Chapter Five
I squeak and try to clamber away, but his hand shoots out, grabbing me by the ankle and pulling me from under the altar. He drags me to my feet, grabbing me by the arms, and I struggle against him.
“Hold still,” he growls.
“Get off, ” I shout.
I feel one arm latch around my waist, and he pulls me into him.
Roze is stronger than I expect. His arms lock me against his solid frame, my chest pinned to his, hard muscle apparent through his clothing.
I try with all my strength to break free, but his arms are like chains, his grip on my wrist like a manacle.
“Stop struggling.” His sharp face is pinched in frustration.
“Let me go.”
“If I let you go, you’ll run.”
“ That’s the idea.”
“Just listen.”
He claps a gloved hand over my mouth, and I bite him.
“Fuck.” He releases me. I back up several feet into a corner, looking for a way to dodge around him.
He shakes his bitten hand and mutters, “Feral beast.” Then he turns his glare on me.
I freeze and take a deep breath. Even as I glower back at him, I’m struck—to my annoyance, not for the first time—by the harsh beauty of his face. He is beautiful, not handsome. “Handsome” is a word reserved for men of valor, and there’s no valor in the Prince.
He is pure, lovely dread. Prince of Beautiful Disaster.
“That’s better,” he croons. “Now behave yourself if you want to live.”
“You’re the Huntsman,” I say. There’s no fear in my voice—just pure spite.
He tilts his head. “Some call me that, but I didn’t invent the name. That would be my mother’s doing. She spreads rumors about her assassin to inspire fear.”
“Her assassin,” I repeat, my heart pounding against my ribs. “You’re a prince. Aren’t you too important to play executioner?”
His expression turns bitter. “I don’t kill people. I kill meigas.”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
“If you’re going to kill me, please hurry.
I’d rather that than carry on this conversation with you,” I say, trying to sound brave when I feel anything but.
The knife that killed the guard is nowhere in sight.
How many weapons is he hiding beneath his school blazer?
He looks completely unrumpled after slicing the captain’s throat—not a spot of blood on him.
My skirt, however, is splattered with blood, and I can feel it squelch in my shoe.
His eyelids lower ever so slightly. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it quickly, cleanly, and as soon as you came in the door.”
“Cleanly like the way you killed the guard?”
“He didn’t deserve a clean death. Besides, you’re the one who made a mess of him. I’ve never seen someone so brutalized by a foot.”
Nausea twists my gut. I’m trying very hard not to look at the body on the floor.
“You were clearly ordered to kill me,” I say. “I overheard everything. So why not? You know what I am, and you’ve hated me for long enough. Don’t tell me you’ve actually grown a conscience.”
His chest heaves, and he exhales slowly through his nose. Something flares in his silver eyes, and I find my gaze locked with his, unable to pull away.
“You would deserve it,” he spits. His voice is sharp, cold.
The shadows push at my fingertips again, begging to be let loose. “Why?”
“You’re a meiga.” He says it so simply. For him, it’s enough explanation. I’m a meiga. Therefore, I deserve death.
“What did I ever do to you?”
“You can’t be serious.” The way his eyes glint causes my skin to go cold. “Not since the moment we met have you left me alone. I am royal, a prince, and everyone—everyone—seems to understand how that works except you. They all fear me. They all respect me. But not you. Never you.”
He takes a step closer, until I can feel his breath on my face. “Sinclair, every day of my life, you’ve been like … like an affliction, my own personal pestilence.”
I laugh mirthlessly. “If I’m pestilence, then you are vermin.” I cock my head and smile cruelly. “One I can’t seem to be rid of.”
“You are the source of my every misery. You walk in a room, and it makes me hate the very air I breathe.”
“I’d rather choke than breathe your air.”
“And that was before I found out about your little secret, you filthy, treacherous witch.”
I lift my hand to strike him again, just like I did in the Commons earlier, but a gloved hand lashes out like an asp, seizing my wrist. Blood drains from my face as a slow, sinister smile curls on his perfect lips.
“Maybe I should let you,” he purrs. “So I can show you what happens to anyone who would dare strike me twice.”
His thumb moves slowly over the inside of my wrist, and my skin pebbles.
“Fine with me,” I spit in his face. “At least I’ll die with the shape of my hand on your cheek.”
“I told you I wasn’t going to kill you.” That thumb is still moving distractingly against my skin.
“And why not?”
He smiles. “Because I want to make a bargain.”
