Chapter Fifteen
For the third time in an hour, I found myself standing outside Sitri’s chancery. I didn’t want to be here—at least, I didn’t think I did—but my feet always carried me back to that heavy wooden door and the demon who lay behind it.
I hadn’t seen him in three days, since the morning he’d brought me food and taken me out to the workshop for the last time. He still avoided meals. He hadn’t come to see me or involved himself in Mara and Apollo’s projects. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was avoiding me, avoidingthem. Those two demons took up the brunt of his work in his stead, leading guests into the great hall and reporting to the Prince behind closed doors.
Something was amiss. Alone and without an understanding of what was going on, my fears had the right conditions to fester. I couldn’t shake the thought of his trembling hand offering me wine, his heaving chest as he stood in the doorway of my room.
He seemed… weak.
The mansion had gone empty after dinner. With his legatesoccupied, I’d been granted a rare opportunity to approach him alone. I might not get another chance to confront him, not without the risk of being overheard, and if his status had changed, so too did the terms of my confinement. Whatever he was hiding, I deserved to know.
I took a deep breath, rapped my knuckles against the door, and before my nerves got the better of me, I opened it.
“Sitri, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I—”
Words failed me as I drank in the scene I’d intruded upon.
Sitri’s leather throne sat empty. As I glanced around, I found the Prince standing near the left wall.
My breathing hitched. I wasn’t prepared to see so much of his body on display.
He wore no shirt and was just stepping into a fresh pair of pants. My cheeks flushed with heat; my gaze followed the contours of his hips until they vanished beneath off-white leggings. Thanks to the light of a lantern on the desk, I noted every detail as his muscles flexed. Painted across them were a constellation of scars; thick, gnarled lines of torn flesh that covered his entire body. I hadn’t noticed them before, when shadows and clothes concealed them. Now he displayed his past wounds like trophies.
And then there was that glowing ruby sigil that marked him as a Prince, inscribed beneath his collarbones, both unnatural and hauntingly beautiful.
When I realized I was holding my breath, I pulled fresh air into my lungs, only to curl my nose at the stench of copper and rot. The medical supplies strewn across his desk suggested he was nursing wounds. A glance at his stomach and shoulder confirmed it. His injuries from the gorge hadn’t healed—they’d festered. Pus and blood wept from them, and a black film covered his raw flesh. He greeted me with a smile, all the same.
“Awfully bold to enter without an invitation, aren’t you, darling? To what do I owe this surprise visit of yours?” Sitri didn’t pause in his workon my account. He pulled a rag from a nearby shelf and used it to dab at his shoulder. It came away stained with a fresh coat of gore.
“You’re hurt,” I whispered.
I hesitated in the doorway. My wounds had mostly healed. My once-purple bruises had faded to yellow splotches, and the holes in my own shoulder had started scarring over. I hadn’t even thought about Sitri’s injuries. I’d had almost two weeks to do so. Guilt gnawed at my stomach. I’d done this to him, forced him to stay and engage more foes when he’d already been injured, and now he paid the price.
“Did you expect I wouldn’t be?” Sitri asked, unfurling a bloodstained bandage. He wrapped it around his shoulder, despite the filth that clung to it. The Prince winced as the fabric made contact.
“Demons heal, don’t they?”
“Sometimes,” Sitri muttered. “Sometimes we cannot afford the luxuries that nurture the soul. Then, we must persist on willpower alone until they become available.”
Though Vapula hadn’t taught me medical skills, when I called, his gift answered all the same. Sitri needed clean, dry wounds. A new bandage. Something to inhibit fungal growth. I studied his injuries, fighting back my nausea at the sight and stench of them. Then I stepped into the chancery and closed the door behind me.
“Put that down. You’re going to make it worse. Just… hold still. I’ll dress it for you.”
“Oh? You would dare to aid the monster you fear will use you?”
“I’d dare to aid the demon who’s protecting me,” I snapped. “Do you want the help or not?”
Sitri’s wide eyes and deepened smile gave me my answer. I shook my head and stepped around the desk, taking a bottle of alcohol from atop it and sifting through a nearby basket for a fresh bandage and some rags. Sitri held still as I scrubbed the infection from his wounds, only occasionally flinching, and somehow keeping quiet as I worked.
“Whatever luxuries you need to heal, find a way to afford them. If you were human, you might not survive this,” I muttered.
Sitri shook his head. “That’s not what I mean, darling. This kingdom is a house of wolves. I do what I can, but you must understand, the punishment for my weakness is revolt. It is in both of our best interests that this stays under lock and key.”
As he spoke, I finished wrapping his wound and secured the loose end of the bandage. It was far from expert work, but it looked a little better. Sitri made for a fresh shirt folded on a shelf across the room. He moved with an unsteady gait and shaking hands.
He’d grown frail. Fragile.
“If you can’t keep me safe, you aren’t of any use to me. You know that, right?”
