Page 42 of The Huntsman's Heart
“Thank you. I’ll watch him for now. It’s nearly time for you to get some rest.”
The soft-looking male with pretty features leans close to whisper something into her ear, and I want to drag him away from her by his hair.
She smiles at him. “I won’t decide anything until you wake.”
The three creatures spread wide wings and lift into the air, taking up positions on the walls of the ruined castle while the three hounds move to the gate. As the sun taints the horizon with pink, a change comes over them. At first I think they’ve just gone very still. Then I realize their color has changed. They have turned to stone!
So her new friends are immobilized during the daylight hours. The princess is far from vulnerable, though. She has transformed herself into a fighter. Even her stance has changed as she takes up position watching over me. Her chest out, shoulders back. I wonder if she can see what she’s gained.
“Have you considered what I said?” I ask her quietly.
She looks down at me. “I do not know what reason I have to trust you.”
“Then ask and I shall give you reasons.”
“Why should I listen? You will likely just feed me lies.”
She was always clever. I incline my head to acknowledge her point. “Let us begin with the things you can test for yourself.”
She quirks a brow but does not speak. I take this for as much encouragement as I’m likely to get. “I am like you. I am not of the living. You have seen that much for yourself, but if you doubt still, come, listen to my heartbeat.”
Something flashes in her eyes. “What do you mean?”
I can’t move. “See for yourself.”
She narrows her eyes but moves toward me slowly. When she comes close, she reaches out and places a hand on my chest, right over the place my heart should be. She waits.
She feels nothing. There’s nothing there to feel.
She draws back. “So what? So you have no heart. No surprise there.” Despite her words, she looks shaken and turns away.
I reach for something to say to her. “Would you like to know what made me this way?”
She turns back, her gaze fixed on me. “A monster attacked you? Some curse?”
I laugh bitterly. “You might say that.”
There’s a pause. We watch each other. Eventually, when she still says nothing, I find the words spilling from me in the silence. “I did this to myself for love—for what I thought was love.”
“You did this on purpose?”
“I would not put it that way, no.”
“Explain.”
“Once, a very long time ago, I was a prince.”
She scoffs. “You?”
“A hundred years ago. My kingdom was small, but prosperous. It was time for me to marry, but I refused, unwilling to resign myself to one woman for the rest of my life. And then I heard of a woman so beautiful men came from all the neighboring kingdoms to win her hand in marriage, but she accepted none of them.”
Guinevere sits on an overturned stone, watching me.
“So of course that was a challenge I could not resist. But I was not prepared when I saw her for myself. I already wanted her as a trophy, the way one mounts the head of a slaughtered animal. Once I saw her, I wanted her for myself.”
Guinevere rolls her eyes. “And so you took what you wanted.”
Touchè. Of course she’s right. I shake my head. “I could not. She would not have me either. There was only one thing that would persuade her to give herself to me.” It’s bitter to remember the way she took me in. Seduced me with looks fullof promise, with glancing touches and whispered filth, never actually giving me what I hungered for. It still puts me to shame how susceptible I was. “And when she had me wrapped around her little finger she told me what I must do.”
