After a minute, the prince finally spoke.
“What happened to your leg?”
“Grazed by a Harea Asp.”
Taillefer struck out for something on the shelves drilled into the bedrock above a worktable. He returned with a taxidermic Harea Asp, its jaws agape and ready to strike. “One of these?”
Luca nodded.
Taillefer moved the snake’s head as if it were talking, his voice going high and hissy. “Then why are you not deceassssssssed?”
As the prince laughed, Luca didn’t dignify the impression with a reply.
The young prince was mad.
Taillefer shoved the snake right up against Luca’s ear, its scales grazing his skin. “Answer me, boy.”
Luca sighed. “The princess procured the anti-venom.”
Taillefer and his snake made it a point to inspect the leg more closely. The prince prodded the blackened skin before saying to the snake, “Not your best work, asp.”
The prince laid the snake right on top of Luca’s leg, and when he flinched at its touch Taillefer grinned. “Nowthatis love. Or perhaps your princess thought you wouldn’t be nearly as good-looking when overcome by rot.”
Luca didn’t answer.
“Is thatinkon your chest? Does your princess know?” Taillefer asked as if it were a salacious secret and that she might be disappointed by a tattoo. When Luca stared at the ceiling, obviously not about to answer the question, Taillefer leaned over farther. “Don’t make me put the snake on your head, boy.”
Luca didn’t look at him. “She knows. Everyone knows. I’ve had it since I was a baby. Before I left the Torrent on my mother’s back, from what I’m told—my mother died soon after our arrival in Ardenia and never explained it to me myself.”
The prince ran his cold fingers over the tattoo’s five points. Luca held as still as possible. “Interesting. And right over your heart.” Taillefer cocked a brow. “Who owns your heart other than your princess?”
“Nothing nor no one owns my heart beyond my princess.”
“How very narrow-minded, your view of the world.” The prince removed his hand. “Or perhaps your world is just that small. Whatis an orphan stableboy’s world beyond his horses and his benefactor? And now she is yoursolebenefactor, isn’t she? You are literally nothing without her. Homeless, jobless, alone.”
“Or maybe my little world is all I need.”
“Your world is no more.” Taillefer smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “Your world is my world now.”
Luca’s lips snapped shut.
“And my world is most interested in curiosities. You, my boy, are definitely a curiosity. Not simply because you’re handsome and kind, which is a rather rare combination, but because if you haven’t noticed, there’s nothing royalty loves more than his or her own power. And something aboutyoumade Princess Amarande forgo her power altogether, if just for a moment, to rescue you.”
“True love. That’s her motivation and it is mine. There’s no mystery or curiosity in that.”
“That’s it, then? There hasn’t been true love within these castle walls for centuries. Power and strategic alliance wins out every time. And before you tell me the Itspi is different, save your breath. It’s the same there. Even your precious princess is the consequence of a relationship forged on power.”
Luca met the prince’s impudent expression with all the fierceness he had left. “All the more reason for her to hold on to the love that your brother cannot give her. I have loved Amarande in ways no one else could.”
Taillefer rolled his eyes. “Being a stableboy has not diminished the confidence those looks of yours give you.” The prince seemed satisfied when Luca frowned. He patted his captive on the hand. “Maybe one day I’ll be clever enough to measure that, but for now I study curiosities I can quantify.”
A new idea flared in the frigid blue of Taillefer’s eyes.
“Perhaps you can define this love of yours in a way I can measure?” This time, the prince turned to the curve of the wall as farfrom the hearth as it could get. There sat hundreds of small vials, carefully aligned on ledges. He plucked something off the wall and then returned to his worktable and rummaged around.
Luca tried to watch him, but there were limits to his periphery in the shadowy space.
After finding what he wanted, the prince said, “It’s likely to be extremely painful. Most things in the natural arts are, of course. My apologies.”
