Page 105 of The Prince's Mage

“And this is also the same woman you were certain would kill me the second there was no use for me?”

“Precisely.”

His gaze hardened and he faced forward again. “So be it.”

No. Not so be it. She did not care if he wanted to curse her like she had him. She did not care if he hated her so much that the second he could he would rip his name off her and hers off him. She would not let anything happen to him.

“She is not the only leader.” Marcella huffed. “She will have to listen some to her husband. The coalition is both Desero’s and Montis’. If he vehemently opposes anything, she won’t be able to do it. Especially without the High Priest’s blessing. As long as one of them is opposed to killing you, it will buy us time if things go wrong.”

“We don’t have time for things to go wrong. I have no idea how long Aimilia will be able to keep dosing my father and leave Nikias as the only option. We need Hypatia to send word to Nikias immediately.”

“Then I hope your academy, as you call it, gave you a good education and a silver tongue because mine didn’t.”

“They’re your people.” Gavril looked over at her again. “And you have a connection to Hypatia no one else does simply from the fact you are unfortunate enough to be her reflection.”

She opened her mouth, but he drew his horse to a stop and started to dismount.

He said, “We rest. Tomorrow we will likely come across the camp. It will be a long day. And tonight we need to figure out what we’re going to do about you.”

Marcella didn’t think either of them would be getting much rest. Her heart was both in her throat and also blatantly trying to avoid her despite the fact that they were the only two people around.

What did he mean ‘do about her’?

She’d hoped that while they traveled his hard edges and anger with her would soften and he would see she was being honest now. That she had been completely genuine with him when it came to how much she loved him.

But a week after leaving Areator, he was just as cold to her as he had been when he opened that cell.

And the following day she was going to see Hypatia again for the first time since the ambush. With a prince whose survival only mattered to one royal—the one whose wife Hypatia had killed. Without the relic she’d been ordered to bring back.

Once the horses were settled, Gavril gestured for her to come and ordered, “Sit.”

It was really tempting not to, but the night before they face Hypatia was not the time for her to be difficult as well.

She sat in the dirt, pulling the plain cloak tighter around her as Gavril sat in front of her. He shook his head and said, “I need to see your arms.”

“What are you doing?”

“Tomorrow morning we’ll put the limiter cuffs on me. While you can cast a simple two-handed rune, illusions are far more complex, and we have no time for you to learn. So I need to cast them tonight, put enough vitae in them to sustain them, and set them so they won’t disappear when you put the cuffs on me.”

He spoke so dryly with ice in his tone as he looked right at her. This was worse. She would rather he not look at her at all then if he was going to look at her so… clinically.

But she swallowed the lump in her throat and held her arms out.

Gavril took her left arm first, staying as far away from her as he could be while still gripping her wrist. The lines glowed at his touch, and her eyes watered. The only thing she could cling to was the fact that he was hiding them and not removing them. That meant there was hope.

She felt his fingers move, not quite touching her skin but brushing it barely as they moved to cast. When she opened her eyes, her left wrist no longer showed the lines or the leather band. She could still feel the leather and metal on her skin but she could no longer see them herself.

When she looked up, he pulled his hands back slightly and said, “I have to cast several illusions. Smaller illusions just over the scars will allow me to put more vitae into them as I set them. Setting runes with enough vitae to sustain themselves—”

“Takes more vitae. I know,” Marcella said, watching his fingers move. His gaze was lowered and on his hands as he started casting again. Her people didn’t often set runes; that usually required a more complex set up than their single-handed runes allowed for. “How long will they last?”

“Since I am only hiding the scars on your neck, chest, and arms? Which means you need to make sure no one sees below your neckline or your legs. I have enough vitae to put into the runes to last a week. If this stretches on longer than that, pray Hypatia takes the cuffs off me, or make sure not an inch of you can be seen.”

Marcella watched as the scars running down her right arm vanished beneath Gavril’s rune.

It was…

As he continued his work in silence, her exhaustion swept over her. She’d considered once asking him to hide them so she didn’t have to face them but had never worked up the courage. Watching him hide them now, after only a week and a half before he’d been encouraging her not to be ashamed, was just making the aching void in her chest bigger.

---