“You should’ve let Magda stay. This place is a gods damned mess.” I lean against a wall of books, one of the only clear spaces. He stands as still as a statue until something in my stare breaks the mirage, his hands curling and fisting at his sides.
“Why did you save me?” From the harshness in his tone, you’d thinkIwas the one who’d flung a knife at him.
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth, and it’s not. I can’t begin to unravel the complexities of what I’ve just done. Ward had done what I fantasized about doing to immortals so many times before, and yet … the best answer I can probably form isit felt right. Instead, I spit out, “I need you alive to trade me to Nevaeh.”
A piece of the truth if not the whole of it. The way he observes me is as piercing as a collector pinning a butterfly to a board. He chews his lip, tilting his head back, and reads my body language like an open book, arrogance lining that cocky smile. We keep staring at each other, and finally, he runs his hand through his dark hair, those raven wings tucking tightly to his shoulders,flickering from black to blue to purple, an oil spill of colors. He turns from me, crossing to his bed, ripping the pillows off, hands flattening along the space between mattress and headboard, his wings ruffling irritably.
I finally ask, “What’re you doing?”
“Dearest Magda …” he mutters, and suddenly pulls out a small crystal, holding it up in the light. He calls his cards forth, the World channeling Temperance, and a moment later, a crack fissures through the object. It turns dark, no longer opaque. Temperance stops magical powers, and I guess it works on enchanted objects, too. He chucks it into his fireplace, which lets out a flamingwhoosh.Then levels another look at me. “She’s a spy for the king. That crystal can be used to listen in. I usually find a new one in my chambers once a week.”
“Your father doesn’t trust you?” My arms fold across my chest as I examine his room. There are walking paths between the book piles, and he has a second-story sitting area, like me, with even more books. There’s far more personality tucked into his space than mine. Knickknacks and charms, baubles and jars of various plants, metals, and mushrooms that strike at my curiosity. All I can think is that the librarian might have a conniption if she saw all these books strewn about.
“I’m sure he has his reasons.” Draven crosses his arms, too, still standing near the bed as if he needs to keep it between us. “Now, didn’t you have some more shouting you wanted to do without everyone watching? I’d rather get it out of the way so I don’t have to hear you stewing all night.”
“Maybe stay out of my head, and you wouldn’t lose sleep over my thoughts,” I snarl, drawn back into the fight with frustrating ease. I’ve never met anyone so unrelentingly aggravating.
“We both know why you think that.” A daring smirk curls the edge of his lips, sending an unwanted heat rushing throughme. He undresses me in a glance. “I don’t even have to read your thoughts. I can scent the desire all over you.”
“I said—stay out of my head!” I move around the bed at the same time as him, the two of us nearly chest to chest in a few strides.
“Then stop shouting thoughts like you’re flinging them across the lava river!”
“I don’t even know what that means!”
“Blessed with every power in the world, given the gift of holding power equal to mine, maybe even stronger,but you’re not letting yourself take hold of it!” He throws his arms up, his wings flaring wide across his back until they blot the light from the window beyond. Each feather is impossibly detailed. The colors shift in the light between onyx and indigo and some kind of blue I can’t name. Yet he seems so large with them extended, as if the room is too small for the both of us. He blinks, mastering himself again, and the wings fold tightly. “Not that it matters; you’ll soon be out of my hair. Off to the seraphs.”
“I thought you didn’t want me here!” My finger points right into his stupid, pretty-boy face. But he does want me here, doesn’t he? Why else encourage training? Maybe I’m not a mind reader—
“You’re right! I mean, you’re right that you’re not a mind reader,” he snarls, correcting himself mid-sentence, his face tingeing pink from the exertion of shouting at me. “And no, I don’t fucking want you here. Not when you leaving means I might be able to get out of this stupid betrothal to the Nevaeh princess. The last thing I need is another chain around my wrist.”
“Oh, like being betrothed to some gorgeous seraph princess was such a death sentence!” I spit, voice dripping with sarcasm. “So happy I can buy your way out of the only inconvenience imposed on your absolutely privileged life.”
He steps forward, and I back into one of the bookshelves, the singular bony claws at the end of his wings digging into the wood above my head hard enough it splinters. His hands clench the shelves behind me, and I’m trapped between his powerful arms. The way his muscular chest rises and bluntly falls makes it clear he’s barely tethering himself, and his eyes bore into mine until I can see nothing else.
“It hasn’t been a privileged life. It hasn’t even been a good one,” he snarls, and his fangs slide forth. “Every ounce of power I possess, I’ve earned. Nothing has been given to me. Nothing.”
“Says the prince,” I say quietly.
He smirks, but there’s no joy in those darkening eyes. “I wasn’t born one,” he growls.
I’m braced against the bookshelf as his eyes scan my face. All I can do is blink. Inside, a tidal wave of emotions rises to choke the breath from my lungs.
His throat bobs, swallowing hard as though he hadn’t meant to reveal that, but he continues anyway. “I was Selected. Just like you, but far younger. I navigated all this on my own.” His eyes graze mine with all the command in the world. “That’s not common knowledge among students. You’re forbidden to share it.”
Yet there’s no invisible power laced in that command. The Oath’s orders are limited to direct questioning and commands by the king. Not that I would share the information without it. It seems … personal.
“So, the king isn’t your father? Why would he choose you as his heir?” Why not just make his own? Adoption among royals is rare, at least for humans.
His eyes narrow slightly. “You really don’t know about the War?”
I stare at him, lost in those words. “The records of the Great War were wiped from the history books, along with every rebel caught in the fight. Speaking of the rebellion is an act of treason.” But my parents would whisper about it in the dark of night. The way they spoke of the uprising leader Kieran Ceres, you’d think he’d been a god, not a mere mortal from a broken royal line.
Draven winces. “The mortals were losing the War. Desperate, the uprising leader, Kieran Ceres, sold his soul to an immortal goddess in exchange for the ability to conjure dark arts. It still required blood magic, but only a drop of his blood, and wouldn’t consume him the way magic had with other mortals who’d tried it.”
I had heard whispers about the mortals figuring out some magic, but never more than rumors.
Draven continues, “Still, even with all this new power, it wasn’t enough to win. So, he and his top alchemist created something that would hurt the immortals for the rest of time—a curse that would allow them to kill the immortals’ legacy. By the end there was only one answer for immortals: the Selection. Mortals forced the Selection to exist, just to survive.”
