17
Flare
Curse him. I kept the Royal tied up, yet his presence felt like a stain on the rainforest, something to be ashamed of.
But why should I feel guilty? I couldn’t trust a prince, a hater of born souls, a brutal Winter heir who’d strapped his hand around my throat. He was made of that enigma called ice, the word like a slippery thing, a surface on which I could trip and break my neck.
He would try to harm me. But while he might have had the upper hand when I’d been caged, rulers were irrelevant here. The rainforest didn’t care about his lineage or authority. As for me, I had never cared.
Now we were on my turf.
I’d been dealt a blow when that varmint proved he could detect my voice in the same way I privately heard myself. For some awful reason, nature had decided to grant him the ability. But while I simply had to accept it, I wasn’t about to like it.
To compensate, I did enjoy having the prince bound, as I’d enjoyed leading him astray in the forest, watching him drift in circles with a bewildered frown.
But as for my stunt with the fig, I couldn’t explain that one. Although I had sought to shut him up, to rattle the monster’s nerves, I hadn’t expected that eruption of heat while straddling his lap. The solid weight of his body beneath mine had caused a riot of sensations deep in the slit between my walls. My bare cunt had rested on his pants, the friction a shock to my system. The sight of his mouth glazed in nectar and the thick length of flesh between his hips had drawn unbidden dampness from me, which had threatened to leak out like evidence of a felony.
Thank Seasons, my body had spared me at the last moment, and I’d climbed off his cock before he could notice. That mistake would never happen again. I’d rather snack on shit than spread my thighs around this man for a second time.
The fitful stars blazed over the tide. Restless, I moved the supplies beneath a tree, in a shrouded thicket of frond hedges, then I used the second sail as a blanket by spreading it on the ground and wrapping half of the fabric over my body. Meanwhile, I heard the prince fussing, trying to get the sand out of his eyes since I hadn’t volunteered to help. While curling up and imagining his discomfort, I smiled and drifted into slumber.
***
They marked me with paint. It was a molten paint, which they dabbed into my skin with a brush, its bristles made to endure the heat. The smell hit me before the burn did, but I’d been screaming for a while by then, so the first swipe of the liquid didn’t make a difference.
Between cries, I squirmed against the guards, fought them so much that the markings took a long time to finish. They blamed me for that, saying, “Hold still, you tiny fucking monster!”
But I wasn’t a monster. I was scared and scared and scared, because where were Mama and Papa? Would they storm the tower and come for me?
I tasted tears, a little girl crying. I remembered she was me, that I needed to protect her from the pain.
I’d gotten glimpses of the other captives, so I understood which symbolic images the guards painted around my neck. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew the markings, as I knew this Season.
My kingdom had taken me prisoner.
They tossed me into a black cell lined in bars. I raged and thrashed against the grille, my voice echoing down the tower’s throat.
The guards sneered, called me a feral cunt, and gloated that I belonged to them. I shouted that they were wrong, but the oafs laughed, and I planned to bite their fingers off if they came near me again. I almost succeeded when they did, and it got me into trouble, and trouble hurt.
I imagined a safer place—a secret forest that floated in the ocean. That’s where my soul and mind fled, hoping to stay there until Mama and Papa rescued me.
But they didn’t come. They didn’t come for me because they couldn’t, because the court wouldn’t let them, because they were dead, and because I was trapped.
Soon after, I lost my voice. It didn’t return, but I hardly cared. I didn’t need spoken words, only my teeth and my dreams to save me.
They called me a freak of nature. They said I was a fool captive, one of the mad, made of madness. But I couldn’t understand why. I knew only one thing: I was twelve years old.
***
I jolted awake, my terrified heart clattering. The remnants of my nightmare vanished, replaced by verdant fronds swaying overhead and sunlight sparking through the canopy.
No rattling chains. No heckling sentinels.
No cage. No pain.
Instead, the lap of an ocean tide greeted me, and the distant call of a seagull brushed across the sky. I was safe. My body sagged in relief, my choppy breaths evened out, and I wiped my clammy hands dry. The nightmares didn’t come each night, but they’d also never abated.
