7
I’m washing my hands the next morning when I realize the sickening truth.
My glyphs are gone.
The false black nails loosened during the night, and they lie on the sheets and the floor like tiny dark petals. But they’re not the reason my glyph set has been destroyed. The fake nails are designed to cling to the varnish without damaging it.
The hot spring must have ruined them. The minerals in the water softened my skin beautifully, but they also dissolved both the remaining varnish and the glyph paint.
The process must have begun in the bath, when the water seeped beneath the false nails, and then it continued overnight.
All that’s left of my investment is a bit of dark goop that slides off easily when I dip my fingers into the washbasin after taking my morning piss.
Devastation floods over me like a cold, dark tide.
How am I supposed to guide the prince safely to his destination with no magic?
The forests in this region are safe, but once we pass the Farrow Foothills, there are fewer patrols.
Wolves and panthers roam the woods, along with the occasional pair of wild unicorns, which can be as vicious as they are beautiful.
Not to mention the other beasts I learned about in my “Animals of the Upper Continent” class—like the spidermaws and wimmets that infest the Red Mountains.
If I do manage to get the prince to the Lord and Lady Kaenan at Anyssir Castle, my job will be over at that point.
I’ll be glyphless, without employment, stranded in the Grey Province.
I’ll have to travel all the way back to Kyr on the magic carpet and go back to working at the Pink Lycan, because no decent employer will hire a guard without a glyph set.
For someone of my size and gender, even a basic job as security for a local pub would require a pair of strength glyphs, at the very least.
I suppose I could try to sell the carpet… but I don’t have the owner’s registration and the provenance documents required for a legal sale of such a complex magical item. Besides, I rather like him. As the prince said, he’s more than an object.
I sit down limply on the bed, glancing over at Vawn. He’s flushed with sleep, breathing slowly, his lashes lying in black semicircles against his cheekbones. Goddamn his beauty.
One of his hands is tucked halfway under the pillow. I ease it out and flick aside the detached false nails. His glyphs have dissolved too.
Could it have been the landlady? Did she add something to the bath?
She had a very negative attitude about glyphs.
Maybe she’s part of an anti-magic cult, or maybe she’s simply a crotchety bitch who doesn’t like anyone having advantages she can’t possess.
Maybe she has magic-related trauma. Whatever the reason, she could have added a caustic substance like wyvern piss to the hot spring.
Unlikely, though. Anything she put in would have eventually drained out through the lower aperture in the rocky wall of the pool.
Sighing, I run my thumb over the back of the prince’s hand. Such exquisitely soft skin.
My gaze drifts back to his face, and a jolt of thrilling horror bursts in my chest when I realize that his eyes are open. They’re liquid silver, shadowed and mocking.
“Warming up to me, are you, sweetheart?”
“No.” I drop his hand. “Checking your glyphs. They’re gone, yours and mine. Probably the minerals in that hot spring.”
“What?” He sits up, inspecting his fingertips. “Most hot springs wouldn’t do that.”
“Apparently this one does. Something leaching from the bones into the water, maybe.”
“Ugh.” He shudders.
“You’re an artificient. You had glyph paint with you last night—you used it on the horses’ hooves.”
“Yes, but I left it in the carriage.”
“Of course you did.” I press my fingertips to the bridge of my nose. “Fuck. And we don’t have anywhere near the amount of money we’d need for paint, much less a decent varnish. We’ll have to steal it or continue without it.”
“Continue without it?” He throws off the covers and inspects his feet briefly. Then he leaps out of the bed and paces the room, hands in his hair, wild energy emanating from him. “I can’t go anywhere without my glyphs.”
“Yes, fate forbid your orgasms be less intense,” I say dryly.
He croaks a broken laugh. “You don’t understand.”
“So help me understand. The three glyphs I didn’t recognize—what were they for?”
He looks away, biting his lip.
“Your Highness.” I rise from the bed, squaring my shoulders, wishing I was taller compared to him. “Keeping secrets from me might impact my ability to protect you. Tell me why you feel you can’t go anywhere without your glyphs.”
He closes his eyes and releases a long, strained sigh. “Those three glyphs were my own design. And I had more on my toes. They’re gone, too.”
“Your toes?” I glance down, realizing that I haven’t gotten a good look at his feet until now.
