Page 53 of Moonmarked

The thought echoed in my head infinitely. “How?” I barely choked out.

“I’m okay, as you can see,” he said, looking down at my body like he was concerned. Like he was making sure I was okay. “I’m so sorry to have had to put you through all of that, Nilah. I didn’t think you’d run away, I swear it. I didn’t think you’d disappear the way you did.”

My head shook over and over again, and nothing mattered anymore—not the throne room, not the queen or the soldiers. Just him.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” I understoodnothingat all. My mind had never been a bigger mess—and that wassaying something considering everything I’d had to go through since I came to this realm.

“Perfectly reasonable. If you want to sit down—” Lyall actually reached out a hand to touch my shoulder.

I moved back on instinct—don’t touch me, dead guy!

Of course, I didn’t say it out loud.

“I’d rather stay here,” I said instead because I wasn’t about to go anywhere until I understood what the fuck was going on here.

He didn’t like it. He did a good job hiding it, but a flicker in his eyes showed me how unexpected my reaction was to him.

Good thing I couldn’t care less about what he liked right now because things had gotten so out of hand, I wasthisclose to convincing myself that none of this was even real.No way. Not possible.

“Of course,” the prince said with a nod and leaned back, as if to give me more space. “I’m glad to see you’re okay, Nilah. I was worried.”

Nowthissounded almost funny.

“Here I thought you were busy having a knife buried in your chest,” I said before I could help myself, my voice dull, cold,different.Like I was really a different person altogether.

There was something about him.

I couldn’t really put my finger on it or maybe it was just all the trauma I’d had to go through the past few days, but there was something about this whole thing. And something aboutmeas well. That cold inside me that had come out of nowhere to rival the heat, and I couldn’t make sense of any of it yet.

“I know you saw that, and it was unnecessary,” Lyall said, closing his eyes for a moment. “Again, I’m really sorrythat you had to go through that. I promise you, I tried to find you. Sent my best hunters after you, and the seer used my blood to track you, too. I gave her as much as she needed, but then you disappeared.” He shook his head for a moment. “How did you do that? I knew you hadn’t died—but how did you disappear?”

“Ididn’tdisappear. I had to run, jump in the river and hide in chests full of fabric just to get out of the palace,” I started.

“No—that I know of. We tracked you into Mysthaven. That’s where you disappeared—like you didn’t even exist anymore.” Slowly, he took a step forward. “Was it a sorcerer, Nilah? Did they hurt you?”

“No, I—” I stopped speaking when my right forearm began to throb lightly, as if to remind me of the wound that had been there just yesterday. To remind me of Maera. How she’d scratched me, how she pushed me off the edge of the cliff.

Could it be?

“Maybe. I don’t know what sorcerers can or cannot do. They didn’t hurt me, but I barely escaped with my life,” I ended up saying. “And I was almost a hundred percent sure that you hadn’t died becauseIwas still alive—but why?How?!”

The prince only watched me in silence for a good moment. The guy I’d actually come to the fae realm to save. The guy who’d once saved me.

Such a handsome man, he was—and so fucking powerful. His aurascreamedit, infused the air around us, and I could have sworn that I tasted it on my tongue. Raw and golden and vicious—as warm as the light that went off inside me.

It was different, though, the taste of his magic. I alwaysthought it was the same, that he’d given me a piece of his own with the life-bond, but now I could tell that it was different. More golden, more vibrant—a different kind of heat, even if the intensity was the same.

“There was no other way, Nilah. I needed them to believe they’d won. My only choice was to fake my death.”

I paused for a moment.

What the actual fuck?That was most definitely not what I expected. “Who? Who isthem?”

“The people who tried to kill me,” Lyall solemnly said. “The people who poisoned me.Them.”

Fuck me sideways.

For a moment there, no word came to mind. My mouth opened and closed, but what the hell could anybody say tothat?He’d faked his own death?

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