Page 26 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

“Great. This is great, Mils. They were your favorite. We’d eat them every morning with our breakfast, despite my father’s protest that they were common. You even brought me to a clearing in the woods close to the border of—”

“Vráchos lands,” I finished for him.

“Yes, Millie. You remember?”

He wanted so badly for me to remember that I didn’t want to hurt him, but I knew what I had to say would do that.

Still, I had to say it.

“Not you, Steele. Well, that’s not exactly true. The other Millie, dream Millie. She went to pick bearberries with Mármaro of the Vráchos.”

“You remember Mármaro, but not me?” The pain in his voice made me wince like I’d been slapped. I hated being the one to cause it.

“No. Dream Millie saw you in the woods, after the forest had shifted. She and Mármaro—”

The prince lashed out. “I don’t want to hear his name.”

Fine. I could at least give him that.

“She and the Vráchos,” I carried on, “had just escaped warecats and climbed a tree to avoid an ankle attack by a stampede of Yeti crabs.”

“Astampedeof Yeti crabs?” It seemed a little of his hurt fizzled away from my description of the scene.

“Yes.A stampede. Shut it.”

“As you wish, m’lady.” Steele made it hard to concentrate, the way he stroked his thumbs gently up and down the exposed skin of my neck. Instead of relaxing, I tensed. The jerk chuckled, knowing he’d caused my reaction.

While he continued to chuckle under his breath, I pushed through to continue on with my story. “You came out of the clearing with Stipator, your beautiful rose gold hair shimmering brightly even in a dark forest. You took her breath away.”

“I did?”

“Yes. In the dream, she couldn’t take her eyes off you. But you moved on quickly. That’s when M—the Vráchos led her out of the trees for the outliers.”

I shuddered, the pain felt so real, it prickled at my waking skin.

“What, Mils? You look pained.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. In that dream, Millie, she’d been attacked by a mist.”

Feeling his slow intake of breath, I turned my head enough to see the prince with his eyes closed. He opened them and squeezed out a tight hug, then leaning his forehead against my shoulder he explained to me, “The mist, the Akhlys mist, once it’s had a taste of you, it never forgets. It will come back until it has consumed you from the inside, leaving just an empty shell behind.”

“Good lord. Let’s hope we don’t ever run into the thing for real.”

“Mils.” The prince huffed out my name.

“What?”

“Nothing… you’re right. Let’s hope we don’t. Now, how about we fill our bellies?”

Thirteen

They’ll just try to kill you

“SOMETHING’S COMING,” I WARNED STEELE, CLUTCHING the prince by the forearm he rested on my lap.

“Something or someone?” he asked, not at all curious at my declaration, but concerned. Very concerned.

“Something,” I answered.

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