Page 34
I wasn’t thinking. That was part of the problem. He was the cat and I was the mouse, I was just too late to realize it.
I pressed my bleeding palm tighter, hiding the shake in my hand behind a cold glare. “I answered a challenge, Aerynn. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when a high lord insults us in front of the entire court?”
“Answer a challenge with a political argument!” Aerynn snapped, stopping to glare at me, his chest heaving. “This is death! Dellyn didn’t throw that dagger down because his feelings were hurt. He did it because he knew your magic was silent. He knew you were still weak from the pool! It was a trap, Tauriel! A timed, deliberate trap, and you just smiled and stuck your neck in the noose!”
“It kept me from looking like a breathing corpse on a velvet throne,” I snapped back, green eyes flashing with a feral heat that cut straight through the bitter taste of bile in my throat. “Because God forbid I look like anything other than a fragile, compliant doll for you and my father to hide away until it’s time to use my blood.”
“I told you I would never look at you like a doll,” Caspian murmured, his voice dropping into a low, jagged rasp that vibrated straight through my ribs. He crowded into my space until his face was inches from mine, every trace of his iron composure stripped away, leaving only a raw, violent terror burning in his dark eyes.
“And I expected you to have enough survival instinct to recognize an executioner when you see one. You can’t even master your Remnikai. You can’t summon a single spark of your own blood, yet you just marched yourself onto a butcher’s block where the Crescent will choke out whatever magic you do have and leave you completely bare.”
Beneath the seams of my velvet sleeves, the volatility snapped. It refused to stay buried any longer. A surge of ink-black pressure tore through the fabric, drinking the grey light from the room as jagged tendrils of darkness spilled across the stone floor.
“I can summon more than a spark,” I said, my voice tight and terrifyingly quiet. “I don’t need magic to kill a lord.”
Aerynn remained completely blind to the dark bleeding around our boots, striding right through the pooling shadows as he threw his hands up in sheer frustration.
“You aren’t fighting Dellyn!” Aerynn cut in, his voice cracking as he stepped toward us. “He just appointed his son, Tauriel! The hidden heir of More Alora. Do you have any idea what that means? No one in this castle has seen him in twenty years. He’s been trained in the northern dark specifically to be a weapon for their province. I offered to stand for you! I accepted the blood-lock! Why the hell would you refuse your own brother?”
While Aerynn ranted on, entirely oblivious to the monster waking right in front of him, Caspian didn’t look away. His gaze locked onto the dark creeping up my wrists, his jaw tightening into a hard, dangerous line as he absorbed every terrifying inch of the power I was barely holding back.
I pulled my gaze away from Caspian’s intense blue eyes, turning to look at Aerynn.
The guarded wall I’d been keeping up all morning finally cracked. And with it any decorum of control.
“Because he didn’t want you, Aerynn,” I said softly, the words heavy in the quiet room. “Dellyn doesn’t care about the crown prince. He wants the half-breed dead. If I let you step onto that sand on the first day of spring and that weapon takes your life... I’m still just the mongrel living in your shadow. I won’t let you die for a court that doesn’t even want me here.”
Aerynn went quiet, the fight draining right out of him as the reality of it settled in. His hand slipped away from his sword, his shoulders sagging.
Caspian didn’t move. He just watched me, his gaze locking onto the thin smear of blood where I’d bitten my lip raw. Before I could step back, his hand was there—heavy, calloused fingers wrapping around my jaw, firm enough to leave a mark, forcing my face up to meet his.
The heat of his skin hit me like a jolt. And right beneath the velvet of my sleeves, the volatile black ink of my magic didn’t just pull back—it stuttered, recoiling like it knew what was good for it. Like it answered to him.
His breath was hot against my cheek, every trace of his usual cold composure stripped away, leaving only something raw and furious in his dark eyes.
“You are trouble incarnate,” Caspian muttered, his voice rough and low enough that only I could hear it. His thumb dragged across my lower lip, a heavy, deliberate pressure that felt entirely too intimate for the weight of the room. “And you are testing every ounce of restraint I have.” I held his gaze, my heart thudding against my ribs, the air between us turning thick and heavy.
A rough exhale broke the moment.
Aerynn shifted near the overturned furniture, his blue eyes tracking Caspian’s fingers against my jaw. The static charge around my brother dimmed as he ran a hand through his loose golden hair. His anger hadn’t vanished, but it had settled into a grim, focused calculation.
Aerynn stepped forward, breaking the heavy magnetic pull between us with a quiet, deliberate presence. He didn’t crowd Caspian, but he placed himself just enough in his line of sight—a silent, immovable boundary.
“Easy, Cas,” Aerynn said, his voice completely stripped of its usual humor, holding that delicate line between brotherhood and command without an insult to spare. “She’s a disaster, but she’s my disaster. Save the lethal glare for the arena.”
He let out a slow breath, turning toward the heavy oak doors with boots that struck the granite in a sharp, purposeful rhythm.
“I’m going to find Commander Manem,” Aerynn called over his shoulder, his tone shifting instantly into cold strategy. “If we have to prepare a half-trained princess to face a phantom weapon by spring, we need an actual plan. We need to tear through every ancient record on the More Alora bloodline before Dellyn moves the outer council.”
He paused at the threshold, looking at the blood on my hand, then at Caspian’s tense shoulders. “Keep her breathing, Cas. Don’t let her go and get herself killed before we’ve even figured out how to fix this.”
The door opened and clicked shut behind him, leaving the hallway quiet.
Inside my room, the silence grew twice as heavy.
Caspian didn’t drop his hand. His fingers stayed locked around my jaw, the calloused weight of them pinning me in place as he stepped in close enough that I could feel the hard, even rise of his chest. He didn’t blink, his dark eyes locked on mine with a heavy, unreadable intensity.
His gaze flicked down to my wrist for a split second, catching the last faint, dying tendril of black ink sinking back beneath the velvet. He’d seen it tear through the seams. He knew what was leaking out of me.
