23. Chapter 23
23
Zara
E udoria and Ivy sank to their knees while Samuel shot a fist into the air. In the stands above us, dark shapes burst from the fae like smoke from flames. The fae didn’t seem concerned as they merrily danced their way back into the castle, arms waving and jewelry clinking. Adán didn’t rise, and the smell of death hung over the arena, chilling my blood.
Despite my heaving chest, I forced myself to look at the fallen man. Bright light hovered on the horizon as dawn marched on, unconcerned with the life that wouldn’t see this new day. The elation in the fae was palpable as they slithered back into their caves. Tomas, who’d fallen as Diego had attacked, labored to his feet, cradling one arm against his middle. He bled from at least two places, but he was alive. He nodded firmly at me and turned to ascend the stone steps, where a fae wearing a glittering golden dress waited for him with one arm extended. She wrapped her arm around his back and led him up the steps.
Puzzled at the sight, I didn’t notice Casimiro approaching until his presence at my shoulder made me jump. Without thinking, I ran from him, since the enchantment was finally lifted. But my toes sank into the sand, slowing me down. Ivy was already halfway up the arena steps. She tossed a glance over her shoulder, her eyes wide with relief when she spotted me. She waited, stepping onto a stone bench as Tomas and the fae woman passed.
“Proceed.” The heir’s voice came from right behind me, startling me for the second time in less than a minute.
Ivy tensed but then gathered her skirts and hurried up the steps.
I whirled on him. “You picked those monsters because you knew I was afraid of them.”
The growing light of dawn painted the princeling’s sharp features with a soft light. His dark eyes flared with blue magic, the strangeness of it freezing me in place as he rose to stand directly before me on the steps, his face level with mine.
“I picked those monsters because I knew I could control them. I knew I could keep you safe , Valencia.” His hands slipped behind his back, pulling open the collar of his suit. His neck had a sheen to it that was unnatural—and I couldn’t help but swallow as I thought how smooth his skin must be.
I spun and raced up a few more steps.
Without moving around me, Casimiro appeared in front of me, his feet touching down as if he’d flown over my head.
Gasping, I turned to the side and raced down the length of one of the stone benches, turning into the tunnel several of the fae had used. But before I reached the door, Casimiro materialized, his arm propped against the slick stone, blocking my path.
A frustrated scream popped from my lips as I sought another route. Anything to get away from him—from how handsome he looked and how fast my heart was beating at his words. He’d helped me survive, but he was still fae, still the heir of this wretched place, and still going to try to kill me as soon as I helped him. I couldn’t stand the sight of him. I hated that I was his pawn and that he held information about Talia over my head.
I hated that he’d saved my life.
Hated that he had a sliver of goodness in him.
That I wanted him to have goodness in him.
If he had no goodness in him at all, it would be much easier to forget what he’d just said.
At the far edge of the arena’s seats, a path had been cut into the mountainside. I charged down it, trying not to look at the perilous cliff edge on one side. Up ahead, a short stairwell curled up and around to an even higher path. It led, eventually, to a balcony studded with flaming torches, not unlike the balcony adjacent to the heir’s quarters. From this part of the path, nearly the entire mountainside was visible, as was the sprawling castle built into the rock. At the very top was a structure similar to the castles I’d seen in Avencia—tall stone walls topped with two towers limned with sunlight, like twin knives pointed at the heavens.
Momentarily awestruck by the sheer size of the castle, I didn’t see Casimiro reappear in my path until I ran directly into him. He was black as night and made of whirling darkness—the same strange form he’d taken when he took me from my home.
I shrieked and backed away, nearly stumbling off the edge of the path. Casimiro grabbed my arms and steadied me. For several seconds, my heaving white breaths mingled with the inconsistent outline of his features. Then he solidified and I was again staring at the corporeal Shadow Prince.
I slapped his face.
He caught my offending wrist, but only for a second. By the time I yanked my hand down, he’d already let go. In my hand was a smooth, cold item. I backed away from Casimiro, placing my back to the stone wall on the side of the path farthest from the path’s edge.
I lowered my arm and opened my palm, where a small vial, no larger than my little finger, rested. My eyes snapped up to Casimiro’s. “What’s this?”
“An antidote.”
My fingers closed around the tiny vial. “For what?” I tucked that hand behind my back, just in case he tried to snatch it back.
“Enchantments.”
My eyes had nowhere else to look but his face, which was too close. Despite the way he made me squirm, I held his stare. “And why would you want to give me this?”
“I need to know that you will not be…tampered with by anyone in my court as you go about your task,” he said, the warmth of his breath brushing my chin.
A horrified scoff burst from my mouth. “Your court is foul, you know that?”
“More than you do, I assure you.”
That answer silenced me.
He tilted his head, his loose hair falling across his forehead. My attention traveled to his mouth and back to his eyes, but not fast enough. One side of his lips curled up. “You managed just fine back there. Dips have the ability to smell magic, a convenient benefit of using them as spies. Diego took to you so quickly because of the ruby scented with my magic.”
Heat flared up my chest, a mix of anger and something I didn’t want to admit. “Do you want me to say thank you?”
“You’re alive, so, yes, I assumed you would enjoy that outcome.”
“ Adán wasn’t protected!”
