Page 80 of Dare

The firelight painted her face in amber. The name Flare suited her.

Finally, I met her golden eyes. “My name is Jeryn.”

29

Flare

Jeryn.

I repeated the moniker, and he watched me sound it out, my lips taking a while to string the letters together. He’d been given a patient name. It took its time on the tongue, whereas mine shot out like a dart and landed somewhere unexpected. Maybe that was the difference between a seafarer and a ruler, or a woman born in flames and a man born in frost. Fire moved while ice stayed still.

Although the lives of Royals were widely talked about, his name had never been mentioned in my presence. Not once in my life. The few people who’d referred to him when I was around had only used his formal title, including Poet and Briar.

I had planned to sketch the letters beside my own. But on second thought, I leaned back and gestured at the empty space.

The prince straightened as though given a pivotal task. Yet he didn’t hesitate. Hunching forward, a cord of his blue mane poured over his shoulder, and the blaze sketched his profile.

Like signatures to a treaty, he scripted his name into the sand. My pulse skipped when the edge of one letter touched one of my own. I would say it hadn’t been on purpose, but with this deliberate man, I doubted it.

My heart clenched for his family. I hadn’t wanted to believe him, or understand him, or forgive him. But if I couldn’t, what sort of person did that make me? What kind of change could I hope for in this world? Compassion was a strength, as much as any other power.

The mad prince. It made sense now.

He’d taken his fear out on born souls. The confession didn’t absolve him, and I couldn’t fathom anything ever would. But acknowledging it could change him.

In the face of this prince, I beheld a child afraid of sharks, of death taking his kin, of sickness taking him. People had told that boy about born souls the same way everybody told everybody about us, and that was how the boy had grown up.

I despised the man that little boy became. But now I knew why he’d transformed into a monster, and tonight he was here, and he saw me. That was something I couldn’t despise.

His eyes no longer saw through me but watched my lips in anticipation, holding their reflections in pools of black as I balanced his name on my tongue.

“Jeryn,” I said.

The fire sizzled. At that moment, his pupils exploded with light.

***

While darkness glossed the sky, we remained at the cove. Dying embers from the pit separated us as we reclined on opposite sides.

Despite what Jeryn had lain bare, a new calm settled around us. This moment should have been awkward, but something cathartic unspooled instead. Like with Poet and Briar, it happened more naturally than I would have imagined.

We had exposed ourselves to the point of ease. Except this felt different and deeper and maybe … maybe more desirable.

I curled like a shell into the sand. “What do you miss about your home?”

Jeryn’s features relaxed, the inclines smoother than before, as though bricks had fallen from his countenance. “I would rather ask you that question.”

I shook my head. “We’re not there yet.”

Although he’d experienced enlightenment, I wasn’t about to hand over my life’s history at this point. He still had some unraveling to do.

The prince rolled his defined jaw, the sight more exquisite than I’d like to admit. “What would you care to know?”

“The stuff you’re less likely to include first,” I replied to see how much he’d learned about me.

After a moment’s deliberation, the prince began. He talked about yule owls and dire wolf sleds and stag sleighs. Then he described star murals in the astronomy wing, a castle overlooking alpine mountains, and elks promenading through a place called The Iron Wood.

Points for him. These were fine choices.

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