Fifteen #2
He knew Prince Lorenz’s marriage would not be for love, would likely become little more than a business arrangement with how the prince currently spoke of the ordeal, but the thought of Floy having access to him—calling him by his given name, siting across from him at dinner, holding his arm as he walked behind the king and queen—made Cin feel sick with something a little like hatred.
But Prince Lorenz was no fool. He might have been keeping Floy around for their intellect and persistence, but there were likely far better options among the remaining castle attendees.
Attendees who Prince Lorenz had spent the entire night away from.
As Cin and the prince traveled closer to the palace, the buildings grew in size and scale. Tightly packed, gorgeous town homes surrounded fancy squares of wealthy shops where pockets of partying continued. From down the road, away from the echoes of joy and life, came a sound like a scream.
Cin straightened up, hoping he was wrong, but all three of his trio also went alert from their positions on the surrounding buildings, Perdition swooping to land on Cin’s shoulder.
Then there it was again—Cin was certain.
Soft, and distant, but definitely a sound of terror and pain.
He’d conditioned himself to notice such things, to pull them from the woodwork when no one else would.
And here he was, yet again, perhaps the only one who had.
The prince didn’t seem to hear the cry.
It would be better for Cin to ignore it.
Saving someone here, so deep in the wealthy parts of the city with the prince at his side, was far different than the work the Plumed Menace had taken on—even if he had no intention to kill here.
Whatever he did could put a spotlight on his existence at the balls, his friendship with the prince.
Cin’s mount shifted beneath them, Perdition ruffled her feathers in anticipation on his shoulder, and in the moment of silence that followed, he found he couldn’t ignore the ache in his bones nor the pull in his chest. If he was the only one who could help, then he had to do so, consequences be damned.
“Did you hear that?” Cin asked. “Down the road. I swear someone screamed.”
Prince Lorenz’s brow shot up. He didn’t question Cin, didn’t even pause to try to hear the sound for himself. Simply trusted. “What are we waiting for?”
His unquestioning determination to help made him all the more handsome.
As though they had one mind, Cin’s steed took off, charging in the direction of the sound.
They had to turn down a side street, then a wide, paved alley between the rows of fancy houses.
The clop of hooves should have overwhelmed the now fainter, muffled sobs, but whatever magic the transformed birds possessed let them practically fly, soundless through the night, Cin’s trio of tiny feathered angels guiding their way from above.
They emerged around a corner into the small gardened yard of a wealthy town home, and Cin found the person in an instant—spotted the man hulking over-top them, anyway.
He’d pinned his much smaller victim onto the stoop of the dark back porch.
By the muffled anguish to their whimpering, he was clearly holding one hand over their mouth, and the nature of their weak struggling made it easy to imagine the scene hidden by the shadows.
Easy, because Cin had witnessed it so many times before.
His chest tightened, the blood that pounded through his veins turning to a war drum in his ears.
He slid off his mount without a thought, throwing himself at the large man, grabbing into his clothes, twisting, then yanking.
His great size barely budged under Cin’s exertion, but then a second pair of hands joined Cin’s and together they pulled.
As they ripped the man back, his victim scrambled, falling over themself to get away. They seemed too breathless to thank anyone, too panicked still as they tried, desperately, to tuck the pieces of their simple servant’s clothing back around themself, their hat sliding off their head in the rush.
Despite the hands gripping his lavish shirt and shoulders, the man dove at his victim again, bellowing under his breath, “Come back here, you fucking—”
The man’s victim wavered, and Cin had the sickening realization that they must be their attacker’s hired help, caught between the job that provided them food and board and the horror of what their privileged employer was trying to take from them.
But there was no real choice here, not after all the times Cin had seen something like this play out.
They took a few more steps, crossing through a pocket of moonlight, and Cin caught a better glimpse of them—bruised skin, long hair, and, free now of their hat, the tips of two pointed ears.
An elf , here, in the city. Cin could see only one of their wrists, a flash of skin as they struggled to slide the rest of the way into their shirt, but he recognized the manacle clamped there.
All the nausea he’d felt when he’d first seen the elf-holding cages back on that wagon in the woods rose bitter and rancid in Cin’s stomach, but this time his anger overwhelmed it. “Go!” he shouted at the elf. “Now!”
Finally, the elf ran.
“You fucking—” The man spun sluggishly, landing heavy on one foot.
His breath stank of drink and his expensive jacket hung rumpled, half off him.
“I paid good money for that elf.” His gaze seemed to slide right over Cin and lock on Prince Lorenz, gorgeous even now, in the low light and the panicked anger.
His fists balled. “You’ll wanna take their place, huh? ”
He lunged at the prince.
Fear shot through Cin, then rage. He could see the future that would play out—the pain, the loss. There was no God to smile on Prince Lorenz here, just as there’d been none to help every other elf who’d been enslaved by a rich Hallinisch bastard. Only Cin. Only ever Cin.
Before the thought had finished, he was already moving, his feathered cape sweeping out behind him.
This man, this bastard, this villain, had bought an enslaved elf, not even simply for the status or their magic, but to violently extract every piece of them—soul and body—he could.
And he thought he could take the same from Cin’s prince.
Would take the same, next time he could, from whoever he could.
Cin’s body knew itself even in his ludicrous glamor, this false pretense of regality and goodness, and his hands found the small blade that he’d tucked against his back that morning.
He had it free in an instant. As though he possessed the very wings his feathered coat implied, he all but flew onto the man’s back, blade poised.
A little voice, soft and mothering, told him no .
Be good, be pious.
But the man beneath his grip had not been, over and over and over, and no one else had stopped him. He was doing it again, despite Cin clamped to his back, one fist slamming into the prince’s stomach as he grabbed him with the other. No one else would stop him. No one else, but Cin.
So he rammed his little knife into the side of the man’s neck. Flesh gave way beneath his blade as he tore, like cutting the wrong way through a freshly plucked chicken.
As though his puppet’s cord had snapped, the man lurched to a stop.
He reeled once, his hands trying to reach for Cin.
He grasped unsuccessfully at his neck, at his own blood, but as Cin wrenched free his blade, its sharp edges were what he found first, hand clamping down only to recoil with a howl.
Then the blood started pouring. It spurted, hot and sticky over Cin’s fingers, and the man sank to his knees.
This time it was easy, the knife going back into that serrated muscle so smooth and sure. Cin drove it until the tip hit bone, and twisted up. The man’s growling and scrambling dissolved into a choke, then nothing.
Cin dismounted as he crumpled across the pavement.
Hands shaking, Cin stood there. Perdition dropped onto his shoulder.
She nuzzled into the side of his neck, and somewhere above, behind, around, were Ragimund and Lacey’s gentle coos, too soft and melancholic for anything but a funeral.
The fire that had fueled Cin—the surety so deep in his bones that reason couldn’t touch—drained away.
His chest felt empty. Nausea turned in his stomach.
Yet again—yet again. How many times was this now? How many bodies...
Yet again, not pious, not good.
But this time, it wasn’t the corpse at his feet that disturbed him most. Not the stench of the dead man’s blood still dripping sticky and hot from Cin’s arms, nor the weight of the knife in his hands.
It was the prince’s gaze, so aghast that Cin could feel the shock, each tiny, sharp breath he took before he spoke a miniature dagger to Cin’s chest.
“Did you—you just—you—” Prince Lorenz barely managed the words as he straightened, one arm wrapped around his bruised side.
And so awkwardly he seemed not to even know what he was doing, the prince took a step away from Cin.