Page 76 of The Prince's Mage

She’d been trying to speak exclusively in their tongue since they’d started, but if it helped, she didn’t feel it.

Aimilia raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know what it means?”

“Gavril told me. She-wolf. Sounds more compliment to me.”

Aimilia pinched her brow and let out a long sigh. “Oh, Gavril, he is such an idiot. Yes, the literal translation is she-wolf, but it is not—it is slang. A she-wolf is a… woman with a high skirt.”

Marcella still didn’t get it. “What?”

Aimilia shook her head and switched to Marcella’s tongue. “Girl who—not modest—not respectable—loose with herself.”

Oh.

Oh.

All this time… everyone had been calling her a harlot.

No wonder Gavril took such offense to it. When anyone called her that, it was clear who they were implicating along with her. Having her put in the room next to his surely didn’t help. But Gavril had been nothing but a gentleman to her. She wasn’t surprised that the Inimicus would immediately degrade her morals as a simple soldier, especially after being the only woman in a group of thirty men on the road for weeks, especially when she wasn’t a woman of high value in the first place.

But Gavril didn’t deserve that.

“Hey—don’t,” Aimilia started in Marcella’s tongue before switching back to her own. “There is nothing you could say or do to make people think differently. We all—I, especially, just took one look at you and saw a Sordes girl Gavril brought back and had secretly—” Aimilia cut herself off and muttered something under her breath Marcella didn’t quite catch, but it sounded like ‘kill Gavril’ before she continued, “You could have been Hypatia and we still would have said those things. So you’ve done nothing. That’s why Gavril’s so bothered. Mostly.”

Then Gavril and Nikias reentered, Gavril’s expression still dark and Nikias’ unbothered, and Marcella went back to her work.

However, the runes were even harder than usual. She messed them up more than usual. All she could think of was what ‘she-wolf’ looked like written out.

Was that the rune etched into the metal on her wrist? All those bands she’d seen on people… were they because they had their own she-wolves bound to them?

Still, that night, after Gavril and Marcella ate, she looked at the door connecting their rooms and said, “Why did you have me put in the room next to yours?”

Gavril froze, his glass half lowered to the table. “I should think it obvious. To keep my promise to protect you.”

“It doesn’t help everyone calling me she-wolf.”

“You—” Gavril immediately set his glass down. “Aimilia told you.”

“You weren’t going to, were you?”

He stared at her, a clear command in his eyes and voice, “Everyone calling you that are—they are not worthy of breath. They are wrong. And I have made it clear to Nikias what will happen if he calls you that again. You are—” Gavril paused. “You are worthy of respect. They do not get to call you that because you stay here.”

But they were.

Marcella looked at the band on her wrist, brushing her thumb over the rune on it. She said, “What is this rune?”

“Marcella. No. That is not—”

She looked up and held it up. “They all think I’m your she-wolf for a reason. Is this the reason? Do your people do this to indicate that kind of relationship? You—you get your she-wolves and mark them like this so others know to stay away?”

He caught her wrist and said, “No. That is not what this is. I told you, I will explain, when we have peace. When I will be able to—” His voice cracked. “Where if you want to go, I will be able to let you go safely. But I do not—I would never expect you to—It insults me down to my core that anyone dares call you that because I have done everything to make it clear it is not true.”

“Do not lie to me. People think I’m a she-wolf because of this band, yes or no?”

“It is not a yes or no answer.” Gavril’s voice strained as his eyes screwed shut. “Please, trust me, I promise I will explain this band soon. When there is peace. You are wrong.”

Still…

She pulled her wrist out of his grip. “I… think you should stay in your room tonight. I think… I think the nightmares are past us both.”

---