He averted his eyes, and he raked one hand down his face. “I can’t do anything about Adán. He chose to entertain, and his choice ends in death. If I heal him, my father will return. Immediately. And then you will all die.”
I straightened my shoulders, putting my face a little closer to his because I couldn’t stand the thought of cowering before him. “You are a murderer.”
“The bargain and the mortal’s subsequent choice are what kill the entertainers. You had the choice to live.”
“So you saved me today, but I’ll die after I help you. Not exactly excellent negotiation skills.”
“Need I remind you that you are still alive because of me.” His chest rose and fell faster now.
For a moment, I glared at him. “You snatched me from my comfortable life, made me into a death-defying circus performer for your creepy little court of nightmares, just so you could try to squeeze some fraction of feeling out of your dead heart.”
Blue light pulsed in his dark irises, and I recoiled, ready for a spell to hit me, to punish me. But I felt nothing other than the mountain air biting at my skin.
“You humans think your weak hearts are the only ones that feel, but you—”
“No, you listen,” I cut him off. “You live forever, and yet you find no joy in life,” I pressed, unable to stop myself. “You crave death because you need the reminder that some things don’t last, and yet it does nothing to push you toward goodness or purpose or happiness. I would be mad, too, if I had to live like this.” I lifted my arms at my side. “If I had to live knowing my life could never have as much passion or purpose as a mortal’s.”
His hand had fallen back to his side. We’d moved away from the rock wall. Freezing wind encircled us, tossing our hair into our eyes and raking icy nails down my exposed back. Casimiro didn’t seem affected at all by the cold. He stared down at me with an angry pinch between his dark brows.
“Enough,” he growled. His eyes blazed with a different kind of heat, and I let out a small gasp.
I stuffed my hand into my pocket, drawing out the small gem. “Don’t you need this back?” I held it out to him, then regretted the movement as the mountain air nipped at my side and a violent shiver shook me.
Casimiro’s eyes flickered down my frame. “You’re cold.”
A laugh burst from my lips. “You live in a frozen wasteland.”
“I tend to forget how the cold affects mortals.”
I was surprised he had noticed at all. “I was born for hot weather. Coastline, bright sun, happiness.” The memory of the waves rolling up onto the pebbled shores outside Leor brought a rush of warmth to my shaking muscles. “Which I fully plan to return to when this wretched year is over.”
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. Then in a single movement, he removed his sleek suit jacket and, to my horror, swept it behind my head, draping it over my shoulders. The unexpectedness of this strange gesture, and the unfair way my body begged for his warmth still clinging to the coat, left me temporarily mute.
The tiniest flicker of a smile on his lips ripped me from my stupor. I yanked the coat from my shoulders and slung it over the cliff edge. It billowed like dragon wings on the breeze, floating up before it finally twisted and sank out of sight.
Casimiro cleared his throat and took his time rolling up both shirtsleeves before he responded. “You’re welcome.”
Before I could so much as blink, he fell backward off the path into thin air.
I screamed, but in another second, Casimiro stood on the path again, shadowy wings dissolving into nothing, his suit jacket sliding effortlessly back over his arms. I was so dumbstruck that I didn’t resist as he stepped forward, as his arm reached up against the wall once more, one arm over my shoulder, the other slipping quickly into my palm that gripped the vial. His cheek brushed against my hair as he withdrew, twirling the vial in his fingers. He smelled so good—like cinnamon and the inside of a cozy wooden trunk. As he lowered his arm, I breathed in deeply, but the cold air washed over me, and my traitorous mind wanted him to reach back out and block the frigid breeze.
“If you do not want my help, I understand,” he seethed, snapping my mind far away from his comforting aroma. “You did say you would never ask for it.” He wiggled the vial between two fingers, then hid it behind his back.
“That’s not fair!” I pinched my lips and stared where his hands had disappeared behind his waist.
“Fair?” He chuckled. “It wasn’t fair that I gave you the antidote in the first place and no one else.
Desperate for the antidote and for warmer air, I tucked my hands in at my sides and shuffled my feet underneath me, thinking of a way to change his mind. “Why do you have to be so wretched? What pleasure does it bring you to be cruel to those weaker than you?”
For several seconds, he studied me with eyes I thought might light up with those eerie blue flames any moment. Instead, he withdrew the vial and held it at face level.
“You insufferable monster.” I reached for his hand, but he pulled the vial back, out of reach. All that I succeeded in doing was slamming my chest into his and nearly losing my balance. I huffed in embarrassed frustration, trying not to think of how strong he felt.
His brows lifted.
I was about to demand he give me the vial when I recalled that I’d promised never to ask for his help.
Swallowing, I stepped away from him. “Answers. I will talk to the mortals and then I want answers.”
“Very well.” He took a few backward steps down the frosty path.
A small item flew toward me, and I caught it without thinking. The vial of St. John’s wart felt warm against my fingers.
“Keep that.”
“But I didn’t ask—”
“Remember, mortals don’t have to speak to be easy to read.”
I let out an exasperated huff, but he was already gone, evaporating into nothingness as I prepared to shout the rebuttal that died on my tongue. Cheeks flaming, I raced back the way I’d come, through the arena, and back into the dark mountain halls, clutching the vial of antidote close against my chest and wondering what under the heavens above Casimiro thought I’d communicated without using words.