Page 43 of The Huntsman's Heart
Guinevere lifts a brow. “What?”
“She wanted my heart—not in the way a lover commits his heart. No. She wanted the real thing. She told me of a ritual that would make both of us more powerful. What she failed to tell me was that in handing her my heart, I was handing her complete power over me.”
“And why are you telling me this? Do you think I will pity you?”
“Have you not worked out whosheis yet?”
“Not Melantha?” The princess frowns. “But you said it was almost a hundred years ago. Is Melantha a monster too?”
A laugh tears from me at her choice of words. “Oh, make no mistake, she is a monster, but not like us.”
Her eyes narrow. “And what are we exactly? Who did this to me?”
Has she not worked it out yet? And am I about to damn myself further? “Saw? It was I who did it to you.”
There’s a stony silence while she takes this in. I expect an outburst. To my surprise, she just clenches her fist. “All the more reason I have to hate you.”
I should be glad. I need her to hate me. I need her to keep that fire in her belly to ensure she ends me and Melantha.
“What about Melantha?” the princess asks. “Can she be killed?”
I smile. “She can be, just not by me. Not until I reclaim my heart. Then her power over me ends. While she controls it, I must serve her.”
She stands, pacing only to turn back to me. “But how is she still alive if she is a hundred years old?”
“Because I’ve worked the magic to keep her so.”
“Then stop!”
“Princess, have you listened to anything I have told you? Listen well, because very soon she will start to wonder where I am and will send for me, and I will go to her. I will not have a choice.”
She draws close, standing over me, and her anger flares, but there is also fear in her eyes. “How will you go to her if I have you bound here?”
“It will cost me. I might be forced to tear myself apart and reanimate one limb at a time, but I will do it. I do not have a choice. Your time is running out, princess. Because if I am gone too long, she will grow suspicious.”
“It is all just words. And I will not fall for it.”
“It is the truth. Let me free and I will prove it to you.”
She lets out a little growl of frustration. “I do not trust you for a moment. If you think you can escape your fate, you are wrong. I will find my own way to end you, and until that time, you can rot there for all I care.”
Anger rises in my chest, and I clench my hands into fists behind me, but I can’t get free. Not without the dark magic compelling me to. “Would you just listen to me? I am trying to help you.”
“As you helped me by abducting me and turning me into this?” She gestures down at herself and guilt twists in my guts.
Guinevere rolls her eyes. “So helpful. Please allow me to demonstrate my gratitude.” She turns her back and walks away.
“Princess!”
She doesn’t look around.
“Princess, did you listen to me?”
“Yes,” she calls over her shoulder. “What a mistake.”
Guinevere
My mind churns like cream being made into butter all the rest of that day while I wait for my gargoyles to wake. The long hours alone are torment, and the more I sit and stew on what Alaric said, the more I’m inclined to believe him, which I hate. I climb up to the top of the walls to sit beside Raban in an effort to find some comfort in his presence, but all I find is a cold wind that chills the tip of my nose and makes a tangle of my hair.
