8. Chapter 8 #2
Because she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Her eyes fixed on my prone form, and I suddenly realized just how little I measured up.
Curls the color of glowing embers, lightly tanned skin, bright, lilac eyes, freckled cheeks, and—cursed gods—slightly pointed ears.
Fae. She had to be Fae—like me. The last thing I’d expected to find after my capture was a mirror of what I’d spent years hiding.
The Assembly had been extremely vocal about the decline in magic since the fall of the Avenfellian Empire.
They’d been encouraging mages to breed for the past thirty years, going as far as to forgive families their dues to the organization—and even begging the royal coffers to forgive taxes—if they had enough children.
But their fixation on Fae bloodlines had persisted for nearly two hundred, because anyone who could trace their family lineage back to them bore exclusively gifted children.
This woman would be one of their prized possessions.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry,” she breathed. She raced to my side and laid her hands on my bare chest in a way that was too familiar. No one touched a prince, much less the Shadow Prince, without invitation. Though I found, with a twinge of shame, that I had no desire to move.
There was something unexpectedly unguarded in her face that pierced me as deeply as the spear that had gone through my side. Not innocence, exactly. More like a kind of quiet goodness I didn’t deserve to lie beneath.
If it was an act, it was a very good one.
She lifted her voice, shouting toward the door, “Muffin is a terror who’ll have to hunt for his own dinner tonight!”
The situation was so ridiculous, a laugh threatened to escape again, but I choked it down to avoid the pain.
Her hands roamed across the scratches on my chest, as though she was assuring herself I was still alive.
Magic tingled on my skin where she touched me, like a tiny bolt of lightning arcing between us with every moment of contact.
The familiar prickle was the same as the one I’d experienced on the road just before the caravan was attacked. Could it be?
Surely not…
I tensed to sit up, but her hand pressed flat against my sternum. “Don’t,” she said. Not a request. A command.
My hands shot out to grasp her wrists, fingers barely closing. Something in me balked at the action, even as pain exploded through my ribs. My eyes closed from the shock of it, yet I still managed a growl.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t try to pull away. Just waited.
She’s less afraid than I am.
“Witch,” I breathed, the word a warning rather than an insult. My unwelcome fragility had brought the distasteful slur out. “Don’t—” I swallowed blood. “Don’t use magic.”
A miracle—I could speak, though my voice sounded like rocks grinding against one another. I didn’t want her to hear the desperation, that it was a plea rather than a threat.
The vixen’s only response was a smirk.
I froze—not from the sting of pain, or fear, but because something deep inside me recognized her in that instant in a way I couldn’t yet name.
A tremor of panic shook my grip. I was terrified my magic would lash out in the emotional chaos I was trying to suppress.
Still, I was more frightened by the part of me that wanted to understand its fascination with her.
It wasn’t instinct alone; I couldn’t bear the thought of harming someone who’d cared for me with such gentleness for…gods knew how long. I couldn’t make myself move against her, even to save my life.
Her hands remained pressed to my chest. My pulse thudded under her touch. She must’ve felt how erratic it was, but she didn’t comment. Her palms suddenly grew incredibly warm, chasing the fever’s chill buried deep in my bones. Then a nearly unbearable itch flared on the scratches.
My shadows should’ve surged at the magical invasion, but with her, they relaxed.
The itching sensation stopped, and she gently eased my hands away. My gaze followed hers to the place where the veska’s claws had opened my flesh.
The scratches were…gone? Tiny pink lines had replaced the bleeding gashes.
What in all of Avanfell?
Shock broke my grip completely. We had healing magi at the Tir. But not any who could perform miracles.
Her eyes narrowed at my expression, even as her cheeks flushed. “You’re welcome.”
“Who are you?” My voice was harsher than intended. “Assembly? Interrogator?”
Surprise registered on her face, and she let out a melodic, incredulous laugh. She was still hovering over me, so close. “Not Assembly. If I were one of them, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to drag you inside.”