I snort but keep my mouth shut. As much as I despise the idea of any sort of a deal with Roze, I have no doubt that he could kill me, that he’s been ordered to, and that this is probably my only way to get out of this alive.
“I’m listening,” I say.
He smiles like he’s won an argument, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from lashing out.
“I’m an assassin,” he says. “A very good one. The only one the Queen trusts to deal with meigas. She blames my father’s death on your kind, and she knows what you are. She’s ordered your death.”
He finally releases me, stepping away, and the loss of his grip on my wrist feels like plunging into an icy bath.
He shrugs off his Vandenberghe blazer, and my eyes widen at the hidden straps he has wrapped everywhere around his body, carrying at least half a dozen blades.
He rolls up his left sleeve, revealing pale skin on his toned forearm.
Then he holds it up into the candlelight, and there, on his arm, is a tattoo.
It’s a rose, like his name. But it isn’t beautiful, as a rose should be. It’s dark and malevolent, full of sharp lines and jagged angles. There’s a curling stem that descends his forearm, and on that stem, jutting out sharply like the teeth of a monster, are seven thorns.
“My mother gave me this this afternoon,” the Prince says.
His voice is full of loathing, but I don’t think it’s me he hates this time.
“She gives me one each time I’m ordered to execute a meiga.
A way of keeping me in line.” He points to the thorns.
“Seven thorns for seven days to kill you. One will disappear each day until it’s done. ”
“And if you don’t?”
His eyes are edged with strain and contempt. “If I don’t kill you, on the seventh day at sundown, my life will end.”
I feel sick. “Why?” I ask. “Why not kill me herself ?”
He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his gloved hands on it, raising an eyebrow at me. “She’s the Queen, darling. She doesn’t get her hands dirty if she doesn’t have to.”
His look is piercing, like he’s trying to read me.
“I’m just a girl,” I say. “I have shadows that appear at my fingertips when I feel things strongly. That’s all. It’s nothing special.”
He snorts and leans against the railing that separates the apse from the nave, continuing to study me.
“If only that were true. You might be simply locked away like an ordinary criminal for what you are instead of killed.” He looks me up and down, from my bloody boot to my eyes, and my whole body heats at his perusal.
Something hot surges through my belly, and I look away, wrapping my arms around my middle like I can guard myself against whatever it was. “So you told her what I am. Because of some petty grudge.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t tell her.”
I forget to be angry for a moment. “What?”
“My mother has her own methods when it comes to weeding out her enemies. I had nothing to do with her learning your identity.” He idly inspects the leather of his gloves. “I don’t actually like this work, you know. It’s gruesome.”
I pause, swallowing. “So you don’t want to kill me?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Are you suggesting that I should?”
“No, but you hate me as much as I hate you. If she’s had you do this before, why not now? Why are we even having this conversation?”
He sighs dramatically and looks up at the rose window of the cathedral wistfully. “I suppose I’m tired of killing.”
I glare at him. “I want the truth.”
His eyes cut to mine. “My father is dead. Did you know I was the one who found him?”
I shake my head, unsure of what this has to do with anything.
“After the All Hallows Eve masquerade, I found him alone in a dark hall. There were no wounds on his body. It was like he’d just keeled over.
And on his arm”—Roze crosses to the altar and picks up the little black book that is still lying there—“was a tattoo of these.” He points to the runes around the seal of the lion and dragon.
I stare at the book, my heart beating painfully against my chest.
With the King lie the answers.
I close my eyes, remembering the drunken revelry of the All Hallows Eve masquerade, every attendee wearing the face of some fiendish creature, the King’s foul, distant mood when he’d danced with the Queen.
“Sinclair?” Roze asks me. “What do you know about this?”
I flinch as I open my eyes.
“Nothing,” I say, staring at the mysterious book.
He opens it, staring at the words on the first page. He gently flips through the rest of the yellowed pages.
“It’s blank—save for that one line. Why do you have this?”
“Professor Borges gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.” Not now that it seems to have nothing to do with our search for the Book of Odds.
He sighs, sweeping a hand over his hair to smooth it.
“What does this book have to do with anything? What is it?” I ask.
He points to the dragon on the front. “The dragon. That is the symbol of Castelle. The Kingdom of Death. The Kingdom that sent the Mists.”
My eyes fixate on the symbol. The Kingdom of Death.
“You think Castelle is responsible for killing the King?”