Page 71 of The Shadow Prince's Ruin
Hawk is stiff in my embrace and is quick to untangle himself from it. Did I… do something? I don’t want to ask with Fenren within earshot, so I turn to greet Ivy, who emerges from a nearby thatch of bushes in the same dress she wore at the reception, though right now the lush skirt has transformed into pants with the help of a long cord and some knots.
“Uh, finally!” she groans and stretches her back. “I’ve had to hide inside a barrel for two hours!”
“Is your wife coming with us?” I ask, getting to my toes to see if she has company.
“My wif—” Ivy’s face twists into a scowl. “I really don’t have the patience to play this game anymore. There is no wife. I just wanted you to go through with the wedding.”
Hawk’s presence next to me feels even colder.
I look up at him in panic. “I wasnotreconsidering it!” But then I turn back to Ivy, crossing my arms on my chest. “How could you have lied in such a perfidious way?”
She rolls her eyes, joining us on the porch. “Oh,please, like it actually matters to you whether I’m happily married or not.”
My ears heat up and twitch. “That’s not the point!”
“I think I’ll stay outside for a bit longer. Really need more air after… all that happened,” Hawk says and steps away from the hut just as Ivy enters it, leaving both of us outside.
Something’s not right, and, like the research-driven person I am, I will find out what. “I will join you two later as well,” I say, but Ivy shuts the door in my face before I even finish speaking. I clear my throat and turn to my husband. “I hope the Nightmare Realm has not proven overwhelming?” I ask, following Hawk down a short pier and leaning against the banister next to him.
The expanse of swampland in front of us is new to me, even though I’ve read about it and can name every frog, insect, or plant thriving in this environment. I both dread the beasts lurking beneath the surface of the dark water, and wish to touch every flower I can spot, just to learn its texture. There is lots of beauty in those marshes, especially now, with the moon halfway gone beyond the trees, but areas like this are considered dangerous, and no royal in their right mind would risk their life venturing into such treacherous terrain.
Which only shows how low I’ve fallen.
“It’s… not quite what I expected,” Hawk mutters and leans forward, massaging the base of his nose.
“Has the alcohol affected you negatively as well?” I stroke his arm. “It was so noble of you to carry me all the way here despite feeling unwell.”
I freeze when he pushes my hand off him and meets my gaze with his lips in a thin line. “No, it was notthe alcoholthat affected me. Don’t you remember anything?”
I step back and force my mind back to the fight at the tavern. My memories are jumbled, like torn pieces of paper I can try to arrange into a coherent picture. I freeze, recalling the moment Hawk’s nose started bleeding, and him stumbling against the banister on the stairs.
I run my fingers over the wood separating me from the murky water he surely wants to throw me into.
“Oh, I… um… I wasn’t aware I took so much.” Which is stupid of me, since I can sense him through our bond, and I know how much shadow I used to have for my use. Very little. Hawk’s feels like a full well, but the truth is that it’s not bottomless, and if I take too much, my Dark Companion will be depleted. He will ache, he will be out of breath, he will bleed, and if I choose to take even more, I could crush him.
Did I… lose control and hurt him, on the very same day I vowed to never do such a thing?
Shame is like a spiky ball growing inside my heart. I don’t know what to say and just watch him contemplate the moon.
“Do you care?” Hawk asks.
“Do Icare? There’s no one in this world or yours for whom I care more.” Yet I don’t dare touch him, afraid of being rejected again. Memories from the fight now punch me with their intensity. I wasn’t just drunk. I was drunk onpower, and I took, took, took, stopping only when there was no one left to fight.
“It didn’t feel like you cared when you summoned giant spikes, tentacles, and broke the floor just to show off in front of your cousin,” Hawk tells me, pinning me to the pier. Is it me, or have the frogs gone silent, eavesdropping on my moment of shame.
Fuck. Tristan. We lost the advantage of making our arrival a surprise.
I take a step back, pretending I’m admiring the smelly algae on the water. “He always teased me about my size, my lack of strength and my faded shadow. Is it really so wrong that I wanted to show him I can best him for once? That his wings are not as impressive as he thinks?”
I flinch when the railing creaks in Hawk’s hands, as if it’s about to break from the strength of his grip, but then he pulls awayand kicks it so hard the wooden barrier cracks and falls into the water.
I get the sense it was either that or me.
“So you decided that it’s fine to hurt me just to show him what a shadow you’re now packing?” Hawk growls, and when he glances my way, for a moment I’m certain there’s a red glint in his eyes.
“I can see how it might have sounded that way—”
“It didn’t just sound like it! That’s what you did! Like it was all about you and your petty revenge.”
