I’m still only half clear on how exactly she managed it. Alastor got only the most important facts from that treacherous dressmaker before I took off to retrieve our runaway, but that hardly matters. What matters are the panicked visions of her maimed body that danced in my head as I hunted those men down one by one—the fury that fueled every slash and stab as I dispatched them. I want her to see that, to know it’s her fault.
There’s something else, below all that rage, something I don’t have the stomach to examine, but it wraps around me like a snare, making every other emotion flare brighter.
I pull her through the forest, showing her the bodies one by one.
“Look at them,” I spit, bringing her up beside a man whose head now lies a foot from his body. “Look into the eyes of the men you chose to trust with your life. This is on you.”
She’s silent, wearing again that mask that’s so impossible to read. It’s infuriating, how well she hides the emotion roiling behind those hazel eyes.
Every now and again, I catch a glimpse, then she remembers to put up her walls. Last night, as I told her exactly how unsafe she’d been at the palace, I’d finally gotten more than a moment when she was unguarded—when she looked at me, and I saw too much to name.
But right now, I don’t care about puzzling her out. I only want her to feel what I feel, every sharp edge of it.
I show her next the man I pinned to a tree with her own knife, his throat slit. I saw the bloodied face of one of the humans back by the wagon and knew it must have been her handiwork. To even have accomplished that, and fled from them so nearly successfully, without magic or training is admirable, but it doesn’t matter how hard she would’ve fought, because the outcome would’ve been the same. That image again, of her lying pale and lifeless on the forest floor, flashes before me, and I turn on her.
“What did you think they would do to you once they had you alone? Surely even you must know what foul acts men like these fantasize about. How would you have protected yourself?” I bark.
I know I’m being cruel, but she must understand that out here, her alternatives are far worse than me. Still, my words break something loose in her, as she yanks her wrist from my hand.
“Even I must know?” She laughs, but it’s a bitter, harsh sound. “Don’t preach to me about the evil in men’s hearts,fae. Of course I know what it’s like to be reduced to a body for men’s pleasure. You’re asking me how I would have protected myself? With any of the pathetic ways this life has left me with, because that’s the only choice I have. Even if I’m sure it hardly rates as a choice at all to someone with all your strength and power.”
Her voice has reached nearly a shout, and I’ll admit, I’m taken aback by the level of her aggression. Her eyes are glassy, like she’s not seeing straight, and there’s a flush rising up her graceful neck. Now I think about it, her skin was hot to touch when I grabbed her, far too warm for the weather. Her anger aside, I’m starting to think there’s something truly wrong with her.
I hear hoofbeats behind us, and turn to see Alastor riding up, his expression unchanging as he takes in the corpse impaled on the tree.
“Ah, here you are,” he says. “I knew you’d find her without too much trouble. I see your ‘no death’ rule has gone a tad out the window.”
He dismounts, brushing off his clothes.
“The good news is I know why they took her,” he continues. I had him stick around the trading post and get answers, though from the breadcrumbs he just shook from his shirt, he took the time to buy himself snacks too. “Turns out newshasreached here about Her Highness, but not quite the story we expected.”
“They realize we didn’t kill the Angevires?” I ask, even though I know it’s a foolish hope.
“Oh, we’re still the villains of the piece. But she is too.” He points to the princess. “Apparently the Trovians think she fled the castle with us willingly. That she made a pact with your grandfather to have her parents killed so she could take the throne, and when she realized the truth was about to come out, she ran. They’ve circulated a description of her, and there’s even a gods-cursed bounty on her head.” He shakes his head. “That’s why your dressmaker suddenly became so tricksy once she got interested enough to take a closer look. She thought she and her friends had struck gold.”
He looks over at Morgana, raising an eyebrow. “You’re a wanted criminal now, Your Highness.”
* * *
MORGANA
I’d laugh again, if I didn’t feel so sick. The forest is spinning around me—away from me—and I’m trying to make sense of Alastor’s words.
“But that’s ridiculous. Why would they believe that?” I’m so disoriented and confused that I start to babble. “I didn’t evenknowI was the princess before they died. And what about the man you killed in my rooms? Surely no one thinksIkilled him?”
Alastor shrugs. “Their version gave you a bit of a violent streak—apparently, you’ve killed one of your guards before? And then there were the reports you’d met with a group of disguised fae in your local pub before the prince arrived at the capital.” He glances at Leonidas. “I think we can both attest to the relative truth of that.”
My throat feels tight, like I’m being strangled, but the pressure is coming from the inside. I’m choking on my own panic.
I said earlier that I knew about Leonidas’s traveling companions, but I never explained how. What if someone twisted that, made it look like there was something sinister about it? I remember the faces of the nobles at court, all so wary. Blood test or not, my sudden appearancehadto seem suspicious.
And then there’s Bede. Ididkill him, which makes me a murderer—just as much as the Nightmare Prince who showed me a parade of his victims. Would it be so strange to put us on the same team? Conspirators, together?
Strange or not, it’s what people believe. Which means no one’s looking to rescue me, only to track me down and drag me to another prison. I’m finally free of Gallawing—yet I’m in a worse position than I was before.
“Your Highness, are you alright?” Alastor’s voice sounds distant, like he’s talking to me from underwater.
I’ll never be free. Not as long as I live—which won’t be that long, now the potion’s practically gone and I’m a hunted fugitive.
