Page 83 of The Prince's Mage

When she opened her mouth, unsure what her heavy, slow tongue was going to produce that would be wholly inadequate, Gavril just set the tray on the table and said, “Eat. Rest. Long day ahead.”

Marcella smiled at him. And maybe…

Maybe after they succeeded in convincing his parents, maybe she could tell him, warn him of what Hypatia had wanted and explain to him what this had started as and what it had become. Her hand curled around her left wrist. He owed her an explanation too.

And she remembered what he’d said…

“The things I have done to try to end this—I hope that the people I have done them to will find a way to forgive me for them. So I try to forgive first.”

Maybe he would forgive her first.

She prayed for such a miracle.

She hadn’t heard of anyone who’d had three major miracles in their life. Coming back from the dead. Casting an Inimicus rune. Her Inimicus prince forgiving her deception.

Ever since he’d told her the night before, she’d been more aware of every beat of her heart in her chest. Fighting wasn’t tired of her yet.

After they’d eaten, somehow, her head had ended up in his lap as his hand rested on her side, tracing the shape of a rune over her scar. He whispered in her tongue, “Tomorrow,deliciae, everything will change for the better.”

“I pray so,” Marcella whispered, looking up at him.

He glanced down at his left hand, the one tracing the rune and started, “Mea spes—”

“What does that mean?” Marcella asked. “You have called me that for so long but that is one thing you still have not told me.”

Gavril smiled. “I suppose tonight would be the night.Mea spesmeans my hope. My hope you have fulfilled today. You have been my hope for so long I—I have—Contra spem spero.For so long, I have hoped against hope. Tomorrow, we will start on the path to peace and you will have fulfilled my first hope and I pray—I have prayed for so long to Asentai you will fulfill the next hope of my heart.”

Marcella’s heart was pounding and yet she stayed perfectly still as she drowned in his green eyes bursting with sunlight even in the dim light of her room at night.

“What if I disappoint you?” she whispered.

What if you don’t love me when you know how false I have been? What if you don’t trust me when you know just how much of an illusion I am?

She wanted to ask, but her tongue stilled and she stared up at him.

“Never,” he whispered.

“What if I fail? I am still… What if there is no recovering from this? What if the little I can do still doesn’t convince your horrid parents?”

“Then we will have done more than enough to try to stop this needless suffering, and we will go. My magic thrown in the Abyss for all I care. As long as you will let me go with you, I will go.”

She was wholly pinned down by the weight of his love for her. She did not know if she could ever get used to the intensity of his love.

“You should not say things like that,” she whispered slowly. “You don’t know what tomorrow will reveal.”

“I cannot seem to stop myself. I was not nearly so poetic before you.” He traced the rune again on her side. “This rune. It is the one for hope. I had not known hope until I sent that veil scattering in the wind and laid eyes on you for the first time. I did not know faith either. Strange now, that I am the one with enough faith to carry the two of us into what we will face tomorrow. But I only have it because I saw your faith living in you and it is beautiful.”

Marcella cursed herself for ever cursing him. For ever wishing she would be the instrument for his destruction.

She prayed it would go unfulfilled. That somehow he would never discover the orders she’d been following for so long.

But if it did—when it did. It would come out because even if they received a miracle tomorrow there was still Hypatia and her army and her big mouth, and then she would lose him. No matter how much she hoped she might have the chance to redeem herself, she needed to be ready to lose him.

So she was going to at least let herself have one last moment to hold onto when the love faded from his eyes and he looked at her the way he now looked at Nikias. She pushed herself up just enough to grab his face. His eyes widened when her palm made contact with his cheek and she pulled him down. He braced himself, tightening his grip on her side while also pulling her up and leaning down to meet her.

Her lips crashed into his as her hand slid to the back of his head, her fingers curling into the nape of his neck and tangling in his hair as his hand slid around her back, lifting her up into him. She kissed him again and again as deeply as she could, and her heart stuttered and soared when he responded in kind.

All her silent longing spilled out of her as she became more and more desperate not to let it end because when it ended, she was another moment closer to the truth. Because when he slipped out of her grip at the end of this kiss, it was just going to be practice for when he slipped away entirely.

---