Page 27 of The Withering Wood

“Fine,” she said, “but let’s move farther away from the area of exploded bones.”

He nodded and followed behind Cerise as she led them deeper into the woods, the glow from the new curse pools fading behind them. In a stretch between two trees they made camp, Oberon demanding Cerise relax while he did all the work. He claimed it was to ensure the fabric of her clothes didn’t rip further, although she suspected he could see the strain on her face, the clench in her jaw, as she fought the tearing pain in her leg. She accepted the reprieve, going along with the story it was to preserve her clothes.

Cerise was too exhausted to make a fire. Since they had dehydrated foods to eat, and the frozen water in their canteens would thaw beneath the absorber, there wasn’t much reason for one.

The snow depressed beneath her body with a soft crunch when she sat. While the sky darkened, Cerise watched the prince from the corner of her eyes, appreciating the fluidity of his movements but not wanting him to know she stared at him. The ease with which he dug out the snow and pitched the tent with his hood and scarf falling down to reveal his full face. His cheeks reddened with the cold, frost clung to his beard, and breath gusted from his mouth.

After placing the absorber, he exited the tent with a pleased expression, dusting the snow off his hands. The prince lifted a tent flap, holding it open. “After you.”

Cerise huffed. A soft tenderness mixed with sour annoyance in her chest at the gesture. No one had ever held a door, or some version of it, open for her. But also, they didn’t need to. She was perfectly capable of opening one herself.

Using Beloved, she pushed to her feet and avoided making eye contact with the prince as she brushed by him into the tent. She removed her outer layers until the rough leather was revealed, placing the other clothes on the ground to lay on. She settled onto her side, body winding tighter and tighter as she listened to Oberon get closer. The tying of tent straps. The shift of his body on the ground behind hers. The opening of pack strings, his hands rummaging through it to find a needle and thread.

Her shoulders nearly touched her ears with how tense she was by the time the prince asked, “Are you ready?”

Even though she couldn’t see it, she knew his hand hovered over her side, the warmth of him pressing nearer. Cerise grunted in affirmation, forcing her eyes wide open and grinding her teeth, bracing for the touch. For the reminder of undead hands ravaging her skin.

The prince’s touch was featherlight, fingertips tracing so delicately over the leather she could barely feel it. It sent shivers up her spine. The shudders melted into her muscles, relaxing them. But only a little.

He pried open the shirt when he found the cut, fingers grazing her skin. She flinched and sucked in a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Just making sure you’re unhurt.”

No images of the undead flashed through her mind. No ghosts of their claws raked over her skin. The prince was too warm, too alive, for those nightmares to conjure.

The prince pinched the leather closed and the needle thrust through the dead, cured flesh. The force of sewing through the clothes moved Cerise’s body, the weight and heat of the prince seeping into her. She took deep breaths until her shoulders and neck no longer ached with their tension.

In the absence of her hellish past flaring through her mind, as she had expected it to do, she instead focused on the strength, the heat of the prince’s hands. It pooled a traitorous desire between her legs, images of the prince’s hands roving over other parts of her body corrupting her mind.

Clearing her throat, wanting some sort of distraction from how his hands awakened her, she said, “So tell me how a prince became so adept at everything.”

He laughed, a surprised, rumbling sound that did the exact opposite of dousing her desires. “What do you mean?”

“You can garden. Pitch a tent. Sew clothes. I haven’t seen you fight with the spear, but you hold it with familiarity. And you know the stars.”

The prince was silent for a moment, the rough stitching of a needle poking through the leather the only sound. “I suppose when no one gives you purpose, you try to find it yourself.”

Cerise thought of herself and Eirwen joining Zyrdriel’s Order when they’d outgrown Vhypael’s Temple, hoping to find a purpose, a family, in the Order. But the prince couldn’t have been searching for belonging, for family, in the same way they’d been. His Mirvadel-blessed life was far different from her own.

“You’re a prince. Seems that has purpose, in and of itself.”

“Ah, for the crown prince, yes. I’m simply the spare. There in case my brother died. Which was unlikely, given the various enchantments bestowed on him at birth. While he was taught how to rule, told the secrets of the kingdom and Celestials, I was just…there. To be scolded or paraded around as needed.” The prince fell quiet again, a heaviness forming around them. “I suppose I thought if I could just find the right skill, the king and queen would spare me a second glance.”

“Your parents, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Cerise refused to feel bad for the prince. He grew up with wealth. With shelter, food, and clothes. Friends. Yet she couldn’t deny the expanding gentleness toward him in her chest. Perhaps he was not as spoiled as she assumed all royalty to be.

“In some ways, it was a freedom. I spent a lot of time with various staff around the Keep, learning the skills of their trade. Tailors, cooks, gardeners, soldiers. As I grew older, I learned how to sneak out, thinking my disappearance and rebellion would grant me some attention. It didn’t, of course. They were too concerned about who my brother was going to marry. But it still enabled me to make my way into the lower rings. I learned how to play cards. To drink. Gamble. Laugh. And in the process, learned about the lives of those less fortunate than myself. If I was the crown prince, subjected to the constant attention of the king and queen, I wouldn’t have experienced any of that.”

Done sewing, the prince’s hands stopped moving. Cerise straightened into a sitting position, absorbing the prince’s words. She’d met many people, and none were so open about their life. In Vhypael’s Temple, the children hoarded and traded secrets like money. In the war, it was safer to not be vulnerable, to not get close to people, since either you or them were likely to die.

“You’re rather forthcoming,” she said, uncertain how to respond. Unsure if he wanted the sympathy she wouldn’t offer.

A wry smirk tilted his lips. “Another thing I learned during my many years trying to mold myself in different ways to get approval from the king and queen. Life is much more satisfying when you let go of others’ perceptions and embrace honesty. In what you do and say, as well as who you are.”

Cerise grunted in agreement. It was one of the reasons her and Eirwen left the kingdom. Since they were born, Tyrnoraen suffocated them of who they were, who they wanted to be, trying to fit them into different boxes. Lost Children. Templar. Cleric. Retired veteran. Instead of simply Cerise and Eirwen.