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Through the tangerine shafts of dusk piercing the trees, delicate white specks spiral to the ground. They float slowly, almost trapped in the sunbeam, like snowdrops suspended in amber.
My breath hitches at the same time a light breeze stirs. It rustles the leaves and lightly lifts the ends of my hair. o;Because I had to know if she loved me back.”
“She could have killed you,” I snap, trying and failing not to sound petty as another round of jealousy burns across my cheeks.
“Yes, but once you love someone the way I did her—let’s just say, if she didn’t return my love, I would have preferred death.”
“But she did. Love you, I mean.”
“Yes. We were soul bound.”
I blink, wrestling with my emotions. Part of me hates her.
No, all of me hates her.
“When her father found out we were mates, he locked her up. You see, they had been hiding her rare magic from the world. It was stronger than even my own. With us soulbound, my own magic would have been limitless. But her father couldn’t stand the thought of all that power going to the Winter Court. He was afraid my grandfather, Oberon, would use it to finally destroy the Seelie Courts.”
I take a breath. Why does this sound so familiar?
“She tried to escape. She nearly made it to me. I was waiting just outside the palace walls. We were going to run away together. But”—his hands flex into fists—“her father discovered her moments before she made it out the gates. And he killed her right there while I watched through the bars. He murdered his own daughter to keep her powers away from my court.”
A sob bubbles up my throat and I barely swallow it down. I can’t imagine a father killing his daughter. I can’t imagine any of this.
“She was an Evermore, but the king refused to let a soulmancer perform the proper rites. He knew every court would track her new soul down for the power it harbors. But her mother snuck into the burial chamber and performed the rites in secret. She was interrupted before she could fully complete the act.”
I glance up at the girl again. “So, her soul is just . . . out there wandering around?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, Princess. Her soul found a body. A human baby who had just died in childbirth.”
“Where? Who?”
Only, at this very moment, I hear his nickname for me, Princess. Really hear it.
Like it slaps me upside my oblivious face.
Princess. How many times has he called me that? I thought he was just being cruel.
He lifts a hand to my face, seems to think better of it, and then curls his fingers into a fist at his side. “All the courts have been searching for her ever since then. I have spies in every court, and when I learned one of the Darken’s followers had dispatched tracker wolves to a small town in the Tainted Zone . . .”
My heart skips a beat.
“I didn’t know it was her, not for sure. Imagine loving someone and then they become someone else overnight. A stranger. They look different, their laugh has changed. Their nose crinkles when they’re amused. They eat with their fingers instead of using utensils, and smile when they’re sleeping, and cry when they’re mad. They’re starving, yet their heart is too kind to kill what they hunt. And anything they do bring home, stolen or otherwise, they selflessly give to their family.”
Me. There’s no doubt now he’s talking about me. For some reason, I recall how he had my picture. How he had obviously stared at it for hours at a time.
Now I know why.
“I watched her for over a year. When I couldn’t be there I had my familiar stay to protect her.”
The owl.
“But then, the wolves found her farm. I knew any day they would discover her and inform their master.”
The animal tracks around our house.
“So I made an excuse to send her to the academy, knowing the wards there would hide her from the tracker wolves. But I didn’t realize the mating bond had already been activated by that one chance encounter.”
I take a step back. I can’t breathe. Can’t think of a single thing to say.