“Could be lying.” I should’ve summoned a sword right then to get real answers out of her, but that strange, tugging feeling made the thought reprehensible. Something deep and unyielding—something in my base nature—refused it outright. So I argued weakly, “You’re a mage!”
“I am, but not one of them.” She stood and stepped back. My cuirass and mail were lying in a heap on the floor near her feet.
The sudden chill that followed her departure was so intense, I nearly called her back before my pride intervened. The startling revelation that I wanted her near made the suspicion forming in my head even stronger.
I glared at the armor as if each piece might hold all the answers.
“I took it off.” Her gaze flicked over me, lingering for a moment on my bare chest before she looked away. “You were bleeding to death. Forgive me for wanting to keep the blood inside your body instead of all over my floor.”
She pointed at the streak that led from the front door to my resting place. Dear gods, there was a clear path of scratches on the wooden floor from her dragging me by my armor.
Guilt twisted in my chest like a poisoned blade. I managed a hoarse, “Sorry.” It felt inadequate. If I lived, I owed her a debt I would never be able to repay properly.
“I haven’t had time to clean it, seeing as I’ve spent all my time keeping you alive.” She grabbed a rag and wiped my blood from her fingers. Her tone was clipped, each word delivered with reprimand. “Shall I fix your nose, or would you prefer to question me endlessly?”
I felt my face. My fingers emerged bloody. My answer came easily and with more lightness than expected, considering how vulnerable I was feeling. “Nose.”
It seemed this conversation was already too much for my body. The world started to blur around the edges. I was panting instead of taking full breaths. Fading fast.
She poured water from a carafe into a small wooden cup and grabbed a pillow from the bed I was lying beside. “Drink this before you pass out again.”
I eyed the cup then eyed her face, searching for any hint of deceit.
She rolled her eyes, let out a huff, and raised the cup to her mouth. I watched, gaze fixed on the motion, trying to scrutinize it for fakery through illusion—but all I could seem to concentrate on were her lips.
“Satisfied?” she asked. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have had to go to the trouble of poisoning you.”
That was…true. I wasn’t thinking clearly from the pain, but looking at her, hearing her voice, made it fade slightly. Was she already working other magic on me?
“I introduced myself when you first arrived, but you clearly don’t remember.
” She leaned over me again, curls creating a halo around her face.
She signaled for me to lift my head and pushed the pillow under it.
As her fingers curved behind my neck, the sharp awareness of the fragility of my spine registered at the same time as the deliberate tenderness of her touch.
Her voice was soft when she said, “My name is Lunette.”
Lunette.
I tested her name where it was safe, letting the lyrical syllables echo in the silent depths of my mind.
She held the cup near my mouth.
“Small sips,” she ordered quietly. “If you choke, I’m not able to drag you back from death again.”
My throat was so parched the water tasted like the gods had deigned to offer me a drink of their immortal wine. I mourned the loss as half of it dribbled down my beard and neck from the awkward angle. She placed the empty cup aside and healed my nose.
A true healer like her would be a carefully kept secret.
If the Assembly discovered a mage with great power, they assumed absolute control over them if their family wasn’t influential enough.
If it was, they’d claim that the teen required their guidance and rip them from their home so they could be brainwashed at their stronghold in Caervorn like they’d tried to do with Camrick.
Considering my surroundings, I worried what they held over this woman.
I stared at her eyes, the slightly pointed tips of her ears—another mystery—and asked, “Am I a prisoner?”
She shook her head. Her hands descended to my side, and the world burst into blinding, excruciating pain.
Her soft, resigned voice whispered, “I am, if anyone is.”
I wanted to ask how they’d caged her so I could break us both out. But the question never made it past my lips as her soft voice, humming a lullaby, followed me into the dark.
My last coherent thought wasn’t of escape or vengeance but of her—and the quiet certainty that knowing her would cost me something I’d never known I could give.