Oak’s gaze goes to Tiernan, still as stone, with Hyacinthe bent over him. To the blood washing the deck. To the wounded falcons and knights and sailors. Then to the purpling cast, not unlike a bruise, creeping over Wren’s pale blue skin.
The ship rises higher. Abruptly, Oak realizes that it’sabove the waves. Bogdana has used her storm to make their ship fly.
If she devoured the remains of Mab’s bones, perhaps she really did have a large portion of her old power back. And perhaps she really was first among hags.
Wren leans more heavily against him, the only warning before she collapses. He catches her in time to swing her up into his arms, her head lying against his chest. Her eyes remain open, but they are fever bright, and though she blinks up at him, he’s not sure she sees him.
A few of her guards frown, but not even Straun tries to stop Oak from pushing the door of her room open with one hoof and carrying her inside.
Her sofa and the small table have been tipped over. The rug beneath them is wet, and shards of pottery are scattered over it—the remains of her teapot have joined her broken teacup.
Oak crosses the room and places Wren down gently on her coverlets, her long hair spreading over the pillow. Her deep green eyes are still glassy. He recalls what Hyacinthe said about her power.The more she unmakes, the more she is unmade.
A moment later, her hand comes up, running over his cheek. Her fingers push into his hair, then slip over his nape to his shoulder. He goes very still, afraid that if he moves, it will startle her into pulling back. She has never touched him this way, as though things could be easy between them.
“You must stop,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper. Her expression is fond.
He frowns in puzzlement. Her hand has dipped down to his chest, and even as she speaks, she opens her palm over his heart. He has barely moved. “Stop what?”
“Being kind to me. I can’t bear it.”
He tenses.
She withdraws her hand, letting it fall to the coverlet. The blue stone in the ring he gave her glints up at him. “I’m not . . . I am not good at pretending. Not like you.”
If she is speaking of her coldness toward him, she is far better than she believes. “We can stop. We can call a truce.”
“For now,” she says.
“Then today, my lady, speak freely,” he tells her with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You can deny me tomorrow.”
She looks up at him, her lashes falling low. She seems to be half in a dream. “Is it exhausting to be charming all the time? Or is it just the way you’re made?”
His grin fades. He thinks of the magic leaching out of him. He can control his charm, sort of. More or less. And he can resist using it. He will.
“Have you ever wondered ifanyonetruly loved you?” she asks in that same fond, unfocused voice.
Her words are a kick to the stomach, the more because he can tell she doesn’t mean to be cruel. And because hehadn’tthought of it. He sometimes wondered if gancanagh blood meant Folk liked him a little better than they might have otherwise, but he was too vain to think of it affecting Oriana or his sisters.
Oriana, who loved his mother so well that she took Liriope’s son and raised him as her own, risking her life to do so. Jude and Vivi, who sacrificed their own safety for him. Jude, who was still making sacrifices to ensure he would someday be the High King. If magic is the cause of that loyalty, instead of love, then he is a curse on the people around him.
A part of him must have suspected, because why else keep himself so apart? He told himself that it was because he wanted to repay them for all the sacrifices they made, told himself that he wanted to become as great as they were, but maybe it had always been this.
He feels sick.
And sicker still when his mouth curves unconsciously into a smile. It has become such an automatic reaction to pain, for him to mask it with a grin. Oak, laughing all the time. Pretending nothing hurts. A false face hiding a false heart.
He can’t blame her for saying what she did. Probably someone should have said it to him much sooner. And how could he have ever supposed she would come to care for him? Who can love someone who is empty inside? Someone who steals love instead of earning it?
The prince recalls lying on the ground after drinking several cups of liquor laced with blusher mushroom, back in the troll village. That was the last time he felt Wren’s hand on his Rushed cheek, her skin cool enough to ground him in that moment, to keep him hanging on to consciousness.
I am poison, he told her then. And he didn’t even know the half of it.
Oak sits with Wren until she falls asleep. Then he spreads a blanket over her and stands. Inside, the horror he felt when she spoke those words—have you ever wondered ifanyonetruly loved you—hasn’t faded, but he can hide that. Easily. For the first time, he hates how easily. He hates that he can fold himself up so tightly in his own skin that there’s nothing real about him on the outside.
He climbs the step. Standing on the deck, he looks at the ocean far below. It seems as though they’re sailing through a sea of clouds.
Soldiers are attempting to repair the gunwale, shattered by tentacles. Others are trying to smooth out the raw, splintered bits of wood where spearpoints gouged the deck, a faint spatter of blood marring the light color of it.
