Page 89 of Promise of Darkness
“I just need… room to breathe. A chance to think.”
The prince pushes to his feet, his face forcibly expressionless. “As you wish, Your Highness.”
And then he vanishes through the doors of the bedchamber as if an entire pack of banes were on his heels.
And I don’t have the breath to call him back.
22
“So how do we break the curse?”
I spent all last night tossing and turning in my bed, thinking about everything the day revealed.
And now I’m angry.
I know exactly where to find the prince, too. Every morning, he trains with his sword. It takes me only a few minutes to track him down in the solar at the top of the tallest tower in the castle. Swords ring and curses grunt, but with my words, the entire room goes still.
Thiago pauses in his attack, breathing hard as he steps away from Baylor. Sweat mars his shirt, and I can see those writhing black tattoos painted across his skin beneath it. “Wife.”
It’s such a jarring word, but this time, I’m prepared to face it. “Your Highness.”
I’m not yet ready to call him husband.
I don’t know if I ever will be.
“How do we break the curse?” I repeat softly.
Eris watches from one of the window arches, wearing a brown leather corset, knee high boots, and a golden armband that highlights her dark skin. Her black hair is bound back this morning, and the second she saw me, her eyebrows rose and haven’t resettled. There’s a cat nestled on her knee, and she slowly resumes stroking it.
“We don’t,” Thiago tells me, his words clipped as he lowers the sword. “We’ve had you examined by every sorcerer and witch this side of Unseelie. The curse is knotted so tightly around you that any attempt to undo it will only destroy your mind. You felt what it was like to merely learn the truth. This will kill you.”
“So, we just let my mother win?”
We just let her steal away my life, year by year?
“You will remember me. One day,” he says sharply. “You will break the spell, I have no doubt of that.”
“And in the meantime?” I step closer, my hands curled. Another truth assaulted me during the night. It was so easy to call fire last night. I barely even thought it, and my magic was sweeping through me. And Thiago had been so certain I could learn to ward. That I could wield my magic. “I forget everything, don’t I? This curse steals all of my memories from me. It steals my hold on my magic. Doesn’t it?”
His gaze lowers as he wipes an oiled rag along the length of his sword. “Yes. It steals everything.”
I knew it, and yet, the blow still staggers me.
I want to set the fucking world on fire.
“Vi,” Thiago warns, stepping closer.
Smoke curls through the air. My clenched palms feel hot.
“Control it,” he warns.
I can’t. I’m burning up again, and this time there is no way to tamp it down. It flares through me, like a phoenix bursting to life in my chest. Hot and violent and screaming with rage.
Flames burst into being around me. I am pure, molten fire.
They rage in a circular inferno, and too late, I realize he’s warded me so none of my magic can escape.
“Control it,” he barks.
