Page 29 of Promise of Darkness
…then maybe she’ll forgive me for not using the dagger in my boot.
Maybe she won’t demand murder from me.
Ahead of me, Prince Thiago paces a snowy knoll, rubbing his leather-clad knuckles. If the sun was acting normally, I swear he’d be looking up, trying to gauge the time.
Someone’s late.
But who?
I slip through the trees, inching over the snow as I try to find a closer vantage point. I’m almost to a thicket when a tingle runs down my spine. Freezing, I crouch behind a tree just as the bushes ahead of me part and a rider appears.
The horse is enormous, with a coat the color of midnight and an evil look in its eyes. Steam fogs the air as it snorts, and its hooves barely make a sound.
“You’re late,” Thiago growls, loud enough for the wind to carry it to my ears.
“Blame your own guards. They’re particularly thick along the border at the moment,” the stranger replies, swinging down from his mount.
His dark hair falls to his shoulders, and from behind, they’re the same size, the same height. That’s where the similarities end, though. The stranger wears beads and feathers plaited into his hair, and his long silvery cloak is made from what looks like wolf-kin.
Unseelie. He has to be Unseelie if he speaks of passing the borders.
A chill runs through me. Mother was right. The Prince of Evernight is meeting with the enemy.
“You look frustrated, old friend,” the stranger says. “How goes your endeavor with the princess?”
“Slowly,” Thiago mutters. “She’s being particularly stubborn.”
“I thought that was how you liked them?”
Thiago scrubs at his mouth. “I can’t help feeling that time’s running out. I only have two more months with her.”
“You’ve never failed before,” the stranger says.
“There’s always a first time.”
“And then what?”
Prince Thiago’s eyes narrow. “If I cannot woo the princess, then I’ll deal with her mother once and for all. I won’t let Adaia win.”
Woo? Win?
What in the Underworld is he speaking about?
“The game of love is more vicious than any battlefield I’ve ever been on,” the stranger muses. “I don’t envy you your masquerade. Though it amuses me to watch it, time and time again. Is it truly worth it?”
Game of love?If the prince thinks he’s going to win my heart, then he’s been drinking too much elderberry wine. I hold my breath as I wait for the prince to answer.
“Worth every moment of sacrifice,” he replies softly. “Worth every night I wake in my bed alone, dreaming of holding my wife in my arms again. I will have her back one day, no matter what I must do. No matter how long I must wait.”
“No matter how many times you must woo a haughty, arrogant princess who doesn’t care for you?” the stranger drawls.
“Careful.”
The stranger mutters something in return, and Thiago laughs.
It’s starting to sound like some sort of dream, vivid with all sorts of weirdness. What does it all mean? Wooing arrogant princesses…. How is that meant to bring his wife back to him?
He’s not… sacrificing them to one of the Old Ones, is he?
