Page 160 of Dare

The soldiers had been dragging me to danger. Meanwhile, the prince’s grandaunts had been dragging him to safety.

“Your screams were the first sounds I ever heard from you,” Jeryn rasped. “In Autumn’s dungeon, I did not merely notice you. I recognized you.”

Tears clung to my lashes. When we met on that fateful night, he’d already seen me before.

And he’d heard me. In Summer’s castle when Jeryn had me chained in the quad, he commented on my voice, declaring how I had possessed one in the past. To that, I’d been stumped, questioning how he could have drawn that conclusion without knowing a thing about my life, much less without examining me. And I hadn’t believed his excuse of simply being a doctor.

So this was it. He’d known me for years, long before I knew him.

Jeryn’s repentant gaze searched mine. I witnessed the self-loathing across his face. If he hadn’t been there, those children wouldn’t have traveled to another part of the shore, and they wouldn’t have seen me, and I wouldn’t have gotten into trouble. If he had rushed to my side and defended me, the guards and children would have thought twice about discounting a testimonial from the Prince of Winter.

If and if and if.

But instead of dwelling on that misfortune, I cupped his jaw. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I saw you being hauled away,” he snarled. “I saw you and did nothing.”

“Just because you were on that beach doesn’t mean you sent me to the tower.”

“Ignorance sent you there. Royals like me kept you there.”

“Then in Autumn, why did you …”

“Why did I treat you that way? Because I spent years trying to forget your existence, desperate to evict the memory of you from my mind, out of fear and guilt. Although you captivated me at first sight, I quickly second guessed that feeling, long enough to stay my actions.

“For a while after, I regretted that. But over time, the more I grew to fear what this continent deems as foolishness, the more loathed it. Out of misguided self-preservation, I convinced myself you were mad after all, and I should move on.” His fingers tightened on my hip. “Then Autumn happened. When I saw you behind those bars, you consumed me once more.”

He admitted the rest. Ordering my dirt sketch swept away hadn’t been intended as punishment. Rather, Jeryn had wanted my cage cleaned, unaware of what the pile meant to me.

But when I broke the vial and marred something precious to him—a gift from his parents—I shattered his first image of me as a tyrannized girl.

“If fear hadn’t fueled my disdain, perhaps I wouldn’t have overreacted about the vial,” Jeryn admitted. “I was embittered and sought to punish you for the disillusionment, to further convince myself you were mad and did not matter. You were right to cast me as a villain. Cruel. Cold. I relied on those traits to deal with you, even while I obsessed about you every waking moment.”

Having me isolated in a separate cell, not to torment me but to give me peace and quiet. Seeking me out during the Reaper’s Fest riot, not to trap me but to make sure I was unharmed. Jeryn had found himself acting out of protectiveness instead of viciousness.

I brushed my mouth against his. “Now we know.”

“Now we do,” he murmured.

The waterfall spilled down mantels of rock. At some point, my fauna pack had departed into the rainforest. They must have known Jeryn and I needed this time alone.

“Flare,” the prince hissed, clasping my cheeks. “You said it wasn’t my fault when I didn’t help you. Now I’m telling you, what happened to you and your parents also wasn’t your fault.”

Pain lanced through me, grief and guilt wringing tears to my eyes. My voice crumbled to pieces as I palmed my face and hunched over, letting Jeryn fasten me to him while my body jolted from weeping, the cries heavy and endless.

“I have nightmares about being caged,” I sobbed. “Though, it’s only happened once here, back on our first night. But the worst nightmares are of Mama and Papa suffering. I got them into trouble. They died because of me.”

“No,” Jeryn intoned. “They died because of prison.” When my tears ebbed, he lifted my face to his. “It was not your doing.”

“Pyre said I had a feral madness. Everyone said it too.”

“Anyone can be susceptible to anger. You were an excitable, imaginative child with a temper and an impulsive streak. That’s why your parents kept you from markets; rightly so, they didn’t want anyone to misconstrue your behavior. As for that noble boy, he was in shock. The other children shouted in his defense, purely out of hysterics, and those fucking knights overreacted. But you are not feral. This would have been evident if The Dark Seasons had educated itself correctly about the distinctions. Instead, we’ve all been learning in the fucking wrong way.”

Jeryn traced my skin with his thumbs. “Flare, you have lived through something horrific, and it has scarred you. Captivity and bigotry taught you to believe something that wasn’t true, and confinement among baiting guards reinforced that.” His eyes bore into mine. “You are not mad. And you must forgive yourself. Your parents would want that for you. They’d want you to live without regret.”

Hope eased the knots in my chest. His words washed through me like an ocean wave, rinsing away the ashes. Finally talking about it with someone—with him—poured warmth inside me, where there had always been bleakness.

Leaning over, I drew in the soil, the motions luring me, soothing my thoughts. Onto the earth, I sketched a seashell, whole and unbroken.

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