Chapter 47
Isca
Catrin huffed beside the fire, poking at the stewpot with far more force than necessary. “You could’ve asked before magically hauling me halfway across the kingdom, Prince Emrys.”
Emrys didn’t look up from where he was tearing off a piece of bread, but there was humor in his voice. “You did look awfully comfortable in Adyn’s arms.”
“I was! Thank you very much.” She sounded indignant.
I hid a smile behind my bowl.
Emrys, for his part, looked entirely unrepentant.
“I believe the term is ‘abduction,’” she went on, lowering her voice just enough that none of the soldiers around the other fires could hear. “It’s a crime. Even when committed by a princeling with more power than sense.”
“You’ve no respect for your monarch,” he said, dragging the bread through his stew with the air of someone deeply aggrieved.
Catrin rolled her eyes then mimed pulling out her hair.
A soft laugh escaped Emrys; the sound instantly drew my gaze. It wasn’t sharp or mocking, as it could be when he was at the edges of his control. It was real.
“Remind me to send you back to the castle,” he said.
“You’d miss me.”
His tone was utterly serious, but the quirk of his lips betrayed him. “Not even slightly.”
She raised a brow. “Then who would keep you humble?”
Emrys looked at me with a mock expression of despair. “Do you see what I endure?”
I offered him a small smile. “She’s not wrong.”
I’d never truly seen this side of him. It was so warm, something I’d missed when he’d been cold and locked himself away more often than not in the castle.
We ate in companionable silence after that. The stars had traveled across the sky by the time the fire settled into a slow, crackling burn.
I banked the fire while Emrys stood to speak with the men. Orange light glowed on the hard lines of his face as he gestured at the watch schedule drawn in the dirt. Catrin and I excused ourselves with a quick nod, slipping toward the tents. He watched us the entire way.
We all had our own midnight rendezvous to prepare for.
Thanks to Emrys, Adyn had officially replaced one of our other guards permanently. The plan was that Adyn would sneak into her tent so Catrin could discreetly spend a couple of hours trying to write the beginning of her own love story with him in private conversation.
Of course, Emrys had threatened castration if Adyn made a single “ungentlemanly” move without permission in the time he granted them. But it was his way of apologizing to his childhood friend.
As I cleaned myself in the washbasin—the best we could do until we returned to the river—I heard Emrys enter his tent.
After quickly changing into my nightdress and robe, I got to work braiding Catrin’s hair.
I chose a half-up and half-down style that let loose curls fall around her shoulders.
It took a bit longer than expected, but it was a style she could sleep in comfortably.
“Beautiful,” I whispered. She deserved to feel that way on such an occasion.
I was in a hurry to get out so she could have her private time, but my feet still hesitated as I opened the flap to Emrys’s tent. Something was…off.
My pulse began to beat strangely, and an odd tightness coiled at the base of my spine. The air had subtly changed; it was cooler, closer. As if something had folded inward on itself while the rest of the world carried on around it.
Emrys had been smiling, teasing, present, at dinner. Now that I knew what he could be like without the curse clawing at him, I’d hoped to see more of that—to have him experience some relief—even if I’d known deep down that his lightheartedness would be short-lived.
I just hadn’t thought it would be this short-lived.
Emrys’s walls weren’t up. His emotions hit me like a sudden wave, so powerful and suffocating I stumbled on my first step into the tent. Shame and self-loathing roiled through him, battling for dominance.
He was shirtless, sitting on the unforgiving, hard ground. Hunched over, his elbows were on his knees, face buried in his hands.
I took a labored step forward, and another through the fog of his overwhelming depression. The truth was crystal clear now.
This was what Emrys had been doing every time he shut himself in his room. This hunched-over, folded-into-himself ball of suffering was the shape of his torment. Every time I’d passed his door and felt nothing but silence, he’d been folding the blade of his anger back toward himself.
This man, who could level the side of a mountain then walk away from it without the slightest hint of exhaustion, was curled in on himself like a child. His battle-worn frame seemed impossibly large, yet he tried to shrink it, as if he could disappear into his agony.
The firelight from outside cast his silhouette in shadow, making the black of his hair disappear into the night. I stopped when my legs brushed against his knees, hating that I could feel his hostility gnaw at him from the inside out.
