Page 81 of The Prince's Mage

“Marcella, when I reached you on the seventh day, you were at death’s door again. If I’d started healing you even so much as half an hour later, if I’d been delayed at all—it cannot be coincidence. It cannot befortuna.Nikias was determined to have you dead. Even in that haze, he would have made certain. What other explanation can there be?”

Marcella was silent, eyes shut as he lifted his head further.

“I have not breathed a word to anyone. I convinced Nikias it was an error in their readings, but I know it was not. However, if the healers or my parents discovered your heart stopped and started again, there would be no power other than Asentai herself who could stop them from putting you back on that table to try to find some logical path for that to occur. They would kill me for trying to stop it. So no one can know. But I know there is no logical, repeatable path. That was a miracle.”

“No, Gavril—”

“Your heart stopped. Then it started beating again. Your life is a miracle.”

“It can’t—”

“The longest a person has ever lasted on that table is five days.” His voice hardened. If he was going to reveal the depths of his failure, she was going to believe it. “Your heart stopped on the fifth. You were left unattended with your injuries for two more days after that. You stayed alive the precise amount of time it took for me to return to heal you. How could that be anything but Asentai answering my prayers for you to live? And now, you came back from the dead, so of course you are struggling to recover. Of course there are consequences, but I have no doubts. You are a living miracle.”

“That—Even if I believed that somehow Asentai brought me back to life—why?” Marcella’s voice cracked as she opened her eyes, and they were spilling over with tears again. “Why would she if I’m only going to be able to live in this wretched, weak state? If I will never recover from it? What was the point if I’m not capable of proving your theory?”

He cursed her people. This poisonous idea of only having worth by being capable was entrenched in her very blood.

He shifted closer, skimming his hand up her shoulder again, and when she didn’t pull away, he cupped her jaw firmly with one hand. His thumb rested on her chin, just barely brushing her lip and he could feel the slightly raised, rough skin of the scar on the bottom of her jaw.

“You talk about faith… I have long admired your faith, and yet… I see now just how little of it you have.” At his words, her mouth parted slightly as she gasped, but he continued, “You pray to Asentai for miracles? Then accept them when they are given to you. You believe those visions the demon had that put you in my path came from Asentai? Then believe it. If this is the path the goddess you pray to has put you on, then walk it. Your heart started beating again when it had no reason to; how could that be anything but a sign this is the path you were meant to walk? So walk with assurance. Have faith you are here for a reason. For this very reason.”

Marcella’s breath stuttered, and he shifted his hand, moving to brush her curls back.

He commanded her.

“Have faith. Stop dwelling on all the things you think you are not. On the things the world has told you are not and the lies you have been told. Focus on what you have been given. You tell me Asentai grants miracles. Why can you not believe you were given one? Why can you not believe one will be worked through you if you will simply throw off these chains you have let everyone else bind you in? Believe that through you something great might be done.”

She closed her eyes and took a long breath. Gavril waited for the outburst at what could easily be understood as an insult.

She didn’t.

“Have faith and fight.”

He knew Marcella. He knew her deeper than he’d known anyone. She was a soldier.

No matter how mediocre a soldier she might think she was.

She needed orders to march on.

When she opened her eyes, the brown burned, and Gavril couldn’t help but grin. She said, “Talk me through the way you balance pulling vitae to both hands equally one more time.”

Gavril shifted, pulling her toward him so her back was to his front so he could put his hands over hers. The lines on their left wrists glowed where they met. He leaned forward, tracing his fingers gently over her vitae paths—forever marked with thin scars—and murmured in her ear as she focused her eyes on her hands.

As he ran her through it again, he kept one eye on their wrists. He could feel the small hum of her vitae under his skin. He felt no corruption. Nothing but vitae that filled him with warmth and longing for the woman it had come from.

It was uniquely Marcella.

And it made him more and more certain of his faith.

She was brought back to life for a reason. She could do this. She had to.

Or they would all suffer the consequences together.

Chapter29

MARCELLA

“Have faith and fight.”

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