Page 57 of Zel
The way Rudy tucked his arm behind his back proved he must be wearing some trinket of note. Zel snatched Rudy’s elbow with his free hand, still gripping his dagger with the other, and yanked Rudy’s arm into view. He wore a simple silver band on one finger. Modest as it appeared, Zel recognized it.
“Lothar’s invisibility ring. He never goes anywhere without it. Youaremad. Stealing from the guild master? Why? Why risk so much for me—”
“Because I love you!”
“Zeeeeeeel!” Ulrich’s roar resounded through the trees, and Zel and Rudy both froze. If Zel hadn’t worked his way around to the other side of the wall, they would already be caught. Ulrich would find them in moments.
“You must go!” Zel pushed Rudy again. “If he had caught you before I did, he would have sucked out your soul, do you understand?”
“Then he is the monster they say he is.” Rudy stumbled back a step, but he wasn’t fleeing. He wasn’t leaving.
“We are monsters to the people we kill too!” Zel spat. “We don’t even get to choose who we are sent after. The sorcerer only kills bandits who come asking for it, or thieves foolish enoughto call in reinforcements he shouldn’t have risked.God, you travelled all night, and for what?”
Rudy shook his head, still not turning to go. “He has bewitched you—”
“Rudy—”
“Rapunzel—”
“I love him!”
Rudy stood agape.
“I love him,” Zel said again. “Because he knows the truth of who and what I am and wants me just the same. Could you?” He grabbed Rudy’s hand once more and brought it between his legs to grip through his single layer skirt and breeches. “Because my name isZel, not Rapunzel, and I am not what you think.”
Moments passed that seemed to take ages, diminishing the precious few that they had, as Rudy blinked in confusion before, finally, his eyes snapped wide. Zel pushed him in the chest again rather than bear the sting of Rudy jerking his hand away.
“Go. The heart cannot be bewitched, Rudy, only won.” Zel looked him square in the eyes, knowing that the only way to save his friend was to hurt him deeper than he yet had. “Even if you still want my heart after learning the truth of my body, you were never going to win it. He already has. Now go. Please.”
Maybe because Zel had broken Rudy’s heart so many times, Rudy’s expression did not seem to change beyond numb shock.
“Go, before you say or do something that will bring down wrath upon you I will not be able to protect you from. And if you don’t go, I might not even care that I can’t.”
ULRICH
The young man was retreating, however reluctantly.
However stunned to have learned Zel’s well-kept secret.
So that was Rudy. Handsome even with spectacles. Maybe more so with them, for they suited his face. Yet Zel had chosen Ulrich, when this boy had risked nearly a dozen people just to ensure Zel’s safety and sanity. For selfish reasons as well, given Rudy’s clear love for Zel, but as tempted as Ulrich was to drain the boy for daring this rescue, he recognized how much Zel truly cared for him in return. Zel was doing everything he could to spare Rudy from Ulrich’s wrath, so Ulrich would let Rudy leave.
What mostly convinced him to do so was wondering whether Zel would be better off with someone mortal. If not Rudy, someone else someday, for surely Zel would come to loathe an immortal life as Ulrich had, and eventually, he would loathe Ulrich too.
Of course he would. What a fool Ulrich was to have even briefly entertained otherwise. He knew what his answer had to be the next time Zel asked his question.
Ulrich gave Rudy just long enough to retreat before he swept toward Zel with his previous momentum. “Zel! Are you all right? I heard you cry out.”
“I’m fine.” Zel faced him with a false smile, not betraying his earlier panic. His partially unbound hair pooled on the ground beside the bodies and blood of his victims. “You caught the other one then? Were there more?”
Being close to Zel, with the rising sun’s rays brightening his face, Ulrich noticed the cut on Zel’s cheek. He reached for it immediately with his blackened hand. As with the prick on Zel’s finger, contact with Zel’s blood plumped Ulrich’s hand to life, and even without removing his hand right away, Ulrich knew his touch healed the skin beneath—a symbiotic exchange, like two halves of a whole.
Zel nuzzled Ulrich’s palm with a soft smile, but the warmth Ulrich wanted to succumb to was not his to bathe in. He had to accept the cold and drew his hand away, fighting the natural cringe when his skin returned to black and the pulse of his violet veins ached.
“I caught the one,” Ulrich said, “and I do not believe there are others, but does your Thieves Guild grow so impatient?”
A flicker of Zel’s panic returned. “You realized who they were as well? Lothar would not have sent them, so who knows why they would risk something so foolish. But regardless, we will not be giving the Thieves Guild what they want.” Zel sheathed his dagger and took Ulrich’s hands in his, as he had in the bedchamber. He was lying by omission to protect his friend, which only proved Zel’s inherent virtue and Ulrich’s lack of it. Zel did not even trust Ulrich enough to believe he could show mercy.
Why would he? Ulrich had never been…good.
