“Your Highness.” The male magebowed,the female silent.
“Depart.” The word slithered through the air. Renaud's lips didn't move.
The High Fae bowed again and left the field.
The Prince's remote, wintry gaze traveled over the clearing. A silent percussion of power rammed strength and energy into my body. I arched my back, biting through my lip to stifle ascream.
Moments later, the burn evaporated. I pushed to my feet and flexed my injured but functional hand, wrapping an arm around ribs that ached under light, invisible pressure akin to a stabilizing bandage. The scratches on my face and hand stopped bleeding, even thebloodfrom my bitten lip. It was as if my wounds had ceased to affect me, in stasis though not healed.
The gleeful stabbing in my temples eased. Just enough for my temper to reemerge, but not enough for strength to quite control it.
Pain and anger combined always made me stupid. I couldn’t afford to be stupid.
All over the field, Fae rose and fighting broke out once more.
“Cease,” the Prince said, voice quiet but distinct. At least to my ears.
“Retreat,” I rasped, frustrated. My people were trying to obey, but they had to defend themselves.
Several warriors on both sides didn’t get the memo. The fighting surged to life. Perhaps the Montague assumed their High Lord’s presence was approval.
Numair and Juliette staggered towards me, intercepted by enemy combatants. A Montague warrior darted towards me and cried out when he met Juliette's throwing star, slumping to the ground dead.
“I saidcease.”
The word sliced through the air. This time, thepunchof power brought pain without stabilization. Pain as punishment.
The Prince flinched, a barely perceptible motion except I was hyper-aware of him.
I dropped to the ground inagony, digging my nails into the earth to keep from screaming. I expected to see my skin blistering, peeling from my bones.
“It is enough.” His voice sounded almost normal, as if every time he spoke he relearned how to string together his words like a big boy.
Almost normal. It was softer, and I wasn’t entirely sure I imagined a feather stroke of strain. As if—as if he had woken too soon, and this display of power drained him faster than he’d planned.
This time when the pain faded away, no one moved. I curled on my side, panting, my blurred vision creeping into focus, my mind whirling with useless speculation.
Black shoes approached my line of sight, the Old One's steps silent. Sunlight filtered through shades of emerald, incongruent with air crisp like a winter morning. My breath frosted, a dot of sweat dripping over my temple. Sweatchilled at the base of my spine, became clammy.
The shoes stopped in front of me, soft leather boots, and I gathered enough strength to roll onto my back so at least I could stare up at him.
“Prince,” I said, biting off the word like acurse, the drip drip drip of pain wearing down the boundaries I usually tried to keep on my mouth. “How unexpected to meet you here. Did you enjoy your nap?”
He looked down, onyx hair with sapphire strands caressing his shoulders and chest.
I should have seen anger on his face, an arrogant sneer. Eyes creased in haughty triumph for bringing the enemy of his House and crown so low. Even the remote disdain of someone who defined power faced with someone who defined less than the opposite.
Instead, his sculpted bones and flawless skin reminded me of a mortal renaissance master’s painting of the Fae.
As if just beneath the stillness of his expression he contained the anger, the despair, the aching loneliness of ages, the savagery of wanting something that for all your power lay just beyond grasp.
His gaze captured mine, swirling moonstone with hints of bright blue in the iridescent misty depths.
The knowledge behind them pierced my gut. I wanted to shield my face. I wanted to weep. I shouldn't have felt this pain, this guilt, this famished need.
This sudden sense that my entire life I’d been missing a piece of me I hadn’t known existed. That perhaps my years of grief, the keening in the recesses of my soul driving me nearly mad some days wasn’t for my mother, my brother, my people.
Under the gaze of the Prince, everything began to unravel.
