Her eyes were filled with concern. She touched my face, her fingers gentle against my jaw. “So long what?”
I swallowed hard. The words felt foreign on my tongue—like speaking a language I’d forgotten I knew.
“Since I remembered my parents.”
“Your parents?” Her brow furrowed. “Darius, what are you talking about?”
“King Gregori and Queen Abrianna.” Saying their names aloud made my chest ache. Made it real. “They were... they are... my parents.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “You’re a prince?”
“Not in this realm.” I shook my head slowly, trying to piece it together myself. My skull throbbed with every fragment that surfaced—flashes of images, sounds, faces that blurred before I could hold onto them. “I hadn’t remembered them. Not forgotten—it was like they’d been erased. A blank space where they should have been. I knew I had parents once. Everyone does. But their faces, their voices...” The hollow ache that had lived in my chest for years pushed back. I pressed a hand to my chest. “There was nothing. Just emptiness.”
“And now?”
“Now I remember my mother singing to me. My father lifting me onto his shoulders. I remember being loved.”
Alice’s eyes glistened. “What brought it back?”
I looked at her—this impossible woman who had stumbled into my world and turned everything upside down.
“You.” I cupped her face in my hands. “When I pleasured you, something unlocked. Like you’re the key to everything I’ve lost.”
She smoothed her tunic back into place, but her gaze never left me. Worry creased her brow. “Maybe we should stop. You’re pretty pale.”
I wanted to argue. God, I wanted to argue. But I was trembling—not from wanting her, but from what wanting her had unlocked.
She slowly got out of my lap. “Maybe I should find my weapon.” I almost pulled her back—to unlock more memories, yes, but also because the absence of her warmth felt like a loss.
I rubbed my slick forehead and nodded. I couldn’t answer her. Stopping was the last thing I wanted, but pain pounded against my skull from the inside, as if something was trying to claw its way out.
Alice moved through the cavern like she was out for a stroll, palm outstretched. Nothing seemed to happen. I couldn’t see her face.
I held my breath, waiting. Come on. Give her something.
But then she stopped in front of a large bow that had belonged to Grump’s father. Solid gold, with a string of shimmering gold thread.
What was it doing here?
My chest tightened. Grump had treated that bow with reverence—kept it in his private chambers, polished it himself, never let any of us near it. I’d tried to lift it once, years ago. Just once. The thing had felt like it was forged from mountains. My arms had strained, my muscles had screamed, and it hadn’t budged. Not even an inch.
It didn’t want me. It didn’t want any of us.
Grump believed his father’s spirit lived inside it, waiting. Choosing. And in all these years, the bow had remained silent.
Until now.
Alice ran her palm down the gold. The metal seemed to warm beneath her touch—or maybe I imagined it. Maybe I wanted to imagine it.
Then I heard it. Faint. A male voice, ancient and tender, singing through the stillness.
I belong to you.
The breath left my lungs.
I scrubbed my face with both hands, my heart hammering. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. She and Grump were balanced on a knife’s edge. He’d told her to find a weapon—but his father’s bow? The one none of his own brothers had been worthy of?
He was going to lose his mind.
