Page 63 of Cinder
Lorenz wouldn’t meet Cin’s gaze as, quietly, he answered, “Not so much as it once did, but now the more I think of you—the more I care for you—the pain returns.”
For that, Cin wanted to kiss the spot above his prince’s heart, to feel it beat against his lips. But he couldn’t. So he thumbed the metal instead, letting the rough edges scrape into his skin. “You could have told me sooner…”
And Cin imagined, briefly, if he had—had told Cin long before he’d had the chance to fall in love with Lorenz. Had stopped the ache in Cin’s chest before it had even begun.
The thought made Cin nauseous.
Lorenz grimaced. Beneath his touch, Cin could feel the prince’s body start to shake, whether from cold or anxiety or both. “I wasn’t certain how to,” he admitted, sounding ashamed. “I never sharing my peers’ dreamy moods as a teenager, and while not all of them understood how intensively I could love despite that, I was always content with who I was, and how I felt. It made little difference in my life whether what I shared with the people I cared for was born of romantic passion or a more solemn love of trust and devotion. But to suddenly have the love I did feel slip through my fingers...” Lorenz shuddered harder. “I’ve told no one of this, not ever. Not my parents, nor the servants, not even my lovers—I never let anyone strip me of my undershirt.” He gave a bitter laugh. “There will never be any bare-chested statues of me.”
Cin’s chest ached with a pain that felt as though metal were being wound around his own heart. He cupped Lorenz’s cheek, tracing it with his thumb. “But you’ve toldme, and I’m grateful.” He drew in a deep breath, looking Lorenz in the eyes as he said, “Now, tell me the name of the bastard who did this to you, so I might dig out their heart and put it in a cage of my own.”
That brought almost a smile to his prince’s face, the soft twitch of his lips offset by the sadness in his eyes. “I am that bastard, my dove.”
Cin blinked. Confusion knotted his gut, then alarm. “You…?”
Lorenz sighed, stepped back—but not far. “Sit with me. I’ll tell you everything.”
Cin followed Lorenz through the suite, but from somewhere beyond the doors, someone shouted. Another voice responded, just as frustrated.
Lorenz cringed. “On second thought, they’ll probably check these rooms soon. Would you care to go back to mine? I’m sure someone has been there by now; we’ll have more time.” A larger shudder ran through him, and beneath it the little shivers still raged. “Also, a well-stocked hearth.”
“Let us, yes.” Cin let go of his prince, finally, collecting up Lorenz’s things from the floor, and they set off again.
They kept to the servant entrances and side halls again, darting on soft feet across the ornate rugs in the main chambers when they could not avoid them, but it was barely three turns later when Lorenz led Cin through a servants’ door into an elaborate suite much like the one they’d just been in. Unlike those rooms, however, these ones were clearly lived in.
Books and stray papers were piled across most raised flat surfaces, three foreign-looking plants sitting on perches at the large windows, a violin discarded on one couch and a set of pillows and blankets forming something like a nest near the large hearth. Wood had been stacked inside it, though it currently lay unlit.
Cin felt instantly awkward just standing there, in a royal’s personal chambers, much less those of the man he loved. Instinctively, he moved toward the hearth. “I’ll provide us some warmth.”
Lorenz scrambled past him. “Oh, allow me. You surely do this all the time.”
Cin’s brow lifted.“Youcan light a fire?”
“After our night in your garden, I made my attendant, Felix, teach me.” He sounded satisfied with himself, and Cin decided to let him have that pride. It was cute, and Cin loved him just a little bit for trying. The warm glow in Cin’s heart twisted jarringly at the thought of the cage in Lorenz’s own chest, trying to lock out the affection that came so easily for Cin.
But at least Lorenzwasthere, offering what he could, Cin consoled himself as his prince struck the fire to life. He’d donned his undershirt again for the journey there, but the top two buttons were still open, and the fabric hung as he leaned forward. Cin could just glimpse the metal beneath.
This had all been so complicated already, and now it was even more so. A part of Cin still wanted to flee and be done with it—at least for the night—because at least that way, he’d know there was no hope of forging anything deeper. But if that meant hurting Lorenz in the process, he didn’t think he was capable of that—not when he’d clearly been hurt so badly already.
As the fire crackled to life, Cin watched the flames dance and spread, sitting beside Lorenz on the bundle of blankets. They didn’t touch, but that seemed right for the moment. There was a kind of emptiness in the air, and Cin didn’t know how to break that.
Lorenz brushed his fingers over his heart, bunching and straightening the fabric that lay there, tracing the metal beneath it.
“To understand this, you have to know how fiercely I loved him…” His voice was weak, each word strained, stolen from some dark and distant place.
“Him?” Cin whispered.
Lorenz seemed almost to startle, blinking, then nodding. “Alwin—my brother.”
It seemed contrary to the ways Lorenz had spoken of him, with mild awe and hints of jealousy, like a distant thing, always to be compared to. But then, Cin supposed his own relationship with Emma was not any less complex, yet his own heart had ached all week at her dismissals and avoidance. The opposite of love was apathy, after all.
The prince’s gaze had been trapped by the fire again, but now Cin watched his face as he spoke, little pinches and tightenings moving through it as though everything he was feeling was hidden beneath a layer, not of a mask, but of… magic. “We were inseparable as youths; every game he devised I would rush into headfirst, every worry I would console, and every wonder I’d appreciate. As we grew up, and grew different, that somehow never truly changed.” His words sounded a little too clinical for the context, despite how low and heavy his voice stayed. “At times, I wished I could be more like him, but I knew, too, that he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I never envied him that. I would not have traded our places for anything… except perhaps, to bring him back.”
So soft was that final line, that Cin would not have caught it had he not watched Lorenz’s mouth move. Slowly, carefully, he slid his hand over his prince’s. Lorenz did not pull away. “It must have been terrible to hear of his disappearance,” Cin whispered.
Lorenz nodded, still staring into the flames. “I’m aware that at the time, it felt like more than I could bear,” he said, hoarsely. His eyes shone, just a little, a wisp of emotion breaking through whatever magic so callously bound his heart. “If we had only known for certain that he had perished with his entourage in the forest, perhaps that would have been different, but having only his bloody circlet as proof—it was horrid. I watched my parentsswing from hope to grief to desperation and back with each morning, and I slipped slowly toward something darker.”
“Oh, Ren.” Cin squeezed his hand, feeling the waves of the emotions Lorenz described flood through him in turns. He’d felt them all just that day—not for a sibling, perhaps, but for an entire future. At least he had the ability to affect his, though. Lorenz had been powerless. But for one thing…
