Page 29 of The Prince's Mage

But she could not stop herself from seeing Gavril’s dead body. She clutched his back and wrapped her legs around him so she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her and know he was real and alive. His other hand moved up and down her back, and that feeling of his warm palm shifting the fabric of her peplos chased away the feeling of the knife running along her spine.

He kept murmuring, and she slowly, finally stopped sobbing. She stilled as his hand came to a stop on the small of her back.

When she finally lifted her head, she could see it was early dawn as her eyes focused. Gavril’s hand slipped from the back of her head to her cheek as he stared at her. “Deliciae,I cannot help but blame myself. I wish I could save you from reliving it at least.”

Deliciae?That was a new one. Marcella was more than certain they were not insults now. That was worse.

She swallowed thickly and shook her head as she started pulling away and he slowly let her go as much as she wished. “It is not anything to concern yourself with. I am only sorry that now that I am in this room, it will be hard for you to ignore.”

Gavril blinked and his mouth parted as his eyes widened and the horror on his face—much like she imagined hers had been when he’d said he could not count the injuries his parents had given him—was unmistakable. “Not only have you been having these nightmares about your—about what happened and not told me, but your first thought is about being a—a bother to me?”

He always focused on the one thing that ripped to the forefront just how weak and pathetic she was.

“You hide lots of things from me. You speak words you know I don’t know for your amusement.” Marcella shifted, pulling at the blankets even though she knew she couldn’t really escape even if she could just pile them all tall enough to bury herself in. “You don’t tell me what this is that has bound me to you. What you have promised to your father.”

So all she could do was find something else in the hopes of distracting him from her inadequacies.

“I… I—I am—a coward and selfish.” Gavril sighed, lowering his head. “You are right. I have kept things from you because I am not strong enough to face you when you know. I hide because I hope, yet I know there will be no hope when I tell you.”

He did not have to say it. It was written all over his face and it was spilling out of his voice.

How much he loved her.

“Tell me one. Just one, and…” Marcella stopped, sinking her nails into the blankets.

She could not promise anything. She could not let herself.

“Please,” she whispered, letting go of them. They fell to her waist once more.

Gavril watched the blankets shift, closing his eyes for a moment before his hands sank into the fabric. He mouthed something, and Marcella caught only one word: ‘Asentai.’ He was praying.

For what or who, she did not know. She did not know if she wanted to know.

“I will tell you. The promise I made to my father is that… I would… I… I needed something to bargain with. We—I—I promised—I saw you—Oh, this is a mess.”

She needed to give him something. Something to make it easier.

Hypatia’s message weighed on her shoulders.

“I know why I said to stay.”

Gavril looked up at her, something shining in his eyes.

Love. Hope.

“I am… so tired.” Her voice broke.

This wasn’t an act. It wasn’t a lie. None of it ever really had been. Despite being a master of illusions, she was starting to suspect none of it ever had been for him as well. Secrets, yes, but not lies.

“I am tired of fighting. You know I am. And so are you. That is why you wanted to run. We are both so tired of fighting.” Her arm brushed his as she leaned forward ever so slightly. “But… Fighting? It is not tired of us. It will not let us go. You said to me, the very first night, you want peace above all else. The only freedom is in peace. We cannot get it by running away. We’re going to have to fight for it. I stayed for the hope of peace.”

Fingers laced through hers resting on the blankets. She did not know who had moved first. All she knew was her heart was thundering in her chest as she stared at him and his fingers shifted down her palm and to her wrist. The pads of his fingers gently brushed over her pulse, and the lines started to glow as his vitae in the lines responded to his touch.

“That is… what I want… wanted. I want it, of course, but I—” Gavril sighed. His fingers curled around her wrist, and she was certain he could feel her heart racing. If she shifted her hand to feel his pulse, would it be racing just as fast as hers?

“That is what I wanted when I made the promise to my father. And I believed, if I could promise him a solution, and that solution would also require keeping you alive and safe, then peace could be within reach. That solution… my father believes if we understand your people’s magic we can fight it. I… I believe… if we understand it, we can stop fighting. When I was at theacademie, I found a journal from a man who studied the first of your people who… He… He couldn’t find any difference in our vitae. No evidence of this corruption. His theory was that we were the same, the only difference being in whether we use two-handed runes or single-handed. He died right after; no one knows who killed him. I didn’t think much about it save for the very last thing he ever wrote. In my tongue:ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant.”

That sounded familiar. Had he said it before?

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