Page 57 of The Stolen Crown

17

The Heartwalker

I shook Mira’s shoulder in the early dawn to rouse her. She’d either curse me or praise me. I would not mind either one.

“Hearttalker?” She used the heel of her uninjured hand to rub sleep from her eyes. “What is it?”

“Come. I’ve got something for you.”

Mira muttered under her breath about my poor manners at waking a lady at such a gods-awful toll—I preferred the term “chime”—but staggered from the cavern at my back.

She came to a halt near the shore. “What is this?”

I held out one arm, gesturing to the slab of bark with a roughly carved face on the smooth side, then handed the princess my knife. “For your revenge.”

Mira’s mouth dropped. She pinned me with the dark fire of her gaze, then aimed the point of the knife at me. “It was you! You sent me Filib’s head!”

Heat rolled over my scalp. Damn the hells, I wanted an herb smoke. A constant thrum of tension remained knotted in my chest since washing up on these shores and having no access to the soothing draw, but never had I craved one so fiercely since we lost the Sea Void than at this moment.

Would Mira think me a wretch for such violence? Would she be frightened of me?

There was cruelty inside me, darkness, and she’d never witnessed the lot of it. I’d been too brash, too mindless, to think a woman raised in the glamour fae isles with wine and fine satins would delight in—

Mira let her head fall back and she laughed.

Almost a bit maniacal.

“It was you.” Mira’s shoulders dropped in a heavy breath. “Why?”

I glanced at the tree face. “I understand the need to conquer the ones who harm you, even if you’re not the one to spill their blood.”

True, I witnessed a young girl taking her own revenge against the man who’d hurt her people, but I’d done the same days before when my own father was slaughtered.

If she’d seen me the way I caught her in the great hall, Mira would’ve seen a son still bruised and battered lean over Harald’s corpse and spit in his face. She would’ve seen a son kick and stomp on Harald’s ribs, skull, legs. She would’ve seen a son in the fading night break and cry and scream at Harald’s dead body before anyone else woke.

“Most romantic gestures are shown through gems or blossoms.” Mira returned a sly grin. “How fortunate I am to be stuck with a man who offers the heads of my enemies.”

“Nothing to do with romance, Vicious,” I lied and pointed at the bark again. “Seeing how I cannot unearth an entire tree, this will need to do as your revenge for the limbs damaging you.”

“Ah, I see. Well, forgive me. I won’t make the mistake of thinking you have any sort of heart.”

I merely grunted my approval as though satisfied. It was a lie. A tree was no enemy, not like Filib, but Mira’s broken features when she confessed why she felt driven to be reckless would not leave me. In truth, I feared I was becoming a man who might offer her every bit of flesh, bark, or head, should I determine anyone had broken her heart or harmed her body.

Seemed when pain or vulnerability stole Mira’s loud, raucous laughter—the sort that always tossed her head back—I wanted someone, or something, to suffer for it.

Mira’s smile grew brighter, as if it challenged the rising sun to take the greatest splendor. “Care to indulge in a little target practice, Hearttalker?”

I almost smiled. “If you do not mind losing, Vicious.”

The laugh I craved followed unburdened.

No mistake, I might be willing to bring every tree branch for her to light on fire, every damn pebble that might’ve stubbed her toe, if I could hear such a sound each day.

The following morning, Mira’s wrist was swollen and bruised, and a deep gash I’d not seen before was coated in dirt.

“We need to clean this,” I told her, gently rolling her wrist to inspect the damage. “It would do you some good to soak it in cool water as well. Helps with the swelling.”

She arched a brow. “I’ll say again, you ought to consider boneweaving. I’m sure Bloodsinger would trust you more than he does his royal boneweaver.”