Page 39 of Cinder
Prince Lorenz didn’t answer—didn’t answer fast enough anyway.
And Cin added, “I’d have no way to stop you.”
A future as a criminal on the run flashed through his mind as he said it: his current life abandoned; his home and family suffering for it. And he’d gain nothing. Yet a part of him, tight and hot, felt more compelled by that than the idea of a marriage and the happy ever after with it.
What was wrong with him?
“I don’t think I will,” the prince said, finally, then corrected it to: “I have nodesireto. I know the consequences that will befall you for that and I wouldn’t wish them on you, regardless of your actions.”
Cin could do nothing but nod. He had to leave—not just because of the body cooling at his feet, but the carriage likely heading back for his home at that moment. If the prince chose to keep this a secret, then Cin still had other woes to worry over.
There was one last thing to be said, though. “They were an enslaved elf. Here, in Hallin. So close to the castle…”
“I know.” The prince sounded bitter as poison as he said it. “Elves do not belong bound to anyone, least of all to the likes ofthese. Hallin’s stance on that will not change.”
“A stance did not stop this,” Cin muttered.
He didn’t know what he wanted from the recently crowned heir—to do better? He was not king yet. Besides, he’d seen his own mother establish a watch for the crown only for this to continue while they walked but streets away, their attention elsewhere. Never where it was needed; even, ironically, the time the prince their system protected washere. Perhaps this was larger than them both.
But looking down at the rich bastard’s cooling body, he knew that wasn’t entirely true. Cin had access to one thing, certainly: a sharp blade and the wrath to use it. Again, and again, as many times as it took.
Cin tipped his head. “I have to go.”
“I know,” the prince said again.
He offered no hand to help Cin mount, no kiss goodbye, no reassurance. Even a look of pity, if he had one to give, was stolen away in the darkness.
So, with three birds clutching to his shoulders and blood drying on his hands, Cinder-Szule left.
Cin felt sick to his bones for the full ride home, so lost in thought and anxiety that even Rags’ soft nestling against his chest and Lacey’s motherly plucking at his hair could do nothing for him. His time with Prince Lorenz had been cut so short. There was still the rest of his life, of course—if the prince didn’t turn Cin in. If no one happened to ask him about it. If he never let anything slip by accident. But then and there, it seemed as though the rest of his life might as well not happen.
He could go back to Dorthe, he supposed; she understood what he was already, and might be willing to run with him to Falchovari to start a new life there, under the long shadow of their terrible queen. But he knew without a thought that he’d compare any future with a partner to those beautiful moments he’d spent with the prince. Every smile to his smile, every laugh to his laugh, every soul to the way his always seemed fuller and more mystifying, the final depth of him always further down. Cin had no desire to put Dorthe through a lifetime of always coming up a little short in Cin’s heart.
As though his anger and grief were a predator at his back, Cin pushed his steed faster, then faster still, letting the pain in his ribs overrun his mind until the magical horse nearly vibrated itself apart as it flew across the countryside and the two of his trio who’d been trying to comfort him were forced to release him and fly alongside their stoic white shadow instead.
Cin’s emotional turmoil turned to panic as he caught sight of an all-too-familiar carriage making the final turn towards his home. Even if every distress of the night was erased, he still had much left to lose if Louise and his siblings realized he’d been outright lying to them for weeks.
He directed his mount through the forest in a mad dash that would have ended with him thrown into a trunk or his brain knocked out by a thick branch if not for the magic that carriedhim. If it were a month later, he knew, the trees would have cast off their golden leaves, exposing his silhouette as he cut through the foliage and rounded the back of the house. His steed vanished beneath him into a swarm of birds, their fleeing bodies seeming to pull the last of Cin’s outfit glamor with it.
It left him wearing what felt like rags in comparison. Rags, and a dead man’s blood.
Cin could hear his siblings’ voices as they spilled out of the carriage, Floy in a huff, Manfred complaining, Emma as lost in her beautiful daydreams as ever. Cin fumbled the house key, grabbing it a second time to shove it into the lock, and somehow—somehow—it turned. His heart seemed to throw itself against his ribcage with each frantic step he took through the house. His sides ached from it.
He could hear his family’s knocking already.
“Cinder-Szule?”
“Cinder!”
“Fucking Cinder-whore.”
A little voice in the back of his mind screamed that a knife could end this. End them, end him, he didn’t know. But the prince had kept Cin’s blade, by accident or on purpose—he didn’t know that either.
The knocking and shouting continued.
Cin almost bolted for the door, before remembering his bare skin was still covered in blood. He’d left a water bucket in the laundry after last laundering-day. Cin ran for it. He plunged his hands in first, rubbing, rubbing, then splashing it onto his face—careful not to drench his hair. He had nothing but the inside of his own thin underthings to wipe over it all, but he did, and—
They were banging now, Louise calling with such fury that Cin swore it had been years since he’d heard her like that. He scrambled down the hall, messing up his hair with his hands—fuck, still damp, how were they damp—as he ran. At least his clothing was already a disaster.
