Chapter 46 The Blackheart
The Blackheart
Caramyn
The tent flaps rustled, and they drew apart, the moment breaking like fragile glass.
Caramyn was still reeling, her skin alight where he’d touched her, her pulse echoing the memory of it.
Every instinct urged her to close the distance again, to sink back into Asterious, to reclaim the fleeting warmth of his mouth against hers, but she stayed where she was, pushing it all away as Narahbi returned, this time with Zera at her side.
Nocthar flew in along with them and fluttered to perch on a basket handle.
Zera was carrying a bundle of clothes, and Narahbi held two steaming cups of tea that she offered to each of them.
“I see Kuhrissi has brought back a kuhrissi.” Zera noted as Nocthar fluttered to Caramyn’s shoulder.
Then her gaze flicked to Asterious. “And oh, good, he’s awake.
” She crooned with a sly smile and a wink.
“I can excuse you from your hunting duties tonight, because you still managed to return with quite a handsome prize.”
Carmyn noted the way Asterious’ face flushed at the woman’s teasing and found it endearing.
“Thank you,” Asterious said. “For everything. For this. For helping Caramyn.”
Zera gave him an acknowledging nod, and then her eyes creased with that mischievous smile again, gesturing at the needle in Caramyn’s hand. “Are you ever going to finish stitching him up? I understand if you’ve been distracted.”
Caramyn rolled her eyes playfully, but she, too, felt her face warm at the taunt. “She’s right. Hold still.” She refocused on the arrow wound at Asterious’ shoulder.
As she leaned forward to suture him, she fought to ignore the surge of heat and desire that coursed through her when she touched him again.
She tried to keep her eyes on the wound as she threaded the line through, but she couldn’t help stealing glances every now and the way his muscles flexed between each needle prick.
A desperation wound tightly inside her, an ache in her core, taut and distracting.
But she clenched her jaw shut and focused, drawing the stitch closed with a sharp, deliberate pull.
She noticed the prince watching her, his eyes following her every movement. She leaned in closer to tie off the string, her face inches from his once more. She tightened and cut the last bit of thread, fighting fiercely to ignore the desire humming in her veins.
“How did you do it?” Zera’s voice broke the tension, her presence bold and unyielding as she tossed a wool shirt and pants in Asterious’ lap. “How did you survive crossing these peaks alone, and in so little time?”
Asterious glanced at Caramyn and then back at Zera.
“I didn’t. The wolf did. I survived with the heightened senses and strength it lends me.
It can endure what a man cannot. I scoured the Silver Spines from one end to the other until I picked up her scent.
It was the longest I’ve ever remained at the beast’s mercy.
I was even afraid I might not be able to come back from it.
But it was the only way I could hope to find her. ”
Caramyn watched his eyes as he spoke. The way one gleamed silver in the firelight when he turned his head, like a remnant of the untamed predator within him.
He’d come for her. Asterious had left his kingdom and come for her. He’d crossed these uncrossable mountains in a form he hated more than anything, yet was willing to endure…for her.
“You’re a Seer. I know by the talismans. What else do you know about me? Can you tell me where my mother is?” Asterious asked, sitting with the clothes bundle bunched in his bare arms.
“You certainly don’t waste opportunities,” Zera muttered. “I can try…but as you can see, my eyes don’t quite work as they once did. It’s better if you have something of your mother’s that I can touch…something I can feel to link my visions to her.”
“The ring?” Caramyn gasped, looking around as if she expected to see it lying nearby.
A defeated look fell over Asterious’ face, a flash of sorrow in an almost hopeful moment. “I don’t have it. I couldn’t carry anything with me here.”
It was then that Caramyn thought to tell him what she’d overheard the grave robbers say back in the Woods.
She knew that it would likely crush him, but he deserved to know.
After all, hadn’t they just agreed to no more secrets?
She decided she’d tell him at the first chance.
But not here. Not in front of Zera and Narahbi.
“Let me try.” Zera came closer with a sigh. “If Kuhrissi thinks you were worth dragging back here, perhaps I can at least offer the effort.”
The old Seer leaned down to touch Asterious, feeling the scars along his body as she’d touched Caramyn’s marking, studying their design with her fingertips.
