Eighteen #2
Cin drew in a little sob, pressing the side of his face to the prince’s neck in thanks. He tried to hold his hope at arm’s reach—this was not safety. This was Prince Lorenz, yes, but even if he were to plead for Cin’s freedom, his parents still had to accept.
King Warner coughed in protest of his son’s actions, and the queen stormed right up to them both, her arms crossed and her expression twisting in the lantern light.
“He was at the scene of the crime,” she retorted, “identified by a witness just this hour.”
The bonds snapped free of Cin’s wrists entirely and Prince Lorenz turned to glare at his parents. “Did this witness identify me as well?”
“You...” His mother’s eyes widened.
“Of course I was there!” The prince shot to his feet once more, one hand coming to rest against the back of Cin’s head, cradling. His voice welled with all the emotion of that night. “I stood there and watched as Von Achenbach lunged for us, and...”
Cin could feel every last one of Prince Lorenz’s aches deep in his own chest as he awaited the inevitable.
Perhaps from the prince, at least, he would sound heroic, though Cin knew that to be a lie.
There was the slightest of chances that he had saved a person that night, but undeniably he had killed one.
Queen Idonia stared at her son, her face pale in the flickering lantern light. “Then you saw what, my son?”
The prince cleared his throat, and while his horror and misery remained, his confidence returned to stabilize it. “I saw my friend in peril, and a knife at his belt, and I could not...” He shook his head, wiping aside a bit of moisture that clung beneath his eye. “I acted without a thought.”
The implication of his statement pieced together slowly, tenderly, each word leaving an ache deep inside Cin.
It hurt in the best way, terrible yet lovely.
Even after seeing what he had done, who he was , the prince was protecting Cin.
By taking that blame on himself. It was so much more than Cin had expected; more than he could have believed anyone would do for him, much less this man who’d been utterly distressed by the sight of the blood on Cin’s hands.
Prince Lorenz looked so mournful—so guilty —too, that Cin could only believe that the emotion came from a place of understanding.
That between the murder and now, the prince had put himself in Cin’s shoes.
“I’m sorry I did not have the heart to tell you,” he said.
“I was panicked and I had remembered the feathers in Cinder-Ella’s cloak and I thought, if the Plumed Menace had killed such terrible people as Brando Von Achenbach in the past, what would be one more to their name?
I did not imagine it would spark... all this. ”
Cin felt himself tremble, flashes of cold and heat coursing through him.
It seemed the wrong reaction to such commitment, so negative in light of the prince’s offer of salvation.
But that was just it—the offer; the salvation.
It wasn’t divine, but it was more than anyone had ever deemed Cin worth.
Even if, by the expressions of Prince Lorenz’s parents, he would serve a far lighter sentence for Cin’s crimes than Cin would have.
The queen stared at her son with a sudden wave of compassion and calculation, as though already conceiving of a dozen ways to save him from this revelation.
The reaction from the prince’s father was more surprising, simply for the stoic distance he’d maintained thus far, now shattering as his eyes welled with tears. “Oh, son,” he whispered, one hand on his heart.
Queen Idonia’s gaze snapped between Cin and her son.
“Perhaps he didn’t kill Von Achenbach, but are you certain he’s not still the Menace?
His feathered cloak, and his regal attire with no title— No one had seen him before these balls—” she said in a staccato jumble, jumping from one reasoning to the next.
The prince responded with impeccable calm.
“I’ve been to his home; I’ve seen his mother’s grave.
He is just a humble son of a once-wealthy family who jumped at the chance to attend a royal ball.
Was that not the reason we invited everyone?
You wished for me to build relationships amongst all the classes—as you had with Father. Those were your words, were they not?”
Queen Idonia glanced at her husband, her mouth tight and something oddly like a blush peppering the edges of her cheeks.
Cin could almost see them both as younger people, a regal, bold princess turned soft and curious over a local carpenter’s son who sat by the castle wall to write poetry in his free time.
Somehow, between then and now, they had become this: grief-stricken and harsh, trying to strong-arm their kingdom’s future at the expense of their son’s current happiness.
“The soldiers believe he has magic,” King Warner said. His voice was softer than Cin would have thought, delicate and musical, but the words themselves were like a stake in Cin’s chest.
The whole family looked at him, even Prince Lorenz. A flash of worry crossed his face, and his fingers lifted, tucking awkwardly against his heart. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Magic?”
Cin gave a sharp little shake to his head.
“There is magic I benefit from, but it is not mine. I traded for my shoes with a pair of free elves near the border, and my steed, while more agile and intelligent than a regular horse,”—he could not say they were secretly a flock of pigeons, not now—“is a docile creature. But I am certainly no wizard.”
He tried to balance his innocence with confidence, but the flurries of emotion that had already passed through him in the last few minutes still tore up pieces of his insides, and he was fairly certain he just came across as desperate. Desperate though, he could lean into.
“Your Royal Majesties,” Cin added, “if I had any strong magic to speak of, I hope I’d be halfway to Falchovari by now.”
Prince Lorenz had begun nodding slowly, releasing the grip he’d taken on his own chest, but the queen looked unconvinced. “You ran from our soldiers,” she snapped. “Can you explain that?”
“I believe having five armed soldiers rush you on horseback would frighten most people into running.” It was a risk to be so blatant, Cin knew, but he felt the conversation already tearing away from him, and he could not give it up without a final fight.
“And I mean no disrespect, Your Royal Majesty, but would you have been more inclined to listen to me had I come quietly?”
