Page 11 of Wicked Prince of Carnage
CHAPTER FIVE
STERLING
“Damn it, Cyan,” Sterling hissed as she tugged her brother down the gravelly path leading toward the market. She’d taken him a longer route after the dreaded scene with the prince in hopes to avoid any of his wolves. “I can’t believe you went to the hanging without my consent.Alone. And after I’d already told you no.” Why was he so stubborn sometimes? She’d dropped him off at the meat shop with Nareth, but he’d snuck out anyway. All she’d wanted to do was get close enough to the prince to see if he was still as wicked as the last time she’d seen him eight years ago. And he was somehowworse.
Sterling was lucky that the prince hadn’t decided to send his wolves after her to uncover what she’d really said about him. An ass was what she’d truly called him. She needed to make her move soon, get to the last member who’d left her with physical scars, kill him, then the prince.
As they slowed their pace, Cyan drew out of her grasp and shrugged. Shrugged as though it weren’t a big deal that he hadn’t listened to her.
“Well?” Sterling asked gently, although she clenched her jaw to the point her teeth ached.
He blew out a breath and kicked at a small pebble. “I’m a villager of Bloodstorm, and all villagers were invited. There were children much younger than me in the square.”
Her brother was right—there were even infants resting in their parents’ arms, but Cyan didn’t know everything about her past with the prince and his wolves. “Gods, I wish our mother were here—she would have the right answers. You have to follow the rules though.” Sometimes she didn’t know what to do with him in certain situations. Not once had she ever spanked him—she’d always spoken to him more like an adult than a child. At that moment she questioned herself as a caregiver, as a sister. He was just too smart for his own good.
“Yes,” he drew out slowly. “I know the rules, but I wanted to ask the prince to give the men a second chance. They could’ve spent time in a cell instead.”
Sterling pursed her lips and scowled. “The prince is an ass, and those were wolves. Wolves who betrayed the crown.” Wolves who should’ve died being pierced byherarrows—not strangled with a noose.
Cyan tilted his head to the side, seeming much older than his eight years. “Would you have said the same if they’d been human and not shifters?”
No, she wouldn’t have. “Yes.” As her brother continued to study her with that knowing gaze, she sighed. “Fine, no, but fighting to give them a second chance would’ve done no good. I would’ve ended up with a noose around my neck for being a sympathizer, and then who would take care of you?”
He straightened and patted the dagger at his side. “Some things are worth fighting for.”
Sterling bit her tongue to keep from saying that he didn’t even know how to use a bow or any other weapon, and she knew with certainty he would never draw his blade on anyone. What would he have done? Promised to bring a bushel of herbs or vegetables in his basket to the prince and ask to barter the things for the criminals? The prince would’ve laughed in his face, then taunted him in front of the crowd … or worse.
“Yourlife is what’s worth fighting for, Cyan,” Sterling finally said.
A line formed between Cyan’s dark brows, and his voice came out meek, soft as he spoke, “And what about yours? There was another reason I went to the hanging—to make sure you were all right.”
Sterling narrowed her eyes at her brother and drew him away from the path into the forest, then knelt behind a crooked yew tree. She peeked her head around the trunk and surveyed the area, listening for any sign of movement. Both human and bastard wolf. But there was no rustling besides the wind blowing the branches, no leaves crunching, or twigs snapping. She still cursed her ears for not being as attuned as a wolf’s.
Gently grasping Cyan’s chin, she turned his face until his eyes were focused on hers. “What do you mean, amIall right? Is this because of our talk at the shop yesterday? That I won’t live forever?” She pleaded with the gods that their chat was the reason, but by the secrets dancing in his gaze, she knew that wasn’t it.
Cyan shook his head and stepped out of her grasp. He reached deep into his trouser pocket and fished out something yellowed. One of his folded paper art pieces. As he lifted it between them, her eyes widened and she snatched the paper from his hand, looking over its fine details.
Sterling’s chest tightened while her fingers skated over the paper he’d made into Red Riding Hood. The cloak, the bow, the shape, and even though it wasn’t colored, it resembled her perfectly.
“You knew?” Sterling murmured, her shoulders dropping. “For how long?”
Cyan bit his lip and tears gathered in his lashes. “A while,” he stammered. “I was looking in your room for—”
“You were snooping in my room?” she whisper-shouted. “I’ve told you not to go in there unless I’m with you.”
“It wasn’t to be sneaky. I promise. It was for Mama’s trinket box. We haven’t gone through her things together in a while, and I just wanted to look at them alone this time,” he sniffed.
A pit formed in Sterling’s stomach at how she and her brother used to sit on her bed together, and she would showhim their mother’s trinkets and pebbles she’d collected. None of it was worth any coin, but it meant all the world to Sterling. She should’ve kept the box in a place where Cyan could take a peek at it any time he wished, but she’d been too afraid it would disappear, the way her mother and grandmother both had. Now she realized that it wasn’t fair.
“From now on, I’ll let you keep her things beneath your bed. I trust you to protect them for the both of us.” She paused, her expression turning serious as her gaze bore into his while pressing the folded Red Riding Hood paper back into his palm. “However, you can’t tell anyone about this. No one. Especially not if they question you.” If they found out who she was and that he knew all along, the prince wouldn’t only kill her, he would do the same to her brother.
“I promise I won’t, but why are you hurting…” Cyan lifted an imaginary bow and shot the pretend arrow past her. And she knew he meant to ask why was she hurting wolves.
“They aren’t people,” Sterling snapped, her voice still a whisper. “They’ve hurt countless families and revel in riches while we grovel in the dirt.”
“Humans started it though,” Cyan said. “A long time ago, when the sorcerers and sorceresses left this court, the humans tried to take over and hunt the wolves, so they had to fight back.”
Sterling held back from rolling her eyes. “This isn’t a history lesson, and that was centuries ago. They could’ve fixed things and they haven’t.” She pointed at the scar on her face since it was time to reveal the truth. “This didn’t come from a bear while I was hunting—it came from one of the prince’s wolves. They came to Grandmother’s home and slaughtered her right in front of me only days after our mother died. Because that’s the sort of thing they do. Kill for the fun of it.” She took a breath to steady her voice, to not let those memories become overbearing. “Nowunravel that paper and make something else. We will never speak of any of this again.”
