Page 108 of The Prince's Mage

“This is my prince, as I was commanded,” Marcella said. She tried not to linger over ‘my’ but he was. He was hers, and she was going to make him see she was his. “I’m sure Hypatia will want to see him immediately. Since he’s my prize, I shall escort him to her. I’m sure she wants to hear everything I learned about the Inimicus.”

“Of course, Marcella, this way,” the lieutenant said.

Gavril leaned in and murmured in the Inimicus tongue, “Did you just call me your prize?”

“Problem?” she asked back in his.

He shook his head with a soft smirk as they started walking forward, surrounded by people who would likely love to see him gutted. “It used to bother me, being called a prize by women. That was until you said it. I think I like it.”

Marcella rolled her eyes.

“Also, why did he mispronounce your name?”

Oh… Bless him.

“Gavril, that is how you pronounce my name.”

Gavril’s eyes widened and he hissed, “I’ve been saying it wrong all this time? You never corrected me.”

Marcella’s lips twitched and one of the soldiers looked back at them—Marcella remembered him, he was good at casting shields—she caught his gaze as he said in their tongue, “He giving you grief, soldier?”

Gavril immediately narrowed his eyes at the man. Oh, so he was the only one who was allowed to call her soldier?

Marcella replied, “Not at all. He’s just a talkative prisoner.”

She turned back to Gavril and murmured in his tongue, “I like the way you say it. Don’t stop now.”

“As my soldier commands,” Gavril said, absolutely lingering over ‘my.’ “Marcella.”

His smile helped her racing heart as they walked into Hypatia’s camp. A few people from Clan Desero spotted her and called out greetings and praises to Asentai for her safe return. She raised a hand and replied in kind, thanking them for their prayers for her.

She could see Gavril looking around, watching the way she was treated upon her homecoming after months in captivity where they all thought she would be tortured and dead by now, and he frowned. No one ran up past the other soldiers to hug her. No one burst into tears.

There were distant smiles and a few waves. And it was more than Marcella would have ever thought she’d get from her people. It wasn’t like there’d been any despair or crying when she went off to die.

This was exactly the reception she’d anticipated. It had been easy to be sent to die when she wasn’t leaving anyone behind. No one had protested the decision, least of all her after that first meeting.

She spotted plenty of other clans, eyeing her and whispering Hypatia’s name as she walked. She still passed as the other Desero girl to those without keen eyes, and even to some who had them. The closer they got to the center of camp, the more Desero mages she spotted. They passed by one section where she recognized a few tents with Montis’ crest. The clans still had distinctly separate sections.

It was a fragile unity clearly.

As a soldier, she’d been used to how Desero had organized themselves on her people’s lands and at the estate, but this was something else. This was a full marching army not the small forces they’d had within the estate barracks.

She’d known Hypatia had gotten her true army and had been marching it, but seeing it only made it real to her. It doubled the crushing weight on her fragile shoulders. Could she do this?

The faces she passed…

These soldiers would live or die based on her success or failure.

She, whose heart had stopped and the little ability and strength she had before had slipped out of her grasp the seconds it had been still. She could feel her smaller vitae reservoir in her chest. Even before she’d never been good enough to matter.

But she’d been commanded.

“Have faith and fight.”

Every breath she took was one she wasn’t supposed to have. She wouldn’t have if not for the miracle she’d been granted. Every breath was hope she could have peace. Hope she could keep Gavril despite her mistakes.

So she would fight for it because it didn’t matter how tired she was, she was going to fight until there was no fight left.

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