At least, this bad dream hadn’t included my parents. Although the day I’d been branded was the most common one, the worst visions were of Mama and Papa trapped in their own cages where I couldn’t get to them. My parents suffering, not knowing what befell their daughter, and then dying in the darkness. All because of me.
My eyes clenched shut, and I concentrated on the swaying ocean, using the gentle sound to block out the vision until it dissipated. After that, I lay there for countless minutes before sweeping aside the makeshift blanket and crawling to the enclosure’s threshold.
My gaze stumbled upon a masculine form resting on his back in the sand. The prince had passed out beneath his tree. The hem of his rumpled shirt had slipped high, exposing the carved ledges of his abdomen, which rose and fell in slumber, those iron muscles expanding and contracting. A slim trail of dark hair cut through the smooth plane of skin, ran between two sloping hipbones, and disappeared into the waistband of his pants, down to where a distinct bulge outlined the length of his cock.
The same appalling sensations from when I’d straddled him returned, this time with a vengeance. My nipples toughened, and molten heat oozed from the rift in my thighs.
I shouldn’t look. I didn’t want to look.
Slanting my chin, I looked. With his head twisted away, that mane of blue hair shrouded his profile. Against my will, the candid sight lured me. How many citizens would donate a kidney and forsake their dignity to wake up beside him?
If they preferred monsters to saviors, that only illustrated their reprehensible taste. Admiring anything about this fiend was sacrilege.
Determined to focus on something else and prevent my damp cunt from having other ideas, I turned away. Beyond the thicket, sunlight drizzled orange and pink hues across the cove. Farther down the shore, a bright red speck fluttered through the air, then slipped behind a bush of high reeds.
Curious, I stood and padded outside. Jogging out of the prince’s range, I found the creature flitting amid the stalks. Halting several paces away, I grinned in recognition at the lone butterfly and marveled at the flaming shade of its wings.
On a hunch, I twirled in place. To my delight, the motion got its attention. The enthusiastic butterfly flapped toward me and circled my head, matching my movement.
With a laugh, I raised my crooked finger like a perch. The beauty landed there, its wings pumping.
“Good morning,” I confided. “Fancy seeing you again.”
It had to be one of the butterflies I reveled with yesterday. In Summer, certain butterflies were robust, lived for many years, and remembered human faces. Recalling that fact, I peered closer, blessed clarity surging to the forefront. The red wings quickened my pulse. This species resembled the type who’d delivered my messages to Autumn.
I peeked around the reeds. Confirming the prince was still sleeping, I whirled toward the butterfly. “Will you help me?”
When the creature remained on my finger, I made haste. Snatching a broadleaf from a shrub, I rushed to the shoreline and squatted. After locating a seashell with a chipped edge, I scratched a missive onto the surface—a confidential message only Poet and Briar would understand.
Because the jester and princess were a miraculous pair, they had noticed parts of the map sketch when I’d been imprisoned in Autumn. But although they would never unearth the rest without my help, sending the map was out of the question, lest it should end up in the wrong hands.
I chose my words carefully and scribbled a cipher. The tidings described the route here, but not in a way others would recognize. As a master of riddles, Poet would see through the message. As a princess widely known for bookishness and reading between the lines, Briar would as well.
Rolling the leaf and securing it with a strip of seaweed, I whispered to my companion, “If you bring this to the Princess and Jester of Autumn, I’ll be indebted. Will you please be one of our allies?”
The butterfly launched off my finger and seized the leaf. After circling my waist once, the creature dashed into the horizon. Water swabbed my ankles as I watched the winged being shrink to a red dot, then dissolve from sight.
As much as I needed supplies, Poet and Briar would have no means to send anything, since that feat would require a raptor too large to go unnoticed by the public. And my little messenger was strong, but not that strong. But at least the jester and princess would learn of my whereabouts. Should either of us need the other, we could call. Because now we’d know how to find one another.