Page 52 of The Shadow Prince's Ruin
The other items I gathered lie forgotten as I rise to my feet and tiptoe back to the bedroom with the precious mask in hand. I’m greeted by a clatter of glass containers when Sylvan whispers in annoyance and pulls a bottle out of yet another crate. But as he puts it down, no longer holding anything breakable, I put the mask on and growl as loudly as I can.
With the stones set in the fake skull’s eyes, I can’t see the effect my prank is having, but I grin to myself, imagining Sylvan’s eyes widen, and his mouth opening up, as if he were about to beg for dick.
He yelps, and his feet tap my way. “Take it off!”
My heart drops from the tower of hope right back to the dungeon, and I let myself release the disappointment of it with a long exhale before pulling off the mask. “What did I donow?”
But his face is flushed and attentive. “No, no… Nothing like that,” he says, growing breathless as he takes it out of my hands. “Where did you find it? Do you know what this is?”
I don’t, but he looks so excited, I’d love to bring him five more.
“It fell out of a cabinet. What is it?”
He turns it over in his hand, runs his fingers over the smooth surface. “Hawk… This is the Sunwolf Crown. He must have been the one to steal it from that New York museum. This… this changes everything.” Sylvan stares up at me with eyes glistening a bit more than usual, but then gets to his toes and kisses me. It’s like soothing balm on a sunburn. “I’m sorry I’ve been absentminded. And I’m sorry for yelling at you. Putting it on could have been dangerous for you, but fortunately it seems that’s only the case if you do it in the Nightmare Realm.”
I swallow and stare at the strange mask with a shiver running down my body. “Dangerous for me how?”
Sylvan runs his fingers through his hair. “Whoever puts this on, will become the Sunwolf. This artifact is ancient and was lost to our realm over five hundred years ago after the killing of the first Lord of the Nocturne Court during what was called the Night of the Bloodknife. This is what I wanted to look for in the city of New York. You see, it was thanks to this very artifact that Lord Larkin Nightweed was able to stay in power for hundreds of years. We don’t know how it was forged, or by whom, but he had it created for his favorite son. The mask took away the prince’s talent for shadowcraft and turned him into a creature that was half-beast, half-elven, the Sunwolf. The metal is infused with the power of Sunlight, and when the crown merged with him, he gained the ability to devour shadowcraft and even shadow itself.
“It might seem inconsequential to you, but that power terrorized all of Lord Larkin’s descendants, in every branch of the family. The Sunwolf was able to strip shadow-wielders of their craft, and the threat of its power hung over the whole court like an axe. In the end, the princes and princesses decided to overthrow the Lord, but the Sunwolf needed to be dealt with first. There are many accounts of how it happened, though most claim the mask had to be cut from his face. But after the Night of the Bloodknife, the Sunwolf Crown was gone. Never to be seenagain, until now. Someone must have felt it was too valuable to destroy, so they just hid it in the human realm.”
My face heats. “There’s a letter in the living room, addressed to that Lord Kyran you keep mentioning too. You think he wanted to sell him the mask?”
Sylvan runs his fingers over the golden rays at the top with a smirk. “I recall him saying he had ‘plans’ to end his banishment. This is what he must have meant. If he presented the Sunwolf Crown to Lord Kyran, it would have been a great service to the Nocturne Court. Perhaps he hoped my cousin would end his banishment.”
Sylvan glances toward the bathtub where we placed the grimsmith’s corpse, and as the green light of the torches colors his cheeks, I have to say he looks a little… evil. Okay, maybesinisterwould be a better word for it, and while I don’t hate it, I’d rather his anger never turned on me.
I think back to all the ways Sylvan brushed me off in the past hour, and as I watch him turn the mask in his hands, I finally voice my question. “Is there a problem? Between us? You’ve been all strange since we fucked. Hope you’re not planning to get rid of me now that I found this for you. I’ve been close to death so many times, I’m not just letting anyone bleed me out, even you,” I add, laughing despite not feeling amused at all.
I hate uncertainty. I hate rejection. And most of all, I hate feeling disposable.
