Cormal blinked. They were in the garden in the quadrangle, at the edge of one of the pools of water.
“Put my feet in the water?”
“Fire and water, do you need me to make it a royal order? Put your feet in the water now!”
Cormal sat down on the ledge surrounding the fountain and then swiveled around so he could put his feet in the water. Itwas icy cold. He grimaced. It was… moderately better than being drenched in water, which was how Molun and Delana tended to react to his outbursts. It was certainly harder to be in a fiery rage when you were staring at your submerged bare feet.
The Prince sat down beside him, still facing the garden, silent as always. Cormal had mostly got over expecting the man to look the same way he had when they’d all thought he died at sixteen, but sometimes, it was still a surprise to see him as he was now. He was as tall as Cormal, his chest broad, his waist slim, his thighs strong and solid. He’d done all that growing when no one but his sister could see him. When he didn’t have a tangible body.Whathad grown? Nobody knew. The Prince could be seen and heard if he spoke now, but he still couldn’t interact with the world around him. You couldn’t hear his footfalls, couldn’t hear the rustle of his clothing, couldn’t hear if he stomped or slapped his hand onto a table.
It was so weird.
Staring again at his own feet, Cormal asked, “Do you feel anything if you put your feet in the water?”
The Prince was silent for a moment, and then he swung around and plopped his feet in the pool. They went there without a sound and without disturbance to the water.
“Not a single thing,” the Prince told him.
Cormal could hear in his voice just how difficult that actually was for him, even when he was trying to sound like it didn’t really matter. Cormal heard that trace of deep unhappiness because it was the same unhappiness he felt, when life didn’t go the way that it should, when you were powerless to change it.
“I’m sorry,” Cormal said.
The Prince huffed a breath. “You know, I would be more inclined to believe that if you hadn’t done your best to destroy the one person who’s been any help to me.”
Cormal stiffened and hissed, “He’s a carnalion!”
The Prince looked at him in a way that Cormal couldn’t quite decipher. There was frustration there, and anger. Cormal saw that a lot these days. But apart from that, was that… pity?
“You keep saying that,” the Prince said after a moment.
“Because it’s true,” Cormal spat.
“It might be true,” the Prince said quietly, “but is it everything?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a mean-spirited, short-tempered asshole,” the Prince said matter-of-factly.
Cormal didn’t quite manage to hide his flinch. The Prince was still staring him directly in the eyes.
“The truth,” The Prince continued evenly. “But is it everything?”
Cormal blew out a breath that was almost steady.Ouch.
He cleared his throat. “As… egregious as everyone seems to find my behavior, I hardly think it comparable to being ademon.”
The Prince suddenly looked almost amused. “I daresay you don’t. But isn’t it tremendously annoying when it’s the only thing people see?”
With that, he rose and walked away, not even needing to pause to put his shoes back on, because he hadn’t taken them off. Because he couldn’t get wet. Because he couldn’t touch anything, and the person who’d made it possible for him to at least interact with others had been banished from the castle.
For everyone’s safety.
Cormal found himself staying there, feeling the water against his skin, silky and soothing… and a bit off-putting, because Cormal was full of fire, and this was the opposite of that. Would the Prince have been safer if Cormal wasn’t in the castle? What if it hadn’t been the Prince who’d found him in the corridor justthen? How different could it be if people would stop looking at him like he was going to explode at any moment?
Was that how Perian had felt?
But no. Cormal shook his head, dispelling the thought. Perian wasa carnalion. Demons were deadly. They killed people. They always killed people.
How long had Perian been here? How many people might he have killed if he’d wished to do so? Cormal had been alone with him in that corridor the night he’d forced Perian to leave. What could he have done… if he’d chosen to? No, that was self-preservation, surely. Perian was just smart enough to know when he was outnumbered.
