Page 14 of The Prince's Mage

Aimilia took a deep breath and started to reach for the clasp bearing her name, but as soon as Nikias reached her, he put his hand over hers and pulled her hand away, leaving her cloak on. He turned his head to Father and said, “For disobeying my direct orders, I will have Commander Aimilia suspended from her duties indefinitely until I have ascertained she can be trusted to follow orders again.”

“A wise judgement, son. Then the matter is settled.” Father waved his hand dismissively.

Aimilia ripped her hand out of Nikias’ and immediately rushed across the throne room to Gavril, taking him by the arm. He stumbled to hurry out with her without so much as a second look at his family or hers. But Gavril could feel Nikias’ eyes on them even as the door was shut behind them.

As soon as they were in the hallway, Aimilia dropped his arm and let out a breathy, weak laugh. “I was expecting worse.”

Gavril huffed and took off down the hallway, leaving Aimilia to scramble to catch up. Their steps were no longer in sync. “You were right. Nikias cannot be reasoned with, and my parents will always choose him and his clouded judgment. I cannot believe I share blood with them. How they can just brush off the things they’ve done so easily. Torturing and trying to kill my wife simply because Nikias lost his.”

Killed. They’d killed her, but somehow she was alive anyway. But Gavril could not let them know. If Nikias thought she was a demon like Hypatia simply because she looked like her, then Gavril could not imagine how much worse it would be if Nikias knew he was right about her briefly dying.

“I’ve always told you that you are the best of us not because of them but in spite of them. I told Nikias that before I left. You should be king.” Aimilia huffed. “Even if that means having a Sordes queen.”

The idea of him and Marcella sitting on the Runai throne was laughable. Not when he couldn’t breathe just standing in this cursed palace.

Gavril shook his head. “Not on your life. No. I’m done. I only came to make sure you weren’t punished too severely for helping me save Marcella.”

“Done? You’re a prince. You don’t get to just be done.” Aimilia scoffed, pausing before she picked up her pace. “Wait… no. I know that look. That’s the same look I saw on your face over three years ago. Actually, no, four years ago.”

The anniversary had passed, explaining why Nikias was more unhinged than usual.

The anniversary of Faustina’s death.

But it was what he’d almost done right before that that Aimilia was referring to.

“If I cannot turn my back in this palace without my own blood plunging a scalpel into my wife, then you know what I have to do,” Gavril said.

Aimilia tried to grab his arm, but he pulled it back before she could. She huffed. “No. No, you don’t! Your Sordes is safe, and as long as you are in the palace, she is safe. You are the only voice of reason in your family. The only one who actually cares about real peace and saving our people from spilling their blood endlessly. If you leave—”

“And yet I am as useless as a Solitus to them.” Gavril cut her off. “They don’t listen to me. They don’t care what I think. My absence will hardly be noticed. Actually, I’m sure they’ll breathe a sigh of relief. Or if I am missed at all it is only for the fact that my eye isn’t around for my parents to blacken.”

He ignored Aimilia’s soft gasp and kept going, forcing her to hurry to catch up as he started up the stairwell. Gavril could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually admitted the truth to anyone. Aimilia had figured it out on her own, so he’d only said it once to her. The way his parents treated him behind closed doors.

“So you’re just going to give up?” Aimilia snapped, and he could see her out of the corner of his eye, trailing after him. Her face was flushed as red as her hair. “What happened to you? The Gavril I grew up with was determined the path to peace was possible. Even when I thought you were insane, you believed there was a chance that little theory you found in the academy library was more than a flawed approach. You believed peace could be possible. What happened to the man who was willing to sacrifice everything in order to do what’s right?”

Gavril whipped around, coming to a stop on the stairs and narrowing his eyes down at Aimilia, who narrowed them right back. “I am doing what’s right. What’s right is protecting my wife, the woman I love, from the horrors of this palace. I willnotsacrifice her. I will not let her blood spill for peace. Peace can rot. I will have her safe. And she is not safe here.”

Gavril started back up the stairs, but this time Aimilia didn’t follow. She just leaned against the railing and yelled after him, “I should have known! I wasn’t capable of convincing you not to run away back then, and I’m not now, am I? The Runai need you even if I am the only one who knows it! You’ll never forgive yourself for abandoning us! And you’re breaking your vow with your father! Have you even thought this through? What you’ll lose? You’re making a mistake!”

Not if it kept Marcella safe.

Not if it meant he might actually have a life with her instead of whatever this nightmare was.

Chapter6

MARCELLA

The next thing Marcella was aware of was fresh air, an arm banded around her legs, and a shoulder pressing into her stomach.

When she blinked her eyes open, she could see nothing distinct in the darkness. It seemed she was always waking up at night or in darkness. But the stone streets below her were moving, or rather she was moving. Well, the person carrying her was moving.

Moving rather quickly as well.

Each time she woke up she felt a little better, but Marcella could still feel bone deep aches that she was starting to fear would never go away. She still turned her head and spotted golden blond hair and she breathed easier.

Whatever was going on, Gavril had her. That was enough reassurance for her.

Even if the fact that he was hurrying through the streets of Areator in the middle of the night with her slung over his shoulder was still mildly concerning.

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