Page 119 of The Night Prince

“If you wish to take the lead, be my guest, little sister.” His red hair is flat, and rain rolls over his mouth, but while Ishiver, he seems at ease. “I didn’t ask to become bodyguard to your spoiled arse.”

“Must you be so constantly unpleasant?”

“Must you?”

I withhold my snarl, and turn my attention to the towering mountains, and the many shades of green and grey that surround us. Not for the first time since we set off, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by traveling with him. I can barely stand his company.

By nightfall, I’m convinced we’re lost, yet Philip seems triumphant when a woodland comes into view.

“There, see? The forest we were looking for. We’ll make camp until dawn,” he says, heading into the tall trees.

I follow, because it’s better than roaming the mountains in the dark searching for the actual forest we were supposed to turn west at—I’m sure this is not it. The sound of the rain softens when I lead Heather beneath the evergreen canopy, and there is immediate relief from the cold wind.

Philip leads us to a clearing. We both dismount, and he orders me to light a fire while he waters the horses at a nearby stream, the sounds of which fill the pine-scented air.

I’m sitting on a log, warming my hands by the crackling flames, by the time he returns. He sits on a boulder opposite, and clasps his hands between his long legs. I pass him some food. We eat in silence. We finish. He sharpens his sword. I wring out my hair, and re-braid it.

A stubborn part of me wants to maintain the silence, to suppress all my questions because I don’t want him to get the incorrect impression that I care about anything that happens tohim. My curiosity outweighs it. His past is my past. I need to know.

“Are you going to tell me what happened to you?” I ask.

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether or not you ask me nicely.”

I glower at him over the crackling flames. “OhpleasePhilip, please tell me what happened to you. Because Ireallycare.”

“Sarcasm is quite unbecoming of you, little sister.” He shrugs, then sheaths his sword. He props it against the boulder. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Everything. Did you know mother was a wolf? When did you get bitten? Was it before you left the palace, or after?”

“Before.”

Shock slams through me, and I try to pull back my reaction so he can’t see my hurt. If it happened before he left, he must have known about Mother—aboutme—and never told me. I should expect no more from him, yet he’s my family. His expression softens.

“I was not pleasant to you, growing up. I know that,” he says. “In my defense, I didn’t like you very much.”

My hurt turns into irritation, and my fingernails dig into my palms. “Oh, well that’s okay then.” A thick silence extends between us and I can’t stop the question that has plagued me for years from erupting. “Why?”

“I was jealous, I suppose.”

“Jealous? Of what?”

He sighs dramatically. “I don’t know. You spent your days swanning around the palace, dressing in fine clothes, preening, playing music, watching plays, embroidering. All the while, I had to train to go to war. I never wanted to learn to kill humans or Wolves. I certainly did not want to be up at dawn every morning, failing to impress our father, constantly being told what a disappointment I was.” He shrugs. “Before she died, you were always Mother’s favorite child, and I was Father’s. When Father sent me to war, it was to ‘toughen me up’ because he believed I was too soft. I didn’t see what was wrong with being soft. It always seemed to me that you got the better part of it all.”

I had never thought of it this way, yet I release a bitter laugh. “I didn’t, Philip. I was powerless. You have no idea what it was like to be a woman in that situation. I had no voice, whereas you always did. You got to escape it. Do you know what my escape was? I was supposed to marry Sebastian.”

He looks up at the tree boughs overhead—as if he can’t quite meet my gaze.

“I heard about that.” He runs a hand over his mouth. “Since I met Ingrid in the Snowlands... I realize some of my perceptions may have been incorrect. I’m just saying, that’s how I felt at the time. And, alongside my envy, there was a hunger growing within me that I couldn’t understand. I tried to drown it out with drink, and fill it with women and men, and appease it by picking fights... yet I was never sated. You always seemed like you were at peace—it never occurred to me that you may be going through the same thing and were more adept at hiding it than me.”

“You could sense you were a wolf?”

“I began to suspect it just before Mother died, yet I didn’t ask her. I was afraid, I think. Of the discovery, of the answers, ofher outing me to Father. When she passed, I started looking into Wolves. I read everything I could get my hands on in the library. If anyone saw me, I told them I was researching my enemy, so I’d know how to kill them better. One day, one of the guards saw me. He told me there were Wolves in the dungeons beneath the palace, if I wanted to see one up close.”

Something coils, serpent-like, around my insides. Philip cocks his head to one side. “What?”

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