What if I was being naiveagain? What if he wrapped me around his finger because he needs me to make the Dark Companion vow? He did say I have to“mean it”for the magic to work.
Sylvan puts the mask on the bed, then meets my gaze and grabs my hand. He has such dainty fingers my toes curl at their touch. “I would never do that. I’m sorry you felt neglected. I’mnot… I’m not used to being open with my thoughts, so I tend to mull over them myself when something bothers me.”
I exhale and sit on the mattress, pulling him straight into my lap, because this boy cannot resist being in my arms like this, and I know it. Just seeing his cheeks flush makes me a bit calmer. “But what changed? I want to give you what you need, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s wrong,” I insist before stroking the side of his ass. “Are you sore? Is that it?”
I see him blushing right before he hides his face against my neck, ear twitching against my chin. “No! I mean… a little, but that’s not it. I worked out why your shadow was open to bonding when we first met.” He takes a deep breath. “The dream you described was not actually a dream. You’ve been in the River of Souls and made it out alive. You met my sister. And it’s not your fault she’s no longer with us. Any soul trapped in the current will fight to escape, which is why attempting to find one’s Dark Companion in its waters is extremely dangerous. In her hubris, she decided to reach for the most potent shadow she could find. But then you drowned her,” he finishes grimly. “Was it destiny? For you to find me after that?”
I lean back as if he’s slapped me with an icy hand. Air escapes my lungs as I take him in, shocked by this revelation and unsure what to say. No wonder he doesn’t know what to do about me after finding out that the guy who just rearranged his insides is at fault for the death of his sibling. I’m not close with my own family, but in his shoes, I would be upset as fuck.
“Shit, I’m… so sorry.”
“I’ve been grappling with it for over an hour and getting nowhere.” When Sylvan wraps his arms around my neck, I feel needed again. “I can’t decide how I feel. If I’m secretly glad she never got you, does that make me a terrible person? But what bothers me most of all is that I thought that for once I achievedsomething on my own. Now I found out that my sister primed you for this bond? It’s hard to stomach.”
Air gets trapped in my throat as I shake my head. “Were you two… not close?” I ask, even though I’ve already seen how unwilling he is to accept assistance. The thing I truly care about though is that he values my presence more than hers.
“I told you my family was a den of vipers, but that hardly scratches the surface. All my siblings were cruel to me, but Elodie? She found a way to fuck me over even in death. If it wasn’t for her diaries, I would have never been banished. No one would have been able to prove my involvement in the assassination attempt. She hid them in shadows that dispersed when she died. Un-fucking-believable.” Sylvan takes a deep breath that tickles my neck. “But even when we fought behind closed doors, us Goldweeds stuck together. I supported my older brother in his attempts for the throne because I hoped then I’d have a sliver of their respect.”
I swallow, focusing on the mature, somber expression settling on Sylvan’s face. He had the elongated ears and unusually pretty features all this time, but it is only now that I sense how different he is from any other man I’ve known. “Why didn’t they respect you? You were their sibling.”
"I'm not well liked, Hawk. My family values power, and I don’t have it. It's only fair you know that before you vow your shadow to me.” He makes a little whimper that prompts me to stroke his hair, my own frustrations forgotten. “I’m no master of confrontation, I’m an awful duelist, terrible at flirting, shorter than most elven ladies, and my shadow is so frail that sometimes I wished it gone altogether. So I turned to books and alchemy in an attempt to make up for the lack in all other matters. I hoped that if I could prove myself useful, that if I could fight the monster of Grief Ocean, or invent an ingenious weapon, I’d finally be worth something.”
I feel sad for him, and even though I don’t have the knowledge to reassure him, I slide my arms around his form and hold him, offering my warmth. “Can I duelfor you? Not everyone needs to be good at everything, right? For example, I make the worst coffee. It’s always either too strong or too weak.”
When he chuckles, his smile turns brighter than the golden mask next to us. “That’s your only flaw? Bad coffee?”
I want to be his rock, the one he turns to when the world crumbles around him. And I want to make sure he remains safe when he’s under my protection.
