Page 11 of The Prince's Mage

MARCELLA

Marcella woke up again when she was being laid down on what felt like a cloud at first. It was so soft she couldn’t imagine there was anything else it could be until the hands setting her down started to pull back and then a blanket was pulled up over her. She blinked her eyes open to see it was dark, the only light coming in through the windows of a room she’d never seen before and a few runes set into the walls. They weren’t quite the same as the light runes from the dungeon, but they glowed nevertheless.

The Inimicus were much better at constructing and setting runes than her people were. Their complex two-handed runes were better suited for it. Those runes were no longer dependent on the vitae of the mage who cast them and would use the vitae the mage poured into them until it ran out and it faded away. Light runes constantly used them, but these runes didn’t seem as active and would likely only use most of their vitae when whatever circumstance would activate them occurred.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep since Gavril had appeared, but she knew she felt a little less pain than before. But she was still so incredibly sore and weak.

She was on a huge, luxurious bed—the kind of which in Desero only the main branch of the family got. Gavril was arranging the blankets around her, and if he’d looked exhausted before in the dim light of the heretic’s room, he looked doubly so now. Like the smallest breeze would send him clear to the ground.

She blinked up at him from where she was on her side in the nest of blankets and pillows. He didn’t seem to notice she was awake as he stepped back, and her heart started to race as he moved away.

He was leaving? He’d just gotten back. What if he left and he never came back?

What if he left and she woke up on the table to realize it had just been another hallucination?

Maybe it was insane, but she couldn’t stop herself. If he left—

She fumbled, trying to reach out to him, but he was out of reach, so she was left weakly calling out, “Gav.”

He turned back to her, startling at the sound of her voice. He said in her language, “Rest, Marcella. I have done what I can for now. When my strength is back, I will do more, then your body will do the rest.”

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

He looked down at her and said, “There is nothing more I can do for you here.”

She furrowed her brow. What was he talking about? He was there.

Her voice was hoarse as she whispered, “You can be here.”

He shifted closer to the bed, his fingers brushing the blankets. “You want me to stay here with you?”

She stretched her left arm out, still incredibly sore but not devastated like it had been before. She whispered, “Be here.”

He nodded and slowly climbed onto the bed, reaching down to untie his sandals before he shifted fully onto it. He sat against the headboard and Marcella shifted until she could lay her head in his lap and wrap her arms around his waist once more, burying her head into his stomach. Maybe it was pathetic since only a few weeks before she’d been determined to fool him, win his trust, and take him as a hostage, but she didn’t care.

It was hard to care about feeling pathetic after being shattered into a thousand pieces.

A hand came to rest on her head, fingers gently running through her curls. She didn’t know why he was doing that. Her hair was filthy. All of her was filthy.

After a few moments, he whispered in her tongue, “I do not deserve this.”

Marcella muttered, “I do not care.”

Gavril made a noise in the back of his throat, a choking sort of brokenness as he sank deeper in the bed, and Marcella shifted to allow him that, moving her head up to his chest again and curling her front into his side, his cloak still on her shoulders crumpling between them. He kept running his hand over her curls. “This is my fault. I failed you. I promised it wouldn’t happen and it did. Did they cut your fury out of you too?”

“You did not put me on that table. Not now, not before. You got me off now and before as well. This was not your failure.” Marcella reached up with her left hand, resting it on his heart beside her cheek. “Do not blame yourself when I do not blame you.”

“I cannot seem to keep my promises.”

“Do you intend to break them? Or do others break them for you?”

He was silent, just running his hand through her curls.

She sighed against his chest. “You have shown me more kindness than I have earned from the way I’ve treated you when you have always been trying to help me. Always believing the worst of you is exhausting. I am tired. There is much I do not understand about what is going on. What purpose you or your people have for me, but you sat and prayed with me. You prayed for me. An Inimicus who will humble himself before a goddess he has never deigned to ask for help before for the sake of a clan girl worth nothing cannot be all bad. I am just sorry it took me this long to see it.”

His hand stilled, cradling the back of her head as he brought his other to her waist, pulling her tighter against him in a way that had Marcella’s lips curling into a smile against his heart. He whispered, “Rest,mea pulchra spes, I am decided. Long day ahead.”

As she drifted off once more, he whispered, “Si vis amari ama. Dum spiro spero. Amo.”

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