Page 57 of The Prince's Mage

“The other option… what I believe was most likely, was if I did not have a role, Hypatia would…” Marcella’s voice caught in her throat as Gavril’s grip clenched right over the scar her lookalike had given her. But he didn’t say anything as she continued, “Hypatia always liked keeping me close so she could make use of me. Of how much I looked like her. She… It was usually little things. Taking her place in lessons. Sitting at banquets so she could slip away. If I was going to end up living like a Solitus… well, I imagine Hypatia would have laid claim to me and made me her handmaid to do… whatever she wanted.”

Gavril made a noise in the back of his throat, taking the hand that had been gently playing with her hair and curled it around her. “Yet even as a soldier she scarred you, dressed you like a doll, and put you in a chariot to die.”

“She is… well, she is the chiefess now, but she was the heir. It is little different than the way your brother acts. Of course she could do those things. I willingly did them for the sake of my people.”

Gavril started to make that noise again, but she spoke over him.

“I knew what the two options were, and being wholly under Hypatia’s discretion was the option I wanted the least. So I had to pass. Besides, I owed it to my clan who took care of me for so many years to serve them as best I could. I had to be a soldier. The third chance was my last. I scraped by barely. After that, the only way out of being a soldier would be marriage.”

The word fell out of her mouth before she could think better of mentioning that to the man who only hours before had promised to give her what she wanted so she would want him. The man who hours before she’d been forced to accept she loved.

Gavril’s left hand twitched.

“That—uh—” Marcella shifted slightly, now highly aware of just how this scene would look to an outsider, but Gavril did not let her go anywhere. “That wasn’t going to happen either. That was a far-flung hope. I—I passed the test, and I was a soldier. That was enough for me. To at least not be wholly under Hypatia’s control. But that doesn’t mean I have not spent every day of my life wholly aware just how mediocre I am. Especially now, I cannot even achieve my previous mediocrity. I am stuck in this pathetic state. So… what I mean to say is… you are less a failure than I am.”

“You are not. You are none of those things.”

“Even if I hadn’t become a soldier, I was the only one who could take Hypatia’s place. My fate was set when I was born. Or I suppose when Hypatia had her vision.”

But instead of responding, she was being uprooted from her soft, comfortable position against Gavril’s chest. She let out a little startled squeak as Gavril’s hands were on her shoulders, turning her to face him, but not actually removing her. His hands slid to her back, and she could not look anywhere but his face hovering right in front of her.

The memory of their kiss from mere hours before had her heart stuttering in her chest, and the intensity in his eyes had her breath catching in her throat.

“No. You do not get to brush this off.”

“Gavril—”

“You are recovering from an ordeal no one else has ever survived. There is nothing pathetic about that.”

Marcella shook her head, but then he caught her face with one hand, fingers curling into the base of her skull, forcing her to look at him.

Then he gave her a command. “Whatever your people or that horrid demon might have convinced you, you are not a failure. You are not mediocre. You are not worthless. Say it.”

But not even her obedience as a soldier was stronger than her certainty of her worthlessness.

Marcella narrowed her eyes at him. “You first.”

Gavril clenched his jaw and let out a long sigh. Then a light entered his eyes and he said, “Marcella, you are not a failure, mediocre, or worthless. You are so much more than you give yourself credit for. You are more than your magic. Your resilience, your faith, your stubbornness—that is why I love you. You are worth so much more than simply looking like the demon. It is a tragedy you look like her because it blinds you and everyone else to seeing who you really are. But not me. I see you. All of you.”

He wasn’t making this easier for either of them.

Marcella squirmed, trying to pull back out of his grip, cutting him off with a sharp glare as she snapped, “That is not what I meant and you know it. That’s not fair.”

Gavril let her go, his hands letting her slip through like water as she scrambled over the tangled blankets. He just smirked at her and said, “You were not specific. I did as you asked. Say it.”

“Get out. This was—” Marcella’s back hit the bedpost at the foot of the bed, as far away from Gavril as she could be without getting up. “You do not get to make me say something you are not willing to say either. I am not like you. I am from Desero, and you are Inimicus. We are not compatible. Worse, you are an illusionist. You are a liar. I—”

Gavril climbed off the bed and started for the door, shaking his head. He was completely unaffected by every sharp barb she unearthed from their graves to throw at him.

“And you are predictable,mea spes, at least to me. I will add it to my list. Give you peace. Convince you of your worth. If my hands cannot be full of you, I shall fill them with that.”

Marcella was drowning in the heat flooding her cheeks, and the pillow she flung at him only bounced uselessly off the door connecting their rooms. She sank back into her bed, clasping her hand over her mouth so Gavril wouldn’t hear the cry falling out.

She loved him, and she had never been loved by anyone, much less with the intensity he loved her with.

And she was going to lose him.

Because she couldn’t stay. She couldn’t live her life balancing on the edge of this knife.

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