Page 66 of Taken By the Shadow Prince

It will be a great mystery for the rest of time. Until this language and country are lost, and there’s no telling what the historians wrote.

No one will know that Mavey has just saved this country—which is just how she prefers it, I imagine.

What will she choose?The question has been haunting me since she left. I’m not so sure I want to know the answer. I’m afraid of what it will be. If I have lost the only woman I could ever love, the only one who might ever be able to love me, then I do not think I will be able to survive my immortal existence. I sure as shit won’t want to.

I force myself to breathe, force myself not to drink from the weak mortal alcohol. I need a clear head, for when she comes back.

If she ever comes back.

Chapter 36

Mavey

to stay or go

He knows.

Or, at least, he has a pretty good idea. There’s really no other reason why he’d give me what, on the outside, looks like such a simple bargain to make. It seems like it’s heavily weighted in my favor, but...

But.

I can’t seem to convince myself to just go to him and tell him no. To tell him that I won’t go. But why? Why is it so hard?

The answer is so obvious.

I want refuse to look at it. I don’t want to see it for what it is. I don’twantto admit it to myself, why the idea of not going to Atheya, now that it’s finally not an obligation, feels so... wrong.

I can admit well enough that I would miss him. Obviously, we’ve formed some sort of undefined, boundary-blurring relationship since that first bargain.

I don’t know what my answer is.

Armin pulls his front door open. His eyebrows are arched. “I’ve been waiting.”

I try to hide my surprise. “How did you know I was here?” I ask, before thinking about how silly I sound. He just changed the tide of a war without even waving his hand, and he seems to have more power than I even imagined, so a simple door wouldn’t stand in his way.

He shrugs his shoulders and steps aside. “I’m very attuned to you. Come in.”

After I step inside, he closes the door and says, “You know, after I’ve made a bargain, I usually get a window into the future, to see what will happen. Nothing crazy, or too in depth—just the effects that the bargain will leave on the world. Even with our last one, I could see a little way into the future, could see this battle occurring.” He shakes his head. “But not this bargain. I haven’t seen a thing.”

I swallow. “Why do you think that is?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I think it’s because you don’t know what your answer is. There is no effecttobe had because it’s unclear where we will go from here.”

I wonder if I should bother trying to deny it.

But it doesn’t matter, because he turns to face me, the movement so abrupt it stops me in my tracks. “Do you know what else I think, Mavey? I think you love me, and you’re too damned scared to admit it.”

I balk. “I don’t know how I feel.”

“That’s a fucking lie, and you know it.” Armin shoves his hands into his pockets and says, “If I were to ask you to go with me right now, what would you say, Mavey? Because that answer isn’t going to change. So just say it.”

I’m playing through his words, trying to give myself a second to think, to breathe, and—

And it clicks. “You said you can usually tell what the effects of the bargains you make will be.”

He nods.

“What about that bargain with Joula? What—happened because of that bargain?”

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