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She flinched automatically, her shoulders scrunching, then immediately regretted it. Little coward. Face your death like a proud, powerful mage, chin held high. Not just a little girl who chats with squirrels and birds because they’re her only friends. If she had a power that was dangerous to anybody, she’d seen no sign of it.
She stilled, though, when she realized he’d gone still. She glanced over her shoulder, faltering when she saw the utter agony in his eyes. He’d frozen the moment she’d flinched, his dagger barely drawn from the sheath. The silver blade glimmered in the shifting candlelight.
Then he seemed to remember himself, growled, and sliced through the rope with frightening efficiency. In all the time she’d known him, she couldn’t recall ever seeing him with a weapon in his hand.
He was supposedly her friend, but was he really? There were large parts of his life she knew nothing about. How many other mages had he hunted down for her family?
She clutched her wrists to her chest, rubbing them as she turned to face him.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He didn’t sheathe the dagger.
The ache in her chest returned. The cruelty of having him here was almost breathtaking—and the fiery shame of it. She’d almost gotten away without having to face him ever knowing the truth. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Then she brushed her hair over her shoulder, exposing her neck to the faint light of the candle. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured, eyes still closed. “It is what it is. Just get it over with.”
She braced for him to move, but it didn’t come. Instead, she heard a gentle rustling. Perhaps he had some other weapon.
When a sudden light hit her eyelids, she opened her eyes.
Her room was bathed in a deep orange glow. In the palm of his hand sat a small stone that shone like an ember straight from the fire.
Her heart leapt even as her stomach sank.
He hadn’t believed them. He’d wanted to check. He’d found a Devoted Stone somehow and brought it all the way here. Surely, he wasn’t supposed to have that, but he’d taken it anyway.
Was it true? Had Javarin been the only one who hadn’t already realized she was a mage?
Maybe he hadn’t wanted to see it because he was her friend. Maybe she’d tried harder to hide it from him, knowing he’d be bound to act and how much it would hurt him.
It didn’t matter. The despair in his eyes told the story more plainly than words ever could.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice breaking.
He swallowed hard and, as if remembering himself, quickly tucked the stone back into a small box that he’d carried in a bag she hadn’t noticed at first. He straightened, and she saw concern on his face as his eyes caught on her knees. She could feel the cold from the stone floor through the thin carpet. Her knees were starting to ache, but she didn’t move.
“No. It’s not your fault,” he said finally.
“Yes, it is.”
“Hush. Let me think.”
She almost made a face at him, in that old playful way. Few told a princess to hush, even if she was his friend and disrespected by, well, almost everyone. “There’s nothing to be done about it.”
“Did you ask to be a mage?”
“No.” She pursed her lips. “But I’m flawed, nonetheless.”
His eyes flashed with anger. Still, he didn’t move.
This waiting, this anger—it was almost worse than the fear. She inched closer to him across the carpet until her knees touched his. Then, heart pounding, she reached out.
Death was the only way, so why fight? She couldn’t hope to best him anyway, and he knew her too well for her to trick him. Alekur was as smart as he was vile, yet again.
But perhaps she could at least face death with dignity. With courage.
So she used what small vestige of courage she had to take his hand. She turned it in hers, relishing for the second time today the feel of skin so rough and new to her, callused from work, across her smaller, softer fingers. Twisting and guiding his hand, she laid his palm against her cheek in one terribly self-indulgent moment and closed her eyes.
