Page 19 of Cinder
Johan and Henrik began collecting them as Elias walked Cin back the way he’d come. “Your new shoes should be ready by the end of the week.”
“Thank you.” Cin tipped his head, hoping all three of them could feel the sincerity of his gratitude.
As he left, his flock spinning and weaving back into its horse-like form, he glanced back to find Henrik delicately arranging a bundle of lavender from the flower selection the birds had offered. The elf looked almost happy. Cin hoped, maybe, perhaps, he’d done something good for them in turn.
He needed to believe that, anyway. What he was about to do would be neither good nor pious.
Cin retraced his steps with ease, random members of his flock peeling in and out of his steed as they crept like a ghost through the forest. He held only one thought in his mind: the image of Henrik and Elias, enslaved to humans once more. If not them, it would be some other elf, one who also deserved so much better than that life of subjugation.
It was not like Cin to skip from first glance to the kill, but in this case, the transgression outweighed his caution.
He found the slaver in her camp, her back turned. Cin’s knife slid so easily between her shoulder blades that it felt like, this time, maybe even God had deigned to look down on him, not to smile but perhaps not to scowl either. No one else would witness Cin’s deeds this time, though—the enslaver’s body was too far off the road to be found by anyone who might care enough to go to the crown’s watch. Cin left his feathers in her wound anyway.
Before he slipped back out of the little camp, Cin gave one last look at the wagon around the back. One by one, he unlocked the magic-blocking manacles from the cages. They were almost beautiful up close, beneath the dirt and the blood, the metal carved with interlocking patterns. He dumped them into a rotting tree and buried them in leaf litter. No elves would ever be bound bythem, at least.
Cin hadn’t given Elias and Henrik much, but this he could be proud of.
Two birds appeared with the shoes the day of the next ball. They looked just a little cleaner than Cin's pair had been, the stitching sharp and the leather tight but soft, and when he put them on, it felt as though he were walking on a road of feathers, his steps so light that he could barely make a sound even when he tried. The pair was no lavish set of slippers or delicate ball heels, but they were perfect all the same. And under the disguise of his flock's glamour, he knew they'd sparkle as brilliantly as any crystal.
Nine
Louise seemed not even to think it odd when Cin didn’t push to join the family for the ball. He smiled and spouted something about responsibility and how parties were for children anyway, and his stepmother ate the idea right up. She hugged him for it, brimming with an emotion that Cin wanted to believe was pride, if it hadn’t been for how readily she’d already lied to him about the previous week’s ball. She climbed onto their carriage’s driver box without a second look back.
Cin called his birds around him the moment his family was out of sight. Wearing his new, sure boots he sped his magical steed off across the fields to reach the main road before the carriage could. It was as much extra time as he could give himself. It would have to do.
The journey through the city was just as beautiful and festive as the first night of the ball, the lights still dazzling, and food and drink overflowing, but Cin moved all the faster throughthe busy streets, offering his information to the castle guards without being asked, and hurried inside. His heart pounded as he entered. His palms began to sweat. He felt absurd suddenly.
What was he even meant to do here, now? Eat the same food, admire the same decor, chat with people he would never see again, and all the while wait to be swept off his feet by the crowned—
But there he was. Prince Lorenz, strolling down the side of the dance floor, his hair lightly mussed beneath his circlet and drifting in a breeze that might have been coming off the dancers to his right, or through the open doors to the garden on his left, or from nowhere at all—just a part of the magic of his beauty. The prince exchanged words with each guest who went out of their way to catch his attention, as charming and graceful as ever.
As he worked his way through the crowd, Cin thought of the rare times he'd seen Prince Lorenz's older brother, twice during a visit to his town and once in the city, so young then that he'd been hoisted on his birth-mother's shoulders to see.
"Look at the way our future king shines with goodness! There is a man so blessed!" she'd said to Cin then.
Cin's mother wasn't alone in the feeling. He'd been just as in awe of the young royal who'd strode through the crowd as had the rest of them, taken in by the easy way Prince Adalwin greeted his people, both humbly gracious and breathtakingly regal.
Here, now, with the elder prince lost, his younger brother had made a good play at wearing that mask. He’d kept it so tight to his face that Cin would have sworn he was basking in his guests’ attention, had he not seen a far more reclusive side from the prince during their time on the balcony the previous week. But somehow, the beautiful man enchanting the world before Cin was only half as interesting or desirable to him as that witty, thoughtful version he'd spent time alone with.
Cin was so eager to seethatprince—more eager than he cared to admit.
As the prince's gaze slid his way though, Cin ducked instinctively to the side. He didn't understand why he did it, he just did, slipping into the shadows and tucking half behind a pillar for good measure. It was ridiculous, and he knew it. But it felt wrong suddenly, to want this. To want him. To want anything that wasn’t for his family, for their future.
It was so unlike Cin.
Attending the ball had been one thing; of course he deserved a good meal and music and festivities as much as the rest of his family and town and kingdom. But Prince Lorenz's attention? What right had he to desire that? Especially when he was never going to be the one to wear the prince's ring, take his name, lead his kingdom.
Yet his body seemed not to recognize that fact, the tug in his gut demanding to look once more. To look, and yearn. Maybe he had no right to want this, but he did. Was it such a sin to give into himself, just this once? It would only go on for so long, after all…
When Cin glanced around the side of the pillar, though, the prince had vanished. He took a step, then another, slowly meandering toward one of the dessert tables as no princes spontaneously appeared from within the crowd. Trying not to feel as though this was God's punishment for his cowardice—or worse, his desire—he picked up a small pastry with an apple slice in the center just to give himself something to focus on. The crisp folds crumbled in his distracted hold.
“Usually, we let our teeth do that work,” said a lofty voice from beside Cin. Lofty, but good-natured, and oh-so-beautifully smug.
Cin deposited the mutilated dessert onto his tongue, making a show of chewing as he turned to meet the prince’s gaze. Heswallowed, then deliberately licked both fingers. “Please don’t tell me what to do with my mouth, Your Royal Highness.”
It had sounded less like a sex-thing in his head, but for the way it made Prince Lorenz laugh, the innuendo was worth it. “You continue to mystify me, my dove,” he said, shaking his head. Without warning, he pushed past Cin, and grabbed a different pastry off the table—no apple in the core of this one, but each lovely fold looked so delicate and purposeful. “Here...”
Prince Lorenz lifted the dessert up to Cin’s mouth, and Cin only realized how far his lips hung open as the prince slipped the pastry between them. He held his breath at the light brush of Prince Lorenz’s retreating fingers and forced himself to chew after. The crackling of the pastry and the burst of the sugar and butter made him want to moan.
