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“F-fine,” I stammer. “No bites.”
The scent of illusions spins through the air around me. I take a deep breath, then crack my eyes open. Phaedron’s now wearing a simple white tunic and, yes, dark pants. His cheeks are almost as red as the now-hidden scars that stretch across his abdomen.
Illusion clothes, my mind whispers. If I were to rock forward, to reach for him, what would I feel against my fingertips? The gentle rasp of fabric, or the heat of his skin?
Stop. That. I grit my teeth, keep my gaze locked on Phaedron’s gleaming eyes and burning cheeks, and try to say something normal.
“What— What happened to you?” I stammer.
Stars damn it, what is wrong with me?
“I’m sorry,” I say, in a gasp. “It’s none of my—”
Phaderon laughs. It sounds like a rusty gate.
“What?” he barks. “You mean here?”
He runs his left hand down the illusion shirt wrapped around his right side, gesturing at his missing arm like a vendor in the marketplace showing off his wares. I swallow hard around the rush of embarrassment trying to close my throat.
“No,” I stammer. I sound like a child caught in a lie.
“This is your own prince’s work,” Phaedron replies. His voice is sharper and meaner than I’ve ever heard from him.
“Prince Folwynn?” I gasp, struggling to believe him.
Folwynn is the only prince of the Kingdom of the Summer. He’s also an idiot who gets lost in his own palace gardens. I know he ended up in the Lands Below and was somehow rescued by Lady Damoira, but I just watched Phaedron dispatch a cave spider with only one arm. I can’t imagine Folwynn winning a fight with Phaedron.
“Your Prince Folwynn came to the World’s End,” Phaedron says. “I heard the screaming as soon as he arrived.”
He turns away from me and runs his blade across the grass, leaving a dark streak of spider blood behind. When he turns back to me, his voice is softer.
“It was too late for Scarahia and Gels, they were dead when I found them in the snow, but Kara was still alive,” he continues. “I thought— I thought maybe there was something I could do to help.”
His eyes close, and something in my chest pulls tight. I know nothing about the Lands Below, nothing but whispered horror stories, but I can picture this. I can see Phaedron bending over a mortally injured woman named Kara, perhaps pulling off his cloak and attempting to stop the blood running out of her body.
“He came at me from behind,” Phaedron says. His voice is flat now, as if all the bitterness and rage of a moment ago has bled out of him. “His first blow took my arm. I spun and went for his gut, but he was wearing armor.”
Phaedron shakes his head, then closes his eyes. I feel sick. Nightmare images tumble over themselves in my mind. Phaedron in the snow, bending over a woman’s body. Folwynn behind him, giving no warning, bringing down his sword. Phaedron spinning, attempting to return the attack, even as his blood spills out over the snow.
“Stars,” I choke out. “I’m so sorry.”
My words fall between us, flimsy as silk. As if anything could undo the fact that my prince was the monster who did this to Phaedron. I realize I’m still staring at his chest, at the gleaming illusion of white cloth that hides the thick bands of scar tissue across his right side.
Phaedron shrugs, and the illusion moves with him. He hasn’t bothered to recreate his right arm; the white shirt he’s wearing simply lacks a right sleeve. It looks almost normal, and I realize some part of my mind is already thinking about cutting off the sleeve of his stolen servant’s tunic and sewing the sides together. Would he prefer that?
“It’s fine,” Phaedron says. “Rowan caught Folwynn. In the end.”
“Your brother?” I ask.
Phaedron nods. He’s staring at the corpse of the cave spider sprawled out on the grass, but from the look on his face, he might as well be staring at his own maimed body. Or perhaps at Prince Folwynn standing victorious above him.
“I hate Prince Folwynn,” I snap.
Phaedron turns to me with his eyebrow raised, and heat rises in my cheeks.
“Not for this,” I stammer. “I mean, not just for this. The prince, and the king, they treat magicians like tools. Like we exist to be ordered around, then put back in our cage when we’re not useful anymore. Like they can even steal our child—”
My eyes sting, and I turn away before I can blurt out anything else. My arms wrap around my waist, sheltering the little life that might yet come from my body. The little life that I will not hand over to King Grathgore. Not under any circumstances.
