Page 5 of Prince of Flowers
He’d come too close. The tip of his finger jabbed against my chest, not in a way that would really hurt me, but with enough force to express his anger. The poor guy really didn’t know the first thing about summoners and pacts.
The very moment his fingertip made contact, a jolt of white light launched him away from me, a thunderous blast of crackling magic sending him sprawling across the ground. He sputtered, spitting out blades of grass, hurriedly brushing his hair out of his own face.
“What in blazes just happened? You attacked me!”
“I did no such thing,” I said, clutching the book to my chest protectively, covering the part of me where he’d jabbed me with his finger. See? If anything, he drew first blood. By, uh, poking me a little bit. “You entered a pact with me, and as your summoner, that means that you can’t hurt me. That’s how it works between a summoner and a familiar.” An eidolon, I nearly added, but didn’t, figuring it was too much work to explain all the context.
He sat up, eyes wide in panic. “A familiar? No, no, no. This can’t be. I am no mere familiar. I am — ”
“Sylvain, right,” I said, rolling my eyes, turning on my heel. “Prince Sylvain, high fae of the Summer Court.”
I could hear him scrambling to his feet, leaves and grass rustling as he raced toward me. I swiveled on my heel, ready to bash him in the head with my grimoire. Shame to mess up such a pretty face, but what if he was pissed off and ready to rumble?
“Then you can release me,” he said, more afraid than angry. Oh. “You forged this bond, so you can let me go. Can’t you?”
“It’s not that simple. There are terms to this pact. We’re bound together, whether you like it or not.”
“For how long?” he snarled, his teeth gleaming and sharp.
“As long as it takes us to figure out whether we’re meant to work together,” I said curtly.
He groaned and threw his arms up in exasperation. “Then the pact should have been moot from the very beginning.”
“I think cosmic forces are trying to give us a chance to work things out together, dubious as that sounds.”
I paged through my grimoire absently, not really looking for anything, knowing that this truly was just a matter of time. Sylvain had a point, though. If the powers that bound us in a pact knew that carrying on would be disastrous, then our link should have been severed almost immediately.
For all I knew, the cosmos was punishing him for being a sarcastic little shit, and by extension, punishing me for — for what, exactly? I didn’t deserve this. Sylvain sidled up to me, looking over my shoulder.
“There. That’s the answer. There must be some solution to this in that great, big, stupid book of yours.”
“You’re standing far too close, there,” I said warningly. The heat of his body was scorching, that sweet and vaguely musky scent of his sending jolts of excitement straight up to my brain, and down to my —
“Right,” he said, backing away cautiously. “Right. I don’t want you throwing me on my ass again.”
“For the last time, it wasn’t me, okay?”
He crossed his arms and turned his lip up, sulking. “You haven’t even apologized for that, I noticed.”
Again I rolled my eyes, trudging in the opposite direction, snapping twigs and crunching leaves be damned.
Sylvain jogged up to me, sprightly and quick despite his bare feet, or perhaps because of them. “Where are we going?” he asked, wide-eyed, curious, helpless, like a puppy.
“We?” I chuckled bitterly. “Whatever happened to being too good to work with a lowly human?”
He sniffed, folding his hands behind his head as we walked. “I changed my mind. Fae princes are very good at changing their minds.” Sylvain said it like it was a good thing. “Wherever we’re going, I hope the amenities are fitting. After all, I am accustomed to luxury. Oh, and I should probably inform you about all of my dietary requirements. Let’s see.”
I sighed, deep and low. I got myself an eidolon, all right.
And enduring his endless rambling was my price to pay.
3
The alraune didn’t harassus on the way back through the Wispwood. Instead I had to put up with the constant stream of complaints falling out of Sylvain’s mouth — harassment of an equally unpleasant sort.
I wondered if I would have preferred dealing with the alraune instead. All she really did was scream and throw a few dozen thorns in my general direction. Sylvain, on the other hand?
“Is this really the best forest your world has to offer? It’s not very impressive, is it?”
