“You went too far, Oldun.” The corridor darkened with a flood of my own mesmer shading my eyes. “I’ve slept beside her for weeks.”
Oldun looked stunned. “I-I-I didn’t know.”
“Because you haveno rightto know what goes on with me andmy wife.” My voice boomed against the walls.
My mother cleared her throat and stepped in front of me, likely trying to prevent bloodshed. “Oldun Aela, you will submit the memory to me, then we will decide your punishment from there. Until then, you will spend your time in the cells under the palace.”
“My Queen, please.” Oldun was handed to some of the inner guards. “I only wanted to protect the prince.”
Her pleas were found wanting. There were few moments when my mother and father showed their regal side, but I was grateful for it now. Daj, in all his untamed rage, shouted for the woman to be taken at once to the cells below and for the rest of the guard staff to start hunting whoever gave Oldun the powder.
“Jonas.” Mira dropped a hand to my arm. “Are you steadier?”
I raked my fingers through my hair, nodding. The fog was leaving my skull little by little. Whatever the elixir was, it wasn’t enough to hold long.
“Good.” Mira pointed me toward the staircase. “Because your wife has fled.”
Dammit. I took the stairs two at a time.
“Prince Jonas.”
“Dorsan.” I wheeled on the man. “I am ready to kill the next person who tries to stop me.”
“Understood, My Lord.” He propped his boot on the step up. “You should know, what the woman said, well, it is a belief on Natthaven. It is why the princess has been so sheltered.”
“You mean shackled.” My lip curled. “None of you will ever know howbreathtakingshe is since her people never try to see her. You think one thing for all time about her magic, and it brands her as this . . . this frightening woman. But you don’t really know anything about her power.”
“Prince—”
“No. None of you ever take the time to see her.” My shoulders rose in harsh breaths. “She’s a woman who loves too much spice in her icing. A woman whose skin should be boiled off her bones by now for how hot she takes her bath water. Did you know she wakes with the sun all to read in the dawn’s light? I pretend to be asleep because I don’t want to disturb my favorite part, when she hums along with morning bird tunes.”
I laughed, a little delirious. “I don’t think she even realizes she does it. You lot don’t bleeding see that she would risk her own life to protect all of you, even though what she receives in return is fear and apprehension.”
I shook my head in a bit of disgust and turned to finish the journey to the library.
Dorsan gripped my arm. The mask of marble over his straight features cracked. “I agree with you on all counts. I protected the princess out of duty and a belief she had the ability to kill many if she desired. But I have seenher, as you say, since we arrived here. I was coming to tell you, I think the coldness might not last if you are there. I have never seen her more alive than with you, Prince. Pull her back.”
With a curt nod, I rushed to the library, determined to do just that.
Chapter 46
The Mist Thief
There wascomfort in the cold. Relief from a feverish pain. I reached for it, wanted it, but kept spinning back in a strange panic. My fingertips touched the smooth spines of books, the stained shelves he built, the crystal chandelier that reminded me of Stärnskott.
Jonas had done so much—too much.
Another wave of cold draped over my shoulders.
My chin trembled. He deserved more than all this. From the moment he took on his elven wife, the prince’s existence had been a torrent of mortification, troubles for his beloved family, now attacks in his own chambers.
In front of the window, the night was a velvet drape of black. Of nothing.
Old thoughts—cruel and dark—slipped into the forefront of my mind. What if I fell into the cold entirely? What if I wrapped myself in the mists and simply faded?
The theory was there, falling so far into the coldness I could not escape the Nothing.
Would it be such a horrid choice? From my youngest turns, wherever I stepped it seemed destruction and pain and heartache followed.
