“Pem—“
More gasp than substance, her brother’s name evaporates into the air as I get hold of her shoulders, her hands snapping out to wrap around my biceps, and she clings to me as though I’m her only chance of salvation. Something moves in my chest, a great shift that began at the sight of her at Port Asmyr and has now settled into place. No matter how unbearable it once was, I know that this is the male the Fates designed me to be, and there’s no going back. The king I envisioned myself to be someday is gone, a childish dream all along, and instead this Fates-blessed mate of mine has woken my most base form for the kingdom to grapple with. The thick haze of my fury lifts a little, enough that I can find some humor in my uncle’s calculating plan going awry.
The mantle of the Savage Prince fits me perfectly.
Rooke’s frantic gaze fixes on mine, eyes widening when she finds me waking her and not the brother she guards so fiercely. Her lip trembles invitingly as she swallows, and ashes curse me for noticing such a thing while tears run freely down her cheeks. The urge to taste them has me tightening my grip on her, but she doesn’t react to my rough handling. Her eyes are unblinking as she stares straight into my soul in the anciently ageless way she has that defies reason.
I’m struck dumb by her, pinned by the warmed steel of her gaze, the sharpened edge of it gone and the ravaged pieces of my Fates-blessed mate laid bare before me. Rage at her condition wars with possessiveness, the desire for this version of her just as resolute as that I feel towards the soldier and the healer.Worse still, a writhing sort of satisfaction rolls through me that I’m here with her now to see her through this while no other can.
She blinks, and as suddenly as it was woven around us, the spell is broken.
Jaw clenched with the effort, I force myself to step back and put a few paces between the two of us, and she lets out a shaky breath. Biting my tongue to keep a stream of vicious curses from spilling from my lips, my gaze remains fixed on Rooke as she pushes the blankets away from her body. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the room, and I’m tortured by the vision of her legs, bared to the thighs where her shift has ridden up with her thrashing.
With another breath, this one slow but steady, she stands, and the white linen falls back into place to cover her to her ankles. I've never seen an image more inviting, even from the corner of my eyes as I dare not swing my gaze in her direction, and I’m suddenly intimately aware of how little clothing there is between us. Her heartbeat is still a frenetic pattern, loud in my ears, and I focus on it to reclaim my sanity, proof that she’s grappling with the remnants of nightmares while I’m leering over her.
I wish I felt more shame about it, but everything about this witch pushes me to the very edge of reason.
She takes a third deep breath, this one steady, before she sweeps a hand in front of herself and her shift melts away and transforms into her robes. I’m expecting the charcoal color she usually favors but, instead, Celestial silver settles over her body, and finding her draped in my family's colors pleases me more than I should admit.
When she rolls her shoulders back, my gaze snaps to her unbidden, and the deep shadows fixed within her eyes are unbearable to me as she stares back unflinchingly. There's more honesty in this moment between us now than ever before, nopretenses or carefully thought-out designs of how to portray ourselves best, and there’s no denying that the ravages of war within her are an echo of my own wounds.
She glances down at my hands, her brows pinching a little, but when my gaze follows hers, I find a tremble there, my reaction to her terror when it woke me. I hadn’t noticed, the same way I hadn’t thought to put on clothes or reassure my household that there was no need for their concern. Nothing mattered to me but reaching her.
When I look back to Rooke, she swallows, then again, as though she can't dislodge a lump in her throat, and I know I should say something to her,anything, but words are impossible. To misstep now would be to break this witch, a task I focused on with single-minded determination for weeks and yet, now that I stand with her most fragile heart and mind in my fist, I know with every fiber of my being that to break her is to breakme.
When the stillness stretches between us, resolve finally settles over her face, and she glances at the fire before gesturing to me, quickly and in succession until I realize I understand some of the movements. She's not signing to me in the way she does with Thea; instead she’s using the signs of a Sol soldier. Most of it doesn't make sense to me, but a few of the movements translate to the Unseelie signs, and I understand she's asking me to step outside into the garden with her and away from the fragile girl who could wake at any moment.
I nod and go to the door, pausing there when she doesn't immediately follow me, instead moving to the stove and fussing until there’s a kettle of water put on to boil. It's not until I see her pull out two cups and start setting out a collection of vials of dried herbs that I trust she'll follow me, and I finally step into the cold night air as she instructed. The stone is icy against mybare feet but the frantic desperation that drove me to her staves off the cold.
The stone bench nestled along one of the walls overlooks the thriving garden and is the obvious choice of seat, but even the small handful of steps it would take to get there is too much. Too much distance, too far away, too many steps to get back to my Fates-blessed mate, and instead I sit on the steps.
Pulling the door mostly shut behind me to keep the chill from disturbing Thea, I focus on a small sliver of light that breaks into the garden from the small stove, burning through the night. It settles onto the blanket of snow already falling out here, as if in defiance of winter’s icy grip on my kingdom.
Rooke appears with two cups steaming in her hands, her heart beating steadily in her chest once more. She doesn't startle at the sight of me huddled on her step, wrapped in Tyton’s charcoal cloak like a wraith; she simply eases herself deftly down beside me without spilling a drop. Carefully handing a cup to me, she blows at the rising steam from her own, and the calming scent of the tincture fills my lungs with warmth, flooding my veins and slowing my heartbeat to keep pace with hers.
“I'm sorry this keeps happening, Soren.”
If I were speaking to any other soldier, I’d keep my eyes turned firmly away from their face in respect at the difficulty of broaching the topic of such damage, but the Fates themselves could not command my gaze away from her. I don't feel the Fates’ pull towards her right now, but I don't need it.
I don't need anything but to possess this witch.
Words finally form and take life in a gentle tone I didn’t know I possessed. “Don’t apologize to me—not for this nor for anything else that’s happened since you returned here. I don’t want it.”
She doesn't seem to hold the same compulsions that I do, her own gaze fixed firmly on the cup between her fingers, thesteam gently rising in the frigid night air. When she takes a sip, I remember the cup in my own hand and take one as well, the honey-sweetened liquid smooth on my tongue. I don’t know if it’s her skills in the brew or the warmth of her body alongside mine, but I finally get a firm grasp on my senses once more.
“Whatdoyou want then, Soren? If you have accepted your fate and no longer wish for my death, what’s left for you to crave?”
I've never been so sure of her weaving her magic over me as I am in this moment and yet I feel no shame as the truth spills from my lips. “I want what I've always wanted. I want my croí.”
The chuckle that wrenches from her chest is a dark and terrible thing, broken and desolate. “Your croí is long gone, Prince Soren. The Ureen consumed her and leftthisbehind.”
She waves her hand over herself, and I catch her wrist in a firm grip, her body stilling at my side as though turned to stone at my touch. I murmur, “Airlie told me you reassured her that no matter the damage, Thea’s path isn’t a circle and she’ll find her way out of the darkness… do you not think the same for yourself?”
Her skin is warm, the thrum of her pulse soothing underneath my fingertips, and her answer is whispered in the old language, beautiful despite the agony behind her words.
“My path is the same as it has always been, littered with obstacles no fae should ever be forced to endure. A journey through blood-soaked battlefields I never wanted to stand upon, giving away pieces of myself I can never reclaim, and still finding myself insufficient. No matter how darkened the way, I could walk it blinded and maimed, because it’s the only way I’ve ever known. My feet have never faltered, even when at first glance it may appear so.”
Any high fae would make such a statement with arrogance, and yet she says it as though it’s a terrible burden she has borne for us all, and with every fiber of my being, I know that it is.