“I’m certain I would have,” Queen Idonia insisted, but she looked less so by the second.
Still staring down his mother, Prince Lorenz took one of Cin’s hands in his and squeezed it. “I promise, Cinder-Ella is not the villain you’re searching for. I know him, and I trust him. He has a—a good heart.”
A good heart . It seemed like a mistake. Like he’d stumbled, then picked the word he knew his parents would accept.
Queen Idonia still looked concerned, but something else crept into her voice. “Ren,” she asked, almost hesitantly, “You truly do care very deeply about this man?”
“I do indeed; well enough to know that he is not the villain you want,” the prince repeated.
“He convinced you to leave the castle, and I hear the city , even, without your watch! And you—” She lowered her voice.
“You killed a man. This Cinder-Ella —if that is even his name—may not be the Plumed Menace, but he is not”—she looked almost ashamed now to say it in the same room as Cin as she finished under her breath—“an appropriate partner .”
“That is fine, then,” Prince Lorenz snapped, “because I’m certainly not marrying him.”
Cin’s chest ached at the words. It was just the way it was said—the sureness, like any other outcome would be preferable. Cin had always insisted he was not there for the prince. But the prince had been here for him just moments before, and now...
It was nothing.
Cin was not marrying Prince Lorenz , anyway.
“But you are marrying,” Queen Idonia snapped.
“You need someone at your side,” his father added, gentler, setting a hand on his wife’s shoulder as he said it. Some of her frustration slipped away beneath his touch, though a renewed determination seemed to compensate for it.
“So you say!” The prince looked one wrong step away from exploding, not in anger but something more miserable, dark and suffering.
As much as Cin’s heart continued to hurt for whatever senseless, useless reason, he still wanted to reach for Prince Lorenz, to take the prince in his arms and tell him that he could have all he wished from life—nothing more and nothing less.
But he was the last person who could offer that to anyone, particularly not if the queen and king were bent on denying it.
Prince Lorenz seemed to work through enough of his emotions on his own, though, lifting his chin to meet his parents’ gaze head on.
“I will promise you this, then—if you allow me friendship with whomever I wish, then you can pick my partner at the end of next week’s ball.
Choose any candidate you think suits this country.
I don’t care. I’ll marry them. But leave Cinder-Ella, and my affection for him, alone.
He’s been through enough. He deserves not to lose anything more. ”
In a little huff, the queen turned to her husband. King Warner muttered something to her under his breath, and it seemed they were continuing a conversation they’d had many times. Finally, the queen shook her head dismissively.
“We’ll continue to discuss your partnership later,” she said.
Prince Lorenz looked away.
Cin’s chest ached for him. His arms felt strangely empty—empty, like his heart.
“Until then, you may have this friendship of yours, so long as it stays within the castle walls,” Queen Idonia told her son.
“Your father and I do not leave here without someone else to wield the blade, and neither will you. There will not be a repeat of your impulses, regardless of the circumstances. A king’s duty is to the protection of his people’s lives, never the taking of them. ”
They could not know that their son had done just that by taking the blame for Cin.
As Prince Lorenz’s mother passed him with a pat on his shoulder, her gaze fixed on Cin. Behind her, King Warner chided the prince softly, but Cin could focus on nothing but the queen as she stopped before him, her grandeur dimmed only by a hint of shame.
“Our apologies for the ordeal we’ve subjected you to,” she said, and Cin couldn’t tell whether she was genuine, but perhaps her sincerity was less important than the words themselves, and their offer of a truce.
“We felt the evidence of your involvement was too strong to deny, but it appears we had only part of the story.” She glanced back at her son warily.
“It seems that impulsive protective measures run in our family.”
“You thought you might learn what happened to your son. That’s not a sin.
” No more than anything Cin had done, anyway.
He found, despite the terror of her treatment, that he could not blame her for it.
Least of all because she had found the Plumed Menace—he just hadn’t been the one responsible for her eldest’s demise.
The queen nodded. “We thank you for your understanding. And for your silence in all that has transpired in this room.”
“I assure you," Cin replied, "I would bleed my last drop for your son before I let him feel the wrath of the world.” It was a risk, but by the tilt of appreciation in the queen’s chin, Cin thought he’d judged well.
“As you should,” she said.
“He’s a good man.” Cin believed that. “He’ll be a good king.” He believed that too. Whether the prince wanted the role or not, he’d take care of the kingdom, though the work might make him miserable in the process.
Even the king smiled faintly from Prince Lorenz’s side as his wife replied, “We know he will.”
And her tone was clear: they knew—knew how much he didn’t want this.
And wished, too, that he had another choice.
But the man they’d all expected to lead after them was gone now.
All they had left was Lorenz, forced into shoes he couldn’t fit by people who understood just how great a mismatch this would always be.
Perhaps that was why they were pushing so hard for him to take a partner?
They thought that if he had someone at his side who wanted to do the work, he’d feel relief.
“Enjoy the remainder of the ball,” the queen said, giving her son a final narrow-eyed look as she left, and Cin was pretty sure that meant: don’t spend all your time with him .
If he wasn’t marrying Cin, the prince had to marry someone, after all.
The king nodded to Cin, and left behind his wife.
Cin could hear the footsteps of their guards pick up partway down the hall, then begin to fade into the distance.
The bubble of the underground waterway replaced their sound, and it was just Cin and Prince Lorenz, watching each other from what seemed like a hundred miles apart.