She tangled her fingers deeper into his hair, refusing to open her eyes. As soon as she did, she would have to face the truth. Her grief needed time, not truth.
But a blinding light pierced her closed eyelids. Blanca and the lantern must have made it up the stairs.
Isa opened her eyes to see a bright light surrounding the body of the beast in front of her.
“Aden?” she cried, unsure what was happening.
The light was not from a lantern, rather it seemed to be pulsing through his body, slowly accumulating in his chest where it formed a sphere.
The sphere thrummed, emitting a power that terrified her, bringing her back to that moment on the balcony in Iseldis when the Majis had cast a ball of light toward Prince Ian on the center dais.
She clutched Aden’s head, willing him to remain with her, to not let the curse take him away from her. “Don’t take him,” she cried. “You’ve already done enough.”
The sphere of light rose out of his body, hovering above it. “Leave!” she yelled at it. “Go and leave us! Your chaos is not enough to tear us apart!”
The sphere pulsated in the air, hovering just above Aden’s chest. Then it split like shards of glass, shattering into the night and disappearing into darkness.
A shudder ran through Aden’s body. It had not taken him. It had left him, lifeless and spent.
Momentarily blinded by the brightness of the curse, Isa bent back over him to say her last goodbye. Her tears were spent, but her hands were still tangled in the long fur on his head.
Her body was exhausted. Her relentless ride into the mountains on top of the emotional emptiness of finding Aden wounded had left her completely empty. She could not move. She dropped her head onto his own, realizing moments later that her forehead had landed on the soft satin texture of skin rather than the velvety tendrils of fur.
She pulled away in surprise, gazing around her as her eyes reacclimated to the darkness.
She was not holding on to a beast—she was leaning over a man.
The body in her hands inhaled a long, slow breath.
She was leaning over a living, breathing man.
“Aden?” she cried, disbelief and hope washing over her. “Aden?”
He exhaled, the action turning into a dry cough.
“Aden?” Panic overwhelmed her as the man below her choked on his own cough.
“I’m... fine,” he hacked. “Let me breathe.”
She supported his head through the next fit of coughing until he relaxed back into her hands. She was not holding fur. She was holding hair.
“Aden,” she said, “is that... is this you?”
The stars seemed to twinkle brighter in the sky above her, illuminating the face of the man in her arms.
He smiled, finally breathing normally. “Isabel?” he asked, looking up at her.
She nodded. She thought her tears had dried up, but she found they were biting at her eyelids once again.
“I can’t see your face in these shadows,” he said, pushing himself up into a sitting position.
But as he positioned himself to see her better, Isa realized she had seen him before.
“You’re him,” she said, surprised and confused. “You’re Prince Aden.”
“Oh, now you finally believe me?” he said, a smile in his voice. “I thought we had already figured that one out.”
“I do! We did. I mean, Prince Aden is you, the rude man I spoke to at the Iseldis ball on the balcony.”
