Page 52 of Cinder
Cin wasn’t sure he could parse out the why of it, but he was too afraid that if he asked, the kind offer would be revoked. He’d touched something inside this lonely swamp monster, and that monster had responded in turn. Cin’s throat caught at the thought of it: everything he’d wanted, but saw no way to take, in exchange for everything else he needed. To continue his relationship with Prince Lorenz would be so easy, so perfectly, terribly easy, and yet so very very hard at the same time.
Whether he knew it or not, the monster of the swamp was asking Cin to abandon his family—little by little, over months and years—and trade his time with them for that with the prince. They would hate him for it, question him, demand things of him that he couldn’t give. And yet…
The more Cin allowed himself to imagine it, laughing with Prince Lorenz, lying in the grass beside him, watching his face as he teased and flirted and cursed in the heat of passion, taking care of him when he hurt and listening to him the way he’d done for Cin that night—that seemed worth any pain his family could inflict. And besides, he’d have a body that didn’t pain him for it.
He had come all this way.
Cin carefully unbound Perdition from his chest, and Rags and Lacey carried her sling back to the safety of his mount. They all waited there, watching him. He gripped the magic orb tighter as he stepped back down the steps and leaned over the side of the well. With one last, deep, pained breath, he dropped it in.
No sound came—no sign that it had slid into the dark water below—but a shimmer of light burst forth, pushing Cin back. Stars swarmed his vision. His limbs went numb, then tingled back to life as the world swayed back into place around him.
He could barely breathe—could barely think. His body—it felt wrong, and that—
That felt right, somehow.
Cin crept his hands around his chest, expecting still, despite everything, to be wrong. But his chest was flat beneath his palms, as flat as it had ever been with the tightened bindings that took his breath away, only now he was coming to himself enough to open his lungs... and open they did. Cin inhaled, deep and strong, meeting no pain, no resistance, just the soft pressure of his lighter chest.
A sob slipped out of him, but unlike all the other tears that day, this held only joy. He could feel himself smiling, his cheekspinched and the edges of his eyes pressed together, but he couldn’t help himself. This was real. This was him.
And somehow, the monster from the swamps had given it to him.
Cin scrambled back to the base of the steps, grinning into the shadows as he clutched at his chest, just to prove to himself it was still right, still so perfect. “Thank you!”
“Remember your end of the bargain.” The frog prince’s voice grew distant as he spoke, and Cin caught only the glint of green eyes before he vanished into the ruins.
He knew the monster was gone, could feel it, somehow. The deal was done. Cin had a new task to be completed, a new price to be paid.
And all that it entailed was everything he’d always wanted. It was equal in cost; Cin could spend his life caring for Prince Lorenz, and never have it be enough. But the problem was, Cin didn’t knowhowto have a life with Prince Lorenz.
Right now, all he knew he could claim with confidence was a week.
Twenty-Two
The journey home seemed to take a thousand hours, each stride of Cin’s mount feeling as though it brought them one step back for every two forward. All the while, he could think of only two things: the feel of his chest in that very moment, flat yet unrestricted, and the equal parts hope and dread of his future. At this rate, by the time he returned home, he would have been missing for nearly twenty-four hours, so far as his family knew.
He wasn’t certain how much he could push his mount—it was, despite its magic, still a beast made from living creatures, creatures who could tire, and then who knew what would happen to their magical form—so he let it choose its own pace, slower and slower as the day went on. Not that it mattered, he told himself. His stepmother would already be furious. He could imagine Manfred storming around, demanding of his siblings everything that Cin regularly provided, which Floy would refusewhile Emma tried to step up, only to make matters worse instead of better.
Cin decided that if the house was still in one piece by the time he arrived, he’d be grateful. Louise could levy whatever anger she wanted on him—he’d take it all in exchange for the flatness of his new chest. Every time he remembered the slide of his hands across it, he felt giddy all over again. The moment he’d been free of the dark depths of the forest, he’d paused. With cautious fingers, he’d pressed at the spaces between his ribs.
No pain.
Not a spear, not even an ache, not even as he’d taken his fullest, deepest breath in years, laughing it back out with hands wrapped against his sides. It was a state he hadn’t felt in years. His cackle had ended in a sob of joy, and he’d quickly stripped off his layers.
Beneath his undershirt, fresh, pale skin lay perfectly draped over two masculine curves of muscle; the nipples he’d once despised for their size and protrusion now sat perfect to each side of his chest, smaller and taut. He washandsome. It hadn’t been important in the moment—he’d have accepted anything he’d been offered so long as he could climb and run and not worry about a binding igniting his latent pain, but this—this was a chest he’d be excited to show off to someone.
To someone in particular.
In his sleep-deprived delirium, Cin felt himself flush at the thought. Everything they’d done together had been hasty and clothed, but any entanglement where Cin stripped to the point of revealing that much of his bare skin would imply something more than fingers and mouths. Two weeks ago, that would have scared him—yesterday, that would have scared him, too, though he’d never have even imagined it possible.
But he’d been in Prince Lorenz’s arms, had the prince give up more for him than Cin had any right to accept, and thatkindness, that sacrifice, made the idea of opening his body for the prince—not simply in his fantasies, but in reality too—exhilarating instead of terrifying. Even if it meant nothing but a moment of pleasure...
Thatthought hurt, and Cin forced himself to push past it. Even if his deal—and his desire—kept him at the prince’s side, he’d be no more destined for a partnership with Prince Lorenz than he had the night prior, or the weeks before that. The prince would marry, and it would not be to Cin.
It would be for the best. Cin would be carving out space for Prince Lorenz, pulling himself away from the family who was missing his presence at that very moment. His was already not a good or pious life, even without that selfishness.
He tried not to dwell on that as he passed out of the border forest, back though the strange towns and into those more and more familiar. By the time the Reinholz estate appeared on the horizon, the sun was twinkling its last. Cin’s stomach groaned, reminding him just how many,manyhours it had been since his last meal. God, he hopedsomeonehad put food on for dinner.
His flock-creature shivered out of from beneath him, shaky and abrupt. He stumbled onto the path, barely finding his balance as his flock headed for the nearest trees: for the same sleep and food that Cin desperately needed. Only Lacey and Ragimund stayed, just long enough to nuzzle against Cin’s neck before weakly flying off to join the others.