During our show at the Pink Lycan, he wore gold slippers, and when he changed there and at the hot spring, I was trying not to ogle him, so I didn’t notice his toes.
“You had a podalic glyph set? How did you control them?”
“They were perpetual glyphs,” he says quietly.
“No.” My gaze snaps to his. “Glyphs that remain active all the time? Those are a myth. They’re impossible.”
“They’re not, with the right design. Creating them is an intricate process, much more involved that most artificients are capable of.”
“And you happened to discover the secret.” Disbelief bleeds through my tone.
The prince’s lip curls. “Is that so difficult to believe?”
“Well… you don’t seem to… that is, I never thought…”
He steps toward me, a dominant rage in his eyes. My first instinct is to shove him away, but I let him remain in my space, with a gap barely the width of a fingernail between our bodies.
“You think I’m a philandering fool and a spoiled fuckboy.” His hot breath paints a flush on my cheeks. “There’s nothing more to me, right? Just a pretty face and a body that you can’t help wanting.”
“I don’t want you.” It’s a strained whisper, and I can’t decide if it’s true.
Vawn places his palm against my upper chest. “Your heartbeat says otherwise.”
“My pulse quickens when I’m being threatened. I suggest you back off, or I’ll show you how I deal with threats.”
“What threat, beautiful?” He grins, malicious and reckless. “I would never hurt you, so the only threat I pose is sexual. The only battle here is between you and your lust.”
“You’re so fucking conceited,” I hiss. “Take your hand off my chest. Now.”
He obeys, but he remains where he is, overshadowing me, his heat vibrating so close to my skin I can taste him. My core is warm, alive, swollen with a need I refuse to admit out loud.
“Tell me how you were able to create perpetual glyphs,” I repeat.
“As an artificient, I have more magic in my extremities than other people,” he says. “That’s part of the answer, but not all.”
“And what did your podalic glyphs do? Why are you so desperate to regain them?”
“I should have known they were failing last night.” He turns away, his shoulders bowed. “I started to feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“Everything. The sorrow, the agony, the despair. The loss of them. And the anger. So much of that.”
“Your lower glyph set… it controlled your emotions?”
He sits down on the edge of the bed. “About four years ago, I was tired of being wretched. Sick of trying to find a path for myself, sick of pursuing my father’s approval, sick of caring.
I cared so much that I was paralyzed from within.
I felt as if every day I was slogging through a great, interminable darkness, heading nowhere.
I was this close to ending my life.” He holds up his thumb and forefinger, nearly touching.
“So instead of killing myself, I designed a glyph set to change my own mentality.”
I step away from the wall, sit beside him on the edge of the bed, and fold my hands, waiting quietly for as much as he’s willing to share.
Vawn stretches out his legs. He has two rings on his toes—one on the second toe of his right foot, and another on the central toe of his left. Both are glyph-graven with symbols I don’t recognize.
“Every glyph was inward-facing, affecting me.” He points to each toe in turn, starting with the small one of his left foot.
“Levity, lassitude, euphoria, neutrality, nonchalance, apathy, equanimity, calmness, humor, resilience. Variations on the same theme. The three symbols on my fingers, the ones you didn’t recognize, were also perpetual glyphs for cleverness, charm, and intuition. ”
“And they remained active all the time?”
“Unless I temporarily deactivated them, yes.”
“That’s not possible. Your feet and your fingers look perfectly fine. How could your body withstand the drain on your energy? There’s always a cost, so how did you pay it?”
A faint, humorless laugh escapes his lips. “Oh, there’s a cost. One I’m more than willing to pay, considering the alternative. But it’s a price I have not revealed to a living soul. I’ve already confessed more to you than anyone else, so forgive me if I retain that secret for myself.”
“That’s fair.” I frown, still staring at his feet. “And you’re afraid that without your glyphs, you’re going to feel everything and sink back into that dark place again.”
“Precisely.” He gives me a half-smile. “I was on the edge of destruction back then, when I had everything. Now it’s all gone. You’ve vowed to keep me alive, sweetheart. Can you protect me from myself?”
The prince’s question hangs unanswered between us, long after we’ve taken our leave of the inn, retrieved the carpet, and pointed it north.
Severin smells strongly of manure and refuses to speak to either of us, although he seems to relax a bit once the fresh air has flowed over his fibers for a while.