A whispered plea came from my lips. “Let me in, Emrys.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe.
I stood over him for a moment more. Then, gently, I asked, “Can I touch you?”
The nod was barely perceptible. He still didn’t meet my eyes, didn’t move at all.
With him so vulnerable, I wanted to erase any distance between us. Wanted him to feel that another heart beat next to his, that I was here with him, even through his pain. I let my robe drop to the floor at my feet.
In only my nightdress, I crouched and slowly ran my hands up his arms. His muscles were coiled so tightly under my fingers I thought they might snap. I reached his shoulders and pressed my thumbs there, massaging gently, trying to ease his silent tension.
“If you can’t talk, that’s okay,” I whispered. “But if you can, I want to know what’s wrong.”
He didn’t speak, but when I wrapped my arms around him, leaning slightly to hold him close, he let out a breath that shook his entire body. For a long time, neither of us said anything. We just breathed together.
The change in him was subtle and slow, but it built as I held him, like a sliver of sunlight slowly piercing storm clouds. His sorrow receded enough for appreciation to take its place.
The emotion landed in my heart like a song because he appreciated me.
After a few more moments, he pulled me down onto his lap. I went willingly, settling in with my head on his shoulder and my arm around the breadth of his back. But Emrys wasn’t fully back to me yet—his free hand remained limp at his side.
“I… I’m sorry about the scout,” he murmured, voice rough. “And…today.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask.” His voice nearly broke. The curse wasn’t twisting it in anger as I’d heard it do so many times before; it was breaking his voice with fangs of self-loathing. “I broke my one promise to you, Isca.”
My throat tightened. He meant the magic that he’d used to tear me away from the scene of the horses bolting. After the midnight disaster in the library, he’d promised to always ask before touching me.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “You were only trying to protect me.”
“It’s not okay,” he breathed. “I ruin everything I touch.”
“Oh, Emrys.” I shifted slightly and reached for his limp hand, curling both of ours into my lap. I twined my fingers through his. They were rough, but warm and welcoming.
That made me feel bold, a feeling Emrys so frequently inspired in me.
I sat up a little and moved his hand to rest against my chest, right over my heart. I flattened it there with both of mine, hoping he could feel it.
“Am I a bad person?”
His head snapped up, and for the first time he looked at me properly, though only for a fraction of a moment. His answer was poetry. “Everyone falls under your spell because you’re the best example of humanity. I’ve never seen anything brighter in my life, Isca.”
“I’m not perfect, Emrys. I… I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
He huffed out something that might’ve been a derisive snort had his entire being not been mired in a deep, pervasive depression.
“You’re a man who’s trying every minute of every day. Feel my heart.”
He searched my face now, really looked. He already knew I didn’t fear him anymore. I hoped he could see everything else I felt about him there too.
Emrys suffered a life of quiet torment, locking himself in his room for his people. And yet, he still thought of himself as a curse on others. I wanted him to know how wrong he was.
“My heart is racing,” I whispered, “because you make me feel this way. I know I shouldn’t…because you’re you, and I’m me, and the world wouldn’t think we should be together. But I feel inexplicably drawn to you, Emrys. I couldn’t stay away, even when I tried.”
Emrys exhaled, the sound trembling along with his frame. “Isca… I’m broken.”
“And cursed,” I said gently, “and dangerous. And grumpy half the time.”
A breath of a smile almost lifted his mouth again.
“I know,” I said. “I like all of it.”
His eyes met mine, and his self-contempt was reflected in them. But what I’d said was true. I’d been watching him over the past months. Every day I had a chance to be near him, he proved in small, silent ways how good he truly was all the way to his core.
“With everything I’ve done in your presence?“ His tone dripped with disbelief. “I’ve slaughtered two men and nearly killed a third. Those actions are but a drop in the bucket of blood I have on my hands.”
I remembered the market, the mercenary’s body on my stall. I remembered the scout, sliced open from mouth to crown. Owain’s purpling face.
“I was terrified that first day,” I admitted. “But then those men attacked us as we returned home that afternoon. I thought I would have to watch my mother die.”
I looked into his eyes. He was held together by the thinnest thread, ready to break apart at any moment—and I was the one holding a pair of scissors.
“But then you showed up. Didn’t you?”
He seemed reluctant to answer. “…Yes.”