I snarled, and he slammed his fist into the side of the coach. Without a word, I tore open the carriage door and leapt out. I moved blindly back the way we’d come, my skin hot with fury and shame at Ericen, at my own foolishness, at this whole damn situation.
I’d been so focused on considering the ways he had changed since Rhodaire that I’d missed the ways he’d stayed the same. He was still a product of his culture, utterly concerned with respect and pride. It hurt him that his people disregarded him, which made his anger nothing but loneliness and disappointment made manifest. I’d done the same thing—except where my pain became depression, his became anger.
“Stupid load of shi—ow!” I stumbled back, ready to curse whatever brick wall I’d just run into. Except it wasn’t a wall—it was a young man. Or what one would look like after standing in a rookery during a thunderstorm.
Each strand of his hair looked as if it were trying to escape the one next to it, sticking up despite the rain, and he wore an ill-fitting tunic under an emerald-green vest with homemade pockets sewn haphazardly across the front. His brown pants were stained with more colors than a rainbow, and he clutched a bundle of papers against his chest. The rest had fallen to the ground when I’d struck him.
He blinked at me with wide green eyes. “Sorry, I wasn’t—I mean, are you—”
I cut him off. “It was my fault. I wasn’t looking.” I bent down to pick up the now damp papers and caught a glimpse of the title written in large, shaky scrawl:Lab Assistant Needed.
“You’re a scientist?” I stood, offering him the papers.
“Yes. Sort of.” He took the stack, warm fingers brushing mine. “An inventor, really.”
He looked more like a soldier or a street fighter. He was as tall as Kiva and twice as thick, with the distinctive golden tan skin of an Ambriellan.
“Anthia!”
I stiffened at Ericen’s voice, immediately starting forward. Ericen’s hand closed around my arm. I felt the heat of his touch, the strength of his hold, but before I could even move, the Ambriellan boy stepped forward. He seized Ericen’s wrist, wrenching it free. In return, Ericen dislodged his hand from the boy’s grasp and grasped a sword handle. All in barely more than a wingbeat.
No one moved. The air felt tight and packed between us like quicksand threatening to suck us in. Mist danced in wisps, curling and winding, obscuring and revealing. I moved ever so slightly between them.
“Ericen, let it go,” I said, voice low.
The prince’s eyes flashed. “He grabbed my arm—”
“And you grabbed mine.”
His jaw tightened, eyes switching from me to the boy at my back. I could feel his body behind me, sense his tension, and hear the sharpness of his breathing.
Slowly, Ericen lowered his hand.
I faced the boy and almost faltered. The bright sea-green of his eyes had turned hard as jade. There was something in them. Something familiar that made my chest ache. He’d crushed the flyers into a roll in one hand, the fingers of the other quivering at his side. Both were peppered with thin white scars.
He saw me looking and tucked his free hand deep into a pocket. Guilt swept through me. I hated when people stared at my burns.
“Sorry.” I met his gaze. The hardness had vanished.
“It’s okay. I just—they always—I mean I can’t—” He stopped. Let out a sharp breath. Shook his head. “Will you be all right?” His eyes flickered to Ericen.
“I’ll be fine. Good night.”
He nodded. I smiled, and he returned it before I followed Ericen back to the carriage with a glower.
Fourteen
Ericen and I didn’t talk on the ride back, and I left him at the carriage the moment we arrived at the castle. I knew the way back to my rooms well enough to manage it on my own, but each Illucian soldier I passed in the halls, their bodies heavy with weapons, made me regret not having a guard with me.
Sealing my uncertainty inside, I kept my head high and met the gaze of everyone I passed. Their pale eyes burned with the same hatred that simmered inside me, but I refused to look away. Who knew what they’d been given permission to do or what rules they’d risk breaking.
With half my mind on my night with Ericen and the warmth of the Ambriellan boy’s body beside mine, I almost didn’t notice the voices drifting down the corridor. As I grew closer, they turned sharp and loud. I slowed. Someone cursed, a loud thud following, then the harsh ring of metal sliding against a sheath. My stomach dropped, and I dashed around the corner.
My door guards stood beside Kiva, Sinvarra drawn. Shearen and three other Vykryn faced them, hands on their weapons.
“The queen—” he began.
“Are you serious?” Kiva’s voice cut across his. “If you think your queen’s orders mean anything to me, you’re stupider than you look.”
