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The darkness licks at his heels as he walks the edge of the light. His sharp blue eyes cut out at me like jagged daggers ready to strike. And his face his harder than marble. He pauses his circling of my pillar to lift the head of the decapitated feral, then resumes. He lets the blood drip around me in a circle.
I swerve a glance to the guards nearly swallowed by the dark. They stay rooted on their steeds, watchful—not of me but—of the prince.
Elden and the iilra really did leave me out here to die. The realisation sinks into the hollow hole carved out in my chest. With the ferals and the thinning light—with how many guards the prince needed to come this deep into the Wastelands—this is no place for survival.
Daein comes to a slow stop in front of me, a mere step into the light away from my spread legs as I stare up at him, eyes wet. He drops the head and it rolls into the column.
I scamper back, a fright caught in my throat.
The head …boils. Blisters pop all over its mangled face and the stench is enough to bring a singe of sick up my throat. I boot out at it, forcing it back out into the darkness.
“That’s what happens to them?” I whisper, looking back up to the prince’s cold, icy eyes. “Is that why you don’t come into the light?”
He ignores my question and instead, speaks in a glacier tone, “Come to me, April. Come, and your punishment will be minor.”
I shake my head before he’s even finished his command. Loose curls curtain my damp face.
“If I must force you,” he says darkly, lowering his lashes on me, “you will be locked in a cage for one year. Fleeing me…” He shakes his head, his jaw clenching. “You must have known what that would bring down upon you.”
A shudder rinses down my spine. “And what’s my punishment if I come to you now?”
He holds out his hand, his gloved fingers dancing over the wall of light, never quite touching. “A mere month in the dungeons.”
A sharp laugh escapes me. It’s bound tight with the pain squirming in my belly, sweat starting to glisten on my forehead. I can feel another contraction coming on soon.
“After all you’ve done to me,” I whisper, harshly, “you think I will still accept you?”
His face shutters. Then it is stoic stone once more and his upper lip curls.
He lunges at the light.
A scream vibrates my throat as I kick back in the column. But he just reaches me.
Gloved hand, he snatches my ankle and yanks me to the wall of light. But before he can drag me out, his hand catches aflame and he throws himself back, tearing off the ruined glove.
Wide-eyed, I watch as his hand turns raw with blisters and burns.
Head bowed, his hardened face turns up at me.
I’m perched at the edge of the light, tucked up near the wall, and my breath is trapped in my chest. Gently, I slide my way back, stretching out my legs and widening them.
I try to hide the discomfort from him.
He hasn’t yet noticed the wetness all over the grass.
His face twists with a snarl. “Do you not see the danger of wedding you?” he spits at me.
I shudder a breath, the writhing inside of me growing worse. “What difference does it make? One litalf princess or one kinta?” I shake my head. “But I don’t want that anymore, Daein. I just want to be free now. Die in peace. And see that my son will be cared for.”
“And why should you die?” His voice darkens. “I have made no such threats.”
I lift my face to offer him a watery smile. “I’m in labour.”
He blinks, his face unreadable.
“I’m having the baby, Daein.Now. And I’m not leaving this light.” My smile turns bitter and sad, my voice softer. “Will you love it like the father you are when I’m gone?”
Slowly, the prince lowers himself to his knees. His hands dig too deep into the grass, tearing up some tufts. But his face is a mask.