She closed her eyes, as if calling on some ancient magic, summoning a power unseen.
Her wrinkled mouth curved into a frown—almost a look of pain, before those cloudy white eyes opened again, staring straight ahead.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her voice as feeble as her bony fingers. “There is no present or future I can read with your mother in it. But the past is clear enough. She loved you.”
“Loved?” Asterious nodded gently, a faint, forced smile settling across his face, but then disappearing as he hung his head. “What does that mean?”
“I cannot say for sure. But perhaps our Kuhrissi can.” With that, Zera waved her hand and said something to Narahbi in Gahmean as she gestured for her to follow. They both exited the tent, and left Asterious and Caramyn kneeling before one another.
“Go ahead. Tell me what I already suspect.” Asterious swallowed, clutching the clothing in his hands tightly.
Caramyn fidgeted with a piece of twine, staring at it as she formed the words slowly.
“I didn’t steal your mother’s ring off dead bandits—I mean…
I did—but they weren’t already dead when I found them.
I…I killed them.” It felt strange to say the words out loud, but Asterious seemed unshaken, as if she’d merely told him what she’d eaten for breakfast. “And before I killed them, I heard them talking. Saying that they’d stolen everything from a grave—a royal’s grave. ”
She expected Asterious to be quiet. She expected him to struggle upon hearing it.
But she didn’t expect him to stare at her with no indication of what he was thinking, unmoving.
The silence stretched thin between them as she picked at her nail, unsure of what to say.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she added.
Asterious looked away, his mouth drawing tight as his jaw worked beneath the strain. She couldn’t tell if it was anger or something closer to resignation. Until he finally spoke.
“I already knew,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t want to believe it.”
He unfolded the clothes before pulling the shirt over his head. “I didn’t want to give my father one last victory over me. But like everything else…” His voice hardened. “He took her from me too.”
There was nothing Caramyn could say that would soften the blow.
She stepped closer anyway, lifting her hand toward his stone-cold face, aching to bridge the distance between them.
But he pulled away, and something fragile inside her quietly caved in.
Confused, and more hurt than she cared to admit, she let her hand fall.
This wasn’t the moment for questions. Whatever he was carrying, he needed to face it alone, and all she could do was give him the space he’d chosen, even as it carved out a hollow in her chest. He reached for the pants and rose to his feet, his lower half no longer obscured by the blankets that had covered him while on the cot.
Then Caramyn realized how long she’d been staring.
“Are you enjoying watching me dress?” He asked, a tinge of warmth returning to his voice, as if he had just taken the news of his mother’s death and stuffed it down as fast as possible, adding more confusion to Caramyn’s already muddled emotions.
“I was just leaving,” she snapped as blood rushed to her cheeks, thinking back to him lying fully naked in the snow. “Besides it’s not like I haven’t seen all of you already anyway.”
“I suppose we now both have that in common with each other.” Asterious’ words caught her like a sudden snowstorm as she blushed at the memory of standing in front of him, dripping shamelessly in the tub at Vaerwynd castle.
Back then she had felt so bold, so careless for what he thought of her.
But now, there was some invisible force between them that she couldn’t distinguish from a barrier or a bond.
And because of that, she stepped out of the tent to join Zera and Narahbi.
“You care for him?” Zera nodded, her dark plum lips parting into a pearly grin.
“Why ask? You already know the answer.” Caramyn shook her head.
Zera tilted her head. “In nature, the raven and wolf are bound. The raven flies ahead and sees what the wolf cannot, warning of danger or prey. The wolf is her strength, hunting and fighting where the raven cannot. Alone, they endure. Together, they live.”
Caramyn kept her gaze fixed on the approaching dawn, enchanted at the sight of the aurora of colors sweeping over the stark white snow with the promise of morning. The promise of warmth after a long, cold night.
“What did you see when you touched his scars? What are they?” Caramyn asked.
“A countdown.” Zera said ominously.
“What do you mean? A countdown to what?”
“Until the beast takes him completely, and he’s trapped in that form forever.
It feeds on darkness—on fear, pain, grief, but most of all, death.
Each life he takes strengthens it, growing the veins, bit by bit, until eventually they reach his heart, overtake it, and he can no longer fight the darkness within himself. ”