Page 27 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
My heart jumped with hope, but I had to be realistic. “Everyone here is more afraid of your father than they are of you. They might not mind guiding a healer into the Cursed Palace, but I doubt you could find people loyal enough to help the Crown Princess escape. And if I did manage to get out of the palace, your father would send soldiers after me. Even if I made it home, my father would only pack me up and send me back here again, unless I had something to offer him, some sure way of defeating the Terelonian forces. He won’t risk more Brintzian lives in defiance of the Dreadlord.”
“Then you should go elsewhere, to another kingdom,” said the Prince. “Maybe a country far to the south. You can take on another name, another identity. You can be free.”
I hadn’t seen such fierce eagerness from him since I came to the Cursed Palace, and a trickle of sweet affection raced through my heart. “What about you?” I asked. “Would you come with me?”
His mouth fell open, and he stared into my eyes.
I blushed, averting my gaze. “You deserve to be free, too. And I don’t think I could be happy if I left you here alone to die, while I ran away.”
“I can’t leave,” he said softly. “I have to stay with my people.”
“But you’re doing them no good here anyway,” I countered. “You follow your father’s every order, whether or not it’s good for you, or for the kingdom. Maybe it’s time you stopped doing that.”
“Ah. So I should just stop obeying him, and let him kill me. Let him send me to my grave early, because I’m headed there anyway.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying if you care about the Terelonians, as you claim to, maybe it’s time to start acting on that. Maybe—” I lowered my voice to a whisper— “maybe it’s time for someoneelseto go to his grave early.”
His dark lashes blinked as understanding seeped into his eyes. “So now you want me to kill my own father.”
“Maybe?” I grimaced.
“It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. After what he did to you, I actually made three different plans to kill him—if we could somehow eliminate the sorcerers who test his food and drink, check his rooms, examine his clothes, and scrutinize anyone who approaches him.”
After what he did to you, I made plans to kill him…
There was something wickedly sweet in the Prince’s speech, a dark, murderous romance in his tone that heated my core. But I couldn’t let myself be distracted by that traitorous heat. We needed a practical plan.
“So magic is the thing that’s protecting the Dreadlord. What if we took that away?” I leaned in eagerly, my body bent over the Prince’s prone form. “How did you lose your magic? Maybe we could do the same thing to the king’s sorcerers, and—”
But the Prince was shaking his head. “I don’t know if the thing that took my magic still exists.”
“The thing?”
He pressed a pale, long-fingered hand over his eyes, sighing. “It’s no use, Princess. Any of these plans would take time, and that’s something we don’t have if they’re planning to test you soon.”
My nose prickled, tears threatening to gather and spill as desperation pinched my heart. “You won’t even try. You talk a lot, but when it comes to action, you’re pitiful. You’re weak. And I’m not referring to your body.”
I wrenched my face away to hide the oncoming tears, furious at myself for shattering so quickly. The Princehadoffered to help me escape—though we both knew that wouldn’t work in the long run. I desperately wanted him to be open to other ideas, ideas that included his own freedom, not just mine. I couldn’t, I couldn’t let him rot away here, alone—
The tears overflowed, and I let a soft sob escape.
Sheets rustled as the Prince sat up. He slid his hand across my back. “Don’t cry, Princess. You’re right, I’ve been as weak of will as I am of body. I’ve had no ally or confidante since Onwe was banished years ago. But now I haveyou. And you’re twice as bold and dangerous as he ever was—stronger than I could ever be, in here.” He touched my breastbone lightly, with his fingertips. “For you, I’ll try. Do you hear?” He wrapped both arms around me as I crumpled against him. “You hear me, Princess? We’ll try, together. And I know where we can begin.”
24
The Fiend Prince sent away the guards and servants outside the door, giving them various errands that sounded plausible enough. Of course his real intention was to clear the way, so we could leave alone, just the two of us, and head for whatever secret parts of the Palace he wanted to show me.
When the hallway was finally empty, he took my hand and we dashed out of the room together. We had dressed in plain black clothing, and I’d bundled my hair into a loose knot.
As I hurried along behind him, my fingers interwoven with his, I realized that I felt strangely excited, and—andhappy. It seemed sacrilegious, wrong in every way, to be happy here, in the palace of my enemies, in the company of the killer of my people, the man I’d been forced to marry. The man whose children I was supposed to bear so the Dreadlord could use them as pawns in his war.
“Does your father have magic?” I whispered.
“No. Mine was passed to me by my mother.”
“And what happened to her?”
“She died of a sickness she contracted while lending aid to plague victims,” he said. “I was not allowed to see her during the weeks she was ill. My father wouldn’t risk my health.”
