Page 36 of Cinder
Cin had backed himself into a corner, it seemed, but the only way around it was to send the prince off with Cin’s flock-creature, and hope it didn’t vanish out from under him the moment it left Cin’s sight. “If you insist. I can’t linger, though. It’s getting late.”
Prince Lorenz joined Cin on his steed out front without further protest, Rags and Lacey fluttering from their perch on the flock-creature’s withers as they mounted. His arms around Cin’s waist felt different now, as though he were holding on for something more than support and deeper than touch. Something Cin wondered if even he knew how to describe, much less to give in return.
Many of the parties throughout the capital city had waned dramatically by the time Cin and the prince arrived. Even the crown’s watch was mostly absent—or, just as likely, out in the surrounding towns, looking for their prince. Pockets of music and laughter still persisted though, where it seemed that personal drink had been brought out after all the palace had provided for the night was finished off. Cin didn’t blame them. When there was so little joy or richness in the kingdom during recent years, it felt necessary to take what small comforts were available and hold tight for as long as possible.
Cin wrapped his hand over the prince’s where he held to Cin’s waist, and squeezed gently.
Though he could hardly know what it meant to Cin, Prince Lorenz still slipped his fingers through Cin’s and squeezed back. Held on. And for the first time, Cin felt himself not just weep inside, but rage at the knowledge that he’d have to let go.
As they rode, he watched for any sign of his family’s carriage, but he saw nothing yet. With the prince suddenly vanishing from the ball, there was a good chance that Floy was determined to stay until his return. Cin wanted, more than ever, to ask Prince Lorenz his thoughts on them, but he still dreaded the possibility that the prince might actually be considering them for his future partner.
He knew Prince Lorenz’s marriage would not be for love, would likely become little more than a business arrangement with how the prince currently spoke of the ordeal, but thethought of Floy having access to him—calling him by his given name, siting across from him at dinner, holding his arm as he walked behind the king and queen—made Cin feel sick with something a little like hatred. But Prince Lorenz was no fool. He might have been keeping Floy around for their intellect and persistence, but there were likely far better options among the remaining castle attendees.
Attendees who Prince Lorenz had spent the entire night away from.
As Cin and the prince traveled closer to the palace, the buildings grew in size and scale. Tightly packed, gorgeous town homes surrounded fancy squares of wealthy shops where pockets of partying continued. From down the road, away from the echoes of joy and life, came a sound like a scream.
Cin straightened up, hoping he was wrong, but all three of his trio also went alert from their positions on the surrounding buildings, Perdition swooping to land on Cin’s shoulder. Then there it was again—Cin was certain. Soft, and distant, but definitely a sound of terror and pain. He’d conditioned himself to notice such things, to pull them from the woodwork when no one else would. And here he was, yet again, perhaps the only one who had.
The prince didn’t seem to hear the cry.
It would be better for Cin to ignore it. Saving someone here, so deep in the wealthy parts of the city with the prince at his side, was far different than the work the Plumed Menace had taken on—evenifhe had no intention to kill here. Whatever he did could put a spotlight on his existence at the balls, his friendship with the prince.
Cin’s mount shifted beneath them, Perdition ruffled her feathers in anticipation on his shoulder, and in the moment of silence that followed, he found he couldn’t ignore the ache in hisbones nor the pull in his chest. If hewasthe only one who could help, then he had to do so, consequences be damned.
“Did you hear that?” Cin asked. “Down the road. I swear someone screamed.”
Prince Lorenz’s brow shot up. He didn’t question Cin, didn’t even pause to try to hear the sound for himself. Simply trusted. “What are we waiting for?”
His unquestioning determination to help made him all the more handsome.
As though they had one mind, Cin’s steed took off, charging in the direction of the sound. They had to turn down a side street, then a wide, paved alley between the rows of fancy houses. The clop of hooves should have overwhelmed the now fainter, muffled sobs, but whatever magic the transformed birds possessed let them practically fly, soundless through the night, Cin’s trio of tiny feathered angels guiding their way from above.
They emerged around a corner into the small gardened yard of a wealthy town home, and Cin found the person in an instant—spotted the man hulking over-top them, anyway. He’d pinned his much smaller victim onto the stoop of the dark back porch. By the muffled anguish to their whimpering, he was clearly holding one hand over their mouth, and the nature of their weak struggling made it easy to imagine the scene hidden by the shadows. Easy, because Cin had witnessed it so many times before.
His chest tightened, the blood that pounded through his veins turning to a war drum in his ears. He slid off his mount without a thought, throwing himself at the large man, grabbing into his clothes, twisting, then yanking. His great size barely budged under Cin’s exertion, but then a second pair of hands joined Cin’s and together they pulled.
As they ripped the man back, his victim scrambled, falling over themself to get away. They seemed too breathless to thankanyone, too panicked still as they tried, desperately, to tuck the pieces of their simple servant’s clothing back around themself, their hat sliding off their head in the rush.
Despite the hands gripping his lavish shirt and shoulders, the man dove at his victim again, bellowing under his breath, “Come back here, you fucking—”
The man’s victim wavered, and Cin had the sickening realization that they must be their attacker’s hired help, caught between the job that provided them food and board and the horror of what their privileged employer was trying to take from them. But there was no real choice here, not after all the times Cin had seen something like this play out.
They took a few more steps, crossing through a pocket of moonlight, and Cin caught a better glimpse of them—bruised skin, long hair, and, free now of their hat, the tips of two pointed ears. Anelf, here, in the city. Cin could see only one of their wrists, a flash of skin as they struggled to slide the rest of the way into their shirt, but he recognized the manacle clamped there.
All the nausea he’d felt when he’d first seen the elf-holding cages back on that wagon in the woods rose bitter and rancid in Cin’s stomach, but this time his anger overwhelmed it. “Go!” he shouted at the elf. “Now!”
Finally, the elf ran.
“You fucking—” The man spun sluggishly, landing heavy on one foot. His breath stank of drink and his expensive jacket hung rumpled, half off him. “I paid good money for that elf.” His gaze seemed to slide right over Cin and lock on Prince Lorenz, gorgeous even now, in the low light and the panicked anger. His fists balled. “You’ll wanna take their place, huh?”
He lunged at the prince.
Fear shot through Cin, then rage. He could see the future that would play out—the pain, the loss. There was no God to smile on Prince Lorenz here, just as there’d been none to help every otherelf who’d been enslaved by a rich Hallinisch bastard. Only Cin. Only ever Cin.
Before the thought had finished, he was already moving, his feathered cape sweeping out behind him.
This man, this bastard, this villain, had bought an enslaved elf, not even simply for the status or their magic, but to violently extract every piece of them—soul and body—he could. And he thought he could take the same from Cin’s prince. Would take the same, next time he could, from whoever he could.
