Page 83 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

“Home.”

Desmond makes a face. “Where do you want to go, Marionette?”

I lower my gaze when I say, “I want to go anywhere my freedom will take me. I’m sick of running and hiding. So, I’d like to go anywhere while being myself.”

He leans in, and his lips brush against mine like iron; it’s firm. “Then go chase that dream, marionette, and leave me in the past. You can’t hide here forever.”

Tears slip down my cheeks, and I try to blink them away, but they fall with bitterness, regret, and pain, showing no signs of going away. “What if I miss you?”

“Then you will have memories, not an illusion.”

I press my lips inward, rubbing them together to suppress more sadness from leaking out until it breaks through my cracked lips. To see me broken sickens me because I don’t want to be like this. I want to be me, but do I know who I am? Since being brought into this world, I was raised as a puppet on strings. Do as everyone says without questioning. Abuse my body until it ached with disgust. Kill without question.

So, I need to ask myself: who do I want to be now that there is no need for revenge?

Who do I want to be?

“Okay,” I say. “But before I go, can I get a kiss goodbye?”

His hands move from my hips to my face until he cups it. Blurry eyes shift upwards until I arch my chin to gaze at him, and everything about my first and final love. Desmond’s lips find mine, and they feel just as I expect each time I close my eyes: cold, hard, and firm to the touch.

And with our last goodbyes, I sink into him until the snow of imagination sweeps across me, and I wake with an aching heart.

I expected to be lying in pain, still in the apartment, with a broken body, waiting for death to find me.

No.

I thought I wouldn’t wake up, and I was in my mind because it was the last piece of me before I faded away from this life. Yet, here I am, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, with my body covered in thick blankets that suffocate me.

My focus rolls toward the floor-to-wall windows. A vast, dark blue sea gleams in the silver eye of the moon. So, I’m on a ship? It makes sense if the one who has me doesn’t want me to leave. I can’t precisely swim…I don’t know how.

As I rise, sitting in bed, my focus snaps to the corner of the room. Through the darkness, illuminated eyes that can see into someone’s soul glow a sickly crimson red. The darkness melts after a few blinks, and when my eyes adjust, Prince Reen is leaning comfortably in the chair with his arms on his knees, staring at me.

I crack a smile as I say, “I’m surprised I am not dead. You caught me before I reached the postal locker. Don’t tell me you reconsidered now?”

He breathes a laugh. “Wouldn’t you love that?” Prince Reen leans back in his chair. “No. Not a change of heart. More of a…I don’t know what to do with you.”

“And now?”

He taps his finger on his arm. “I want you dead, but everyone around me believes you are more useful to us alive.” Prince Reen rises, and his dominant figure steps out of the darkness and into the silver light of the moon. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Go on.”

“You can either become a Knight of Eraminia underneath my watchful gaze, rot in the cells for the remainder of your life, or die.”

I breathe a laugh. “What a hard decision to make. All of them sound so fucking appealing. But before I give you an answer, how much freedom will I gain if I become a knight?”

“None. I don’t trust you. So, until I can trust you, wherever I go, you follow. Whatever order I give, you listen.”

I take a deep breath and look away. Well, that fucking sucks. I knew it sounded too good to be true, but even here, with his limited options, I would still be a puppet on strings, listening to orders.

No. Like Desmond said, I will fucking fight for my life. Even if I’m risking it.

Folding my arms across my chest, I arch my chin and say to the Prince of Fire, “I have a deal for you.”

His lip curls. “You aren’t in a position to be making demands.”

“But it’s one you will want.”