Page 62 of Cinder
“Of course.” Prince Lorenz’s fingertips twitched against his chest, digging in deeper after. “You mean as much to me as anyone has these days.”
Cin cupped the back of his hand, looking at him—looking into him and hoping that would be enough to make him understand. “These days?”
The prince looked confused, then slowly distress began to creep onto his face. “My dove, you know what our relationship has to be.”
“Why? What if I wanted more?” Cin pleaded. “Not romance—I don’t need you to feel differently for me—but I want to be deeper with you. I want to beyours. Not one of, but yourone.”
Prince Lorenz flinched like he’d been struck. “It sounds lovely, but—my dove—I must marry someone, rule akingdom.”
“I’m not demanding you give up that.” As much as a part of him wished he could, wanted nothing more than to pull Lorenz away into the night and never look back, that would be a battle Cin didn’t have much hope in winning. “I’m asking you tochooseme. Even if you have to choose a partner, too, even if I’ll hate them for stealing parts of you away from me, even if this can’t be forever, I still want to be your everything.”
There was an emptiness on the prince’s face that spoke louder than his own voice. “If I could, I would, but I…”
“You don’t want me that way.” Each word felt as though it was a piece of flesh torn from the fabric of Cin’s throat, gritty and rough. In the dimness of the room, the world swayed.
“It’s not about want, or— Or I’d have you in a heartbeat.” Prince Lorenz sounded so imploring, taking both of Cin’s handsin his own. “But you knew what this was, all it could be, when we agreed to it. That hasn’t— Itcan’tchange.”
“Iknowwhat I agreed to.” Cin did. He’d known, and he’d been stupid enough to believe that was enough. “But when I agreed to it, I didn’t think I’d end up loving you.”
No, but that was wrong. He hadn’tthoughtany of this, but deep down, beneath the denial, Cin had figured, not that there was no chance he’d grow to love Prince Lorenz, but that in any amazing, miraculous world where that impossibility came true, that in those futures, there was none where Prince Lorenz didn’t love him back, in his own way. No world where Cin got this far only to find that he was alone; not simply a tragedy, but a tragedy of one.
“Oh, my dove.” The prince looked on the edge of falling apart. “It’s not that I don’t care for you—”
“But you don’t care enough,” Cin whispered, pulling free of the prince’s loose cradling of his hands. He watched, waiting for the flash beneath the prince’s cloudy eyes that told him there was more, that he was wrong. But he could see everything of Prince Lorenz’s emotions on his face and what he saw was a man who’d already lost the only battle he’d had the strength to fight.
“I’m afraid I’m sorely lacking in that area,” the prince said, so soft that the words seemed empty, empty of emotion, conviction—of everything.
But that emptiness from Prince Lorenz was the encouragement Cin needed to feel everything raging within him. To take in the full extent of his pain, and accept what it meant: he was in love with Lorenz. Madly, stupidly, perhaps even romantically, a soft, giddy warmth having sprung to life inside him over his weeks of seeing Lorenz’s heart unfold, of deepening their friendship until Lorenz no longer felt like a friend. He felt like everything Cin had every needed; the only thing he ever wanted.
And Cin could not bear to let that love take root in an empty chest, unrequited and useless. He knew he couldn’t abandon the prince forever, but he needed space now. Space to let go.
Cin turned towards the door, but moving through the castle on his own felt too vulnerable, so he moved to the suite’s largest set of windows instead, managing to push back the curtains before Prince Lorenz set after him.
“My dove, wait—” The prince’s voice sounded frantic.
“I can’t.” Cin made to throw open the window. The latch caught. God-damned—
“Cinder— Cinder-Ella!” Lorenz begged.
Cin could feel tears burning in the back of his eyes, but what came up was pure venom, all his pain flashing to anger. “That’s not even my name,Ren!”
“I’m sorry,” the prince scrambled, like he could place himself between Cin and the window if he tried hard enough. “Don’t.” He pulled his jacket off, the elaborate fabric falling to the floor. “Don’t leave, please.” His fingers went frantically to the collar of his shirt, pulling that back too. Was he stripping?
“Ren!” Cin couldn’t— He couldn’t be here anymore. He couldn’t deal with this—whatever this was. He yanked at the window latch again. This time it budged.
“Please, I—” Lorenz pleaded, dragging open the front buttons of his undershirt. “This will make sense, if I can show you...”
The latch came free under Cin’s fingers, but as he pushed the window open, Prince Lorenz caught him by the wrist, thrusting Cin’s palm against the center of his bared chest. But where Cin’s fingers should have met with skin, something else protruded in and out of the flesh. Metal. Circles of it, wrapping deep into muscle and between bone, a cage in the center of Prince Lorenz’s chest.
“My dearest dove, I don’t command the depth of affection you deserve for a life with me, not because I don’t wish for it,” Cin’s prince sobbed, “but because Ican’t.”
Twenty-Six
Cin stared at the mangled flesh beneath his fingers, shivering at the contrast between the warmth of the prince’s skin and the unnatural cold of the metal around his heart. The bands were scarred and jagged, like they’d been flayed apart from a larger circlet, and deep scarlet stained the golden metal that might have once been blood. Hesitantly, Cin drew two fingers over one of the rough bars, watching as the prince’s chest shuddered beneath. Cin could feel the gentle thud of a heart beating within its cage.
“You’re not the only one with a bit of magic,” Lorenz teased, though the joke came out strained and sad.
Cin could feel the tears beginning to slip down his cheeks, but he couldn’t help it. All his anger and heartbreak were still there, but now it seemed they’d turned themselves inside out, or perhaps just right-side up. What hellish dark sorcery was this, that someone had locked the prince’s heart away, left him to suffer a life without love? “Does it hurt?”
