Page 148 of Of Rime and Ruin
I squeeze my mother’s shoulders. “I’m stuck, too,” I mutter. “But like this.”
She grabs my chin and yanks it to get a good look at me. Her gaze roams over my features as her frown deepens. “Useless chum. I should’ve fired him when I had the chance.” Then her eyes soften, and her grip releases. “My handsome little prince, all grown up.”
Her face has aged, too. Wrinkles line the corners of her mouth and eyes, and two lines form a V between her eyebrows. Signs oftime passing through my grasp. I swallow past the lump in my throat. Twelve years lost. How will we make up the time?
The clatter of shifting rocks snags my attention. Nahla marches to the scowling healer and jerks her chin.
“Check him for concussion, Chumwad,” she barks, her touch gentle on the young guard’s back.
The healer obeys, touching Perrin’s forehead with two fingers. Magic glows beneath his touch, swirling around his head. The tendrils sweep through Perrin’s hair, dissolving the blood and leaving his sandy curls standing with static.
Deirdre flutters nearby, wringing her hands with worry anew, until the healer releases his spell.
“There,” Lucas says. “Good as new, m’lady.”
Nahla relinquishes her hold on Perrin, narrowing her eyes at the healer. Tension rolls off her form as she clenches her hands into fists at her side.
Deirdre rushes forward, pulling her nephew into a smothering hug. She presses a million kisses to his hairline, and the young guard squirms.
“Stop,” Perrin whines. “I’m not a guppy.”
Deirdre ignores his protests, pulling him in for a tighter hug. When she looks up, she spots the figure next to me and her face pales. Her mouth drops open, and her eyes fill with moisture.
“Isolde?” she whispers, choking on my mother’s name. “Your Majesty, I thought you were…”
My mother breaks from my support, stumbling forward on her wobbly legs. Deirdre meets her halfway, and they embrace with a wild sob. Deirdre cups the queen’s face, smoothing away her tears with frantic thumbs. She pulls off her own cloak and wraps my mother’s naked form.
“I thought I lost you forever,” Deirdre cries, burying her face in my mother’s hair.
“No, my sweet. I’m here.” She presses a kiss to the top of Deirdre’s head, keeping her glare steady on Lucas.
The healer shifts uneasily under the queen’s penetrating gaze. He glances between Nahla, the queen, and me as he reaches for the sheath at his hip. His fingers curl around the hilt.
Lucas, trusted healer to the royal family, fucked us both over. He promised he knew the “cure” to our family’s legacy. Promised he could fix us. Then he banished my mother to an animalistic murder spree, ravaged my kingdom, and left me soft and vulnerable to defend it. Not to mention how he bound and gagged Nahla,hurther, to trigger my Beast’s final appearance.
The healer has outworn his welcome.
He glances at me, and his eyes widen. He backs away from the scene. Three steps backward. Then he bolts.
I send ice streaming after him. My magic wraps around his legs, crawls up his waist, and secures him in a solid block of ice.
“Lucas,” I bellow, prowling toward him. He wriggles in the restraint, as if he could wrench free. As if he could avoid the full weight of my wrath. He should know by now—I am not decent; I’m dangerous.
“Your Majesty, have mercy,” he blubbers. “I healed the young guard, as she asked. I did my duty to you. Youaskedfor this. Why do you punish me so?”
I stop before him and stare into his cold, dark eyes. They swim with fear.Good. “What did you do to my mother?”
“She was cursed, Sire. Cursed like you. I did as you asked. You wanted the Beast gone, and gone he is! That dark spirit haunts you no longer. Aren’t you pleased with your humble servant?”
“You tried the same trick on her, didn’t you? You used that spell on your queen.”
“She asked me to,” he stammers.
“She’s been stuck as a clawbeast for twelve fucking years, Lucas. And you act like you didn’t know. This whole time, Ibelieved my mother was dead, when it wasyou. Your spell that separated her from me. Your spell that caused her to turn wild and wreak havoc on my people. All those hunters, dead on my shore. And you fuckingstood thereand said nothing of this. You let me believe it wasmyfault. For. Twelve. Years.”
His lips press together in a thin line. “Hurts, doesn’t it,” he says. “To have the only one you love ripped from your hands.”
Anger rises from my core. I let it roll through me, reveling in the feeling, daring him to speak with the force of my glare. All my hurt and pain finally has a reason—and he’s glowering before me. It’d be so easy to reach out and snap his neck. To take his life for all the pain he’s caused my kingdom and my family.
