Page 46 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
“I know. And I care about you as well. You’re helping me be stronger where I’m weak, and that’s why I’m doing this for you. Teaching you to be there for someone else, even when your strength can’t help them. Even when you feel powerless.” His voice was unbearably gentle, and the rattle of congestion at the end of the words broke my heart. “Open the curtains, Amarylla. Come to me.”
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Gingerly I wrapped my fingers around the curtain’s edge and pulled it back, until the lamplight and firelight bathed the Prince’s face and chest. In that golden glow he looked less pale, which encouraged me.
“You don’t have to kiss me, or touch me,” he murmured. “Just sit with me. Please. Looking at you gives me joy, and hope.”
Something shattered in my head, in my heart, and I burst into tears, into harsh wracking sobs that bowed me over onto the sheets and left great wet circles where my face was buried.
The Fiend Prince stroked my hair with his long slim fingers until I was done. When I finally scraped myself together enough to look up, I saw that his cheeks were wet too. I scooted closer, to where he lay propped on the pillows, and I kissed those damp cheeks, and his forehead, and his mouth.
“Wicked prince,” I said. “Cruel prince. You can’t make me love you and then leave me, just when we’ve started scheming for your freedom, and your future. It’s not right.”
“I’m not dead yet, Amarylla,” he said. “If willpower can keep me alive, I think yours and mine together should be strong enough. And when Onwe comes, he’ll do something to help me limp along a bit further. Now sit with me, love, and tell me about your past.”
We spoke of silly things at first—games of pretend we’d played as children, the few friends we’d had. Playmates were plentiful for royal children—true friends, much rarer.
Then we spoke of our mothers. Mine had died when I was a baby, and with so many kind serving women around me, I hadn’t felt her loss too strongly. But Galanrae had lost his mother when he was eight.
“She went to help the victims of spotted plague,” he said. “And she got too close to one of them—a small child. Her sympathy for that toddler outweighed her caution, and her love for me.” He gave a sharp coughing laugh. “The last time I saw her was that morning at breakfast, before she left on her goodwill mission. Due to the threat of contagion they wouldn’t let me see her again, though I screamed and threatened. I filled the hallway outside her room with thick clouds of darkness, and I lashed at the bedroom door and at the guards with whips of fire—weapons I had just learned to conjure. One of my mother’s guards tried to reason with me, and I—I slashed him across the chest. He fell, with a sizzling wound right through his armor, cut open down to his spine. I nearly cleaved him in two.”
I pressed my fingers over my mouth, horrified and saddened for the little prince who’d been so murderously desperate to see his mother.
“That was the first man I ever killed,” said the Prince. “I stood there, shocked at what I had done—and my father swept me up in his arms and carried me out of the hall. But the Dreadlord did not rebuke me for killing a human being. He set me on my bed and smiled, and he said, ‘You’re not as useless as I thought. Maybe there is hope for you yet.’ That was the first bit of approval and attention I’d received from him, and it came in the moment of my greatest agony and guilt.”
I settled my hand over his, an echo of his pain lacing through my heart. Ever since that tender age, his father’s approval and pride had always been twisted up with his own feelings of helplessness, rage, and guilt. It didn’t condone what he’d done over the years, but it did help me understand him.
“Thank you for telling me,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I think I’ll sleep a little now. Don’t leave me, Amarylla.”
“Never.”
He slipped into sleep almost at once, and when a knock sounded at the door I hurried to open it, and to shush whoever was there.
The brown-haired servant was back, her eyes alight.
I pulled her inside and shut the door quickly. “Tell me you have it.”
In answer, she pulled a tiny bottle of swirling green liquid from the bodice of her dress.
“That’s the poison? You’re sure?”
“I’m notsure,” she said. “We can’t be sure without testing it. But I found it inside the bedpost in his chambers, and it matches what the Dreadlord carries on his person.”
“Oh, we’ll test it,” I said grimly. “I have the perfect opportunity for a test tomorrow. Would you agree to be one of the servers at a luncheon I’m hosting for the sorcerers of the Cursed Palace?”
“Gladly.” She gave me a sly smile. “And I can ensure that the other servers are friends of the cause.”
Another rap on the door, and we both startled violently. The servant tucked the poison bottle between her breasts again, just before the door opened and a hooded figure slunk inside, escorted by the servant Sil.
“Emlin?” said Sil, peering at the brown-haired woman beside me. “What are you doing here?”
“A favor for the Princess,” said Emlin, with a curt nod.
“As am I.” A significant look passed between the two women—a recognition that whatever they were each up to, it was dangerous, and unsanctioned by the Dreadlord.
“Be well,” said Sil, and Emlin echoed the sentiment, while Onwe darted me a smile from the shadows of his hood.
