to ceiling on the sides, wide stairs at the end, and many round columns in the middle, sustaining its high ceiling. There are large, colorful cushions by the walls, where some fae are sitting. While most of them look high fae, I can spot some blue or green skin, scales here and there, and a couple horns.
Some men are shirtless, some women are wearing revealing dresses, and nobody has high heels or any kind of fancy shoes. My dress fits right in, even though my skirt picked some dirt in the hem, but at least it blends with the multicolored leaves.
