Page 92 of Enslaved

He lifts his head but still does not turn, does not face me. “When Ivor lost the battle, all his possessions came to me. Including his Obligates. I’d intended to break your Obligation as a . . . as a wedding present, shall we say. Instead I shall make it my parting gift.”

All the air seems to have fled my lungs. I can only grip the back of the lounger, squeezing hard as my body sways.

Finally the Prince turns, gazes down at me. To my horror, there are tears swimming in his eyes. “I’ve come to a realization, Darling. I’ve said it to you more times than I care to count—but until this moment, I’ve avoided saying it to myself: you cannot save one who does not wish to be saved.”

His words wash over me, ice cold. I shiver but make no answer.

“I thought I could save you,” he continues. “I thought I could somehow prove to you your own worth. I thought I could show you with my life, my death, my love that you matter more than you’ve ever let yourself believe. That you are not your brother’s keeper or whatever small, sad, pathetic thing your father, your mother, every damned voice in your head has convinced you that you are. I thought I could be enough.

“But you don’t want me to save you. You would rather hold yourself captive so that you need not leave that brother of yours behind in his darkness.

“I cannot save you. So I must do what I’ve begged you to do all this time—let go.”

My lips part. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you are free. Free to return to your brother. Once you’re gone, I will see the gate between this world and yours broken. You will forget your life here in Eledria. It will be nothing more than a faint memory of a dream.”

“And you?”

“I won’t forget. Not a single moment.” His lips curve in a terrible, agonized smile. “Not so long as I live.”

He turns then and marches to the window. Summit Night is giving way at last. A flush of dawn stains the edge of the far horizon beyond the rooftops, towers, and walls of Aurelis. By that glow, he looks so stern, so lordly. The rightful master of this great domain. A terrible fae, a treacherous lord, a manipulative schemer, curse-caster, and betrayer.

The man I love.

“What about Oscar?” I say softly. “Will you lift his curse?” The Prince growls. It’s a ferocious sound and should send me fleeing. But I stand my ground. “You cannot leave him as he is. I beg of you, please—”

“Stop!” He holds up a hand. “You know I can’t bear it. You know you have but to say my name, and I will do anything for you, though my soul be damned for it.” He turns then, his eyes bright, dangerous. “But know this: if I lift the curse, your brother is no longer safe. The minute, the very minute he puts pen to page and creates something strong enough to take life . . . I will come for him. I will cut the head from his shoulders, and you will watch it roll.”

Gone is the prince I knew. Before me stands an otherworldly being I could never imagine kissing, loving, caressing. I tremble deep inside but meet his gaze boldly. “It will never come to that. As long as I am with him, I can keep him from the dark.”

His teeth flash. “You think very highly of yourself.”

“I know him. I know my brother. I believe in him.” I drop my gaze, lower my voice: “Break the curse.”

Something snaps in the air between us. Some frisson, some tension there and then gone. Though I cannot say for sure, I suspect that across veils of reality, somewhere in a world far from here, Oscar has just drawn his first deep breath in many years.

I bow my head. Wipe tears from my cheek. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” the Prince snarls. “This is the last time I let you make me your accomplice.” He turns back to the window. “Now go. Before I change my mind.”

Suddenly the pull is there. That connection between us, that need, that longing to stay. I want to go to him, to wrap my arms around him. To kiss him and kiss him until the hard, cold, dangerous monster gives way once more to the beautiful, tender lover.

Summoning all my strength, I turn away, go to the door. Touch the latch. Pause. So many words crowd on my tongue. Words for the children. Words for Lir. Questions about the library, thegubdagogs, Mixael, Andreas, Khas, and Umog Grush. Even Anj and his zealots. And Vervain. Poor Vervain locked away in her tower, locked away with her own madness and nightmares. My heart cries out for each and every one of them. These people for whom I’ve come to care so deeply.

I close my eyes and see the dusty broken-down grimoires of the library. The slim little volume ofDulmier Fen. The many monsters I’ve labored so long to contain, to control, to . . . to understand. I don’t want to leave them either. I don’t want to abandon my work. Everything in me urges me to stay. To be the person I’ve grown to be while in the Prince’s service. Somehow I cannot help feeling she is—or was—my best self.

Instead I look back over my shoulder. He stands with his back to me now, gazing out the window. His back is straight, his shoulders set and hard. The forbidding prince, the deadly fae. My husband. Now a stranger to me.

“Be well, Prince,” I whisper.

He growls softly: “Goodbye, Darling.”

Then I pass from that room into the passage beyond and shut the door behind me.

I stand at the window gazing down on the walkway just visible below. It winds through the gardens of Aurelis, empty now as the betrothal revelers have dispersed, their thirst for entertainment quenched on Ivor’s death and my hollow victory. They’ll be back in time, gawking and eager as ever. When my father dies. When I’m made to endure the indignities of coronation. Friends and enemies alike, each nipping at my heels, eager for whatever piece of me they can get. And I will perform the part to which I was born, the game which never ends. Their king. Their master. Their plaything.

At long last movement catches my eye. The garden is no longer empty, not completely. Two figures step into view. One clad in footman’s livery, limping and in pain. The other small, upright. A graceful figure in a flowing green gown. A gown which, not too long ago, lay in a pile beside my desk.

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