“Wait,” he murmured so low she struggled to hear.
Growling, she kicked at him while screaming with her hands. You stabbed him and left him to drown! She lunged toward the swampy pit.
He sat up with some effort, hand gripping her torn pant leg to secure a tighter hold. “No.” The word came out in a rumbling moan, as if he was trying to remember how to talk. An odd glow lit his dark eyes, almost like a spark. “There’ll be no wrapping yourself in brambles to swim those depths again.”
Stain cocked her head. How did he know she planned to do that? That she’d ever done it? The huskiness of his command reminded her of Scorch’s voice, making her more desperate. I have to go after him! her fingers shouted.
“Absolutely not. Once in a lifetime is enough.” His words came stronger now, gathering momentum. “Twice could kill you. I know of what I speak.” He winced and grabbed his chest with his free hand.
Twice could kill you? What was he talking about? She didn’t care. She had admired his strong heartbeat only minutes earlier. Now, she wanted to rip out the source of his life’s blood. You know nothing! she signed.
“I know you won’t find him.” He let her go and stood, towering over her as he took deep, measured breaths. She was trapped—between him and the shadows there was no clear path to the bog. His muscles spasmed beneath his shredded shirt as his hands fisted and released; he seemed preoccupied with the movements, lifting his arms and studying his fingers in the soft light. The shreds of his shirt flapped open, and a golden flutter crept along his sternum like veins of gilt. He turned away before she could make sense of it. His back faced her as he observed the drag marks from his body leading out from the muck.
The shadows no longer obstructed the view of the bog’s surface. They hovered around her and the prince, as if unsure who to defend or who to block. The crickets took up chirping again, their song even more riotous and chaotic than before.
Stain shoved the prince to get his attention. He turned—those sculpted cheekbones scrunched somewhere between bewilderment and disbelief.
I would sense if he was gone. Her hands yelled at him, though her eyes prickled. She cursed the tears that refused to break free. My heart would know. Now move! She jabbed a shoulder into his chest. The golden plate at his abdomen thrummed aloud, but he didn’t waver; he seemed stronger now than when she’d bettered him earlier today, which was contradictory to the way he kept wincing as though hurting.
“I didn’t say . . . he was gone.” His features settled to pained resolve.
She darted around him, determined to dredge the depths of the bog however long it took. To bring Scorch back.
Vesper caught her around the waist and spun her. He dropped to the ground, dragging her with him. She landed on her knees beside him, their faces level.
“Do you know what I am?” he asked—breathless, as if unsure himself.
I know what you’re not. A noble prince. Her hands accused, stirred to a frenzy by worry over her loved ones and the danger he’d put them in.
“I’m a man,” he said, again preoccupied with his hands and arms.
You’re a murderer. And you should be the one drowning! She lashed out with her fists.
As if anticipating her reaction, he caught a wrist in each hand, keeping her shirt cuffs between his flesh and hers. The flickering intensity returned behind his eyes as he squeezed his fingers, testing their strength.
“Do you feel that?” he whispered. “I’m touching you.”
Stain’s throat dried, for there was no question what she felt. A feverish heat burned through the cloth on contact, different than the intrusion of his golden plague. A heat that made the rest of her cold and desolate; every nerve beneath her skin became a field of dormant seeds, aching for a sip of that warmth so they could bloom to life.
Bewildered by her body’s reactions, she shoved against him, hard. He retained his hold on her while trying to stay balanced, but the momentum of her push landed him on his back and dragged her across him. She pounded his chest, rage rising for all he’d done to her loved ones. He pinned her wrists where his shirt bunched in wrinkles between them, as if to stop the onslaught. Her breath caught at the smoldering sensation of their skin almost touching, at soft curves yielding to hard angles and planes.
He lifted his head, his mouth at her ear. “Show me how fierce you are, tiny trifling thing,” he mumbled, low and raspy. “I predict, this time, you can convince me to let you win.”
She stilled. Every muscle—held coiled and ready to spring—went supple beneath those lips hovering along her lobe, beneath those intimate words he had no business knowing, beneath a scent that couldn’t belong to any man: feathers, singed grass, and sweet clover.
She propped on her elbows to study his face. He studied her features in turn, enthralled—an arrested expression, as if he were the one floating atop waves of incredulity. Then he smiled in wonder, a stunning flash of white teeth amidst the blur of stubble darkening his jaw.
What did you call me? Perched on her elbows, she couldn’t sign. So she asked the question with her thoughts, never expecting an answer.
Tiny trifling thing. The answer tapped her mind, though the prince’s lips didn’t move.
She strained to look over her shoulder. Scorch! He had to be here. It was his voice reaching out. But from where?
The prince squeezed her wrists. I’m here beneath you, Stain.
Her attention snapped back to the prince. He didn’t know her name. She’d tried to tell him earlier, but he’d misunderstood . . .
It’s me. Look as an animal would, with your heart and not your eyes.
She scrambled to sit up, resisting the urge to run her fingers through that tangle of dark hair spread out behind his head like a horse’s mane, to test if she knew its texture. Those thick, wavy strands seemed out of place, framing a human face both strange yet familiar. It was as if she’d seen him every day without realizing, in the elegant curves of Scorch’s silhouette trotting through the tree trunks, in the imprint on her vision when lightning flashed through broken leaves and she closed her eyes to retain Scorch’s winged profile of shadow and cinders on the back of her lids.
The prince reached up to sweep his knuckles across the shorn hair at her temple, still avoiding her bared skin, as though worried he’d infect her again with sunlight. I know you by your voice . . . just as she said I would.
Stain tilted her head out of his reach. She, who?
His hand still hung midair. He seemed reluctant to drop it, so it stayed there, waiting for another touch. Do you realize how long it’s been? Since I’ve been able to speak from one mind to another? Five years. Yet it wasn’t, was it? For the part of me I thought I’d lost was here all along, with you, having silent conversations. Arguments . . . debates. Sharing secrets, adventures, and laughter.
No, only Scorch talks to me like this. It’s only been Scorch! She slapped his hand aside and backed up more, grasping at any logical threads to weave into an explanation. Had he absorbed the Pegasus’s memories somehow when they fought in the bog? Did the moonglow beneath the murk have something to do with these inconceivable circumstances?
The prince sat up and cupped her knee, not allowing her to escape. “I am Scorch.” Sincerity tugged at his regal features—his dark brows heavy with that same weighted somberness he’d used when discussing his role in the prophecy with his sister. He believed what he said was true.
No. It’s impossible . . .
His exasperated huff reminded her of the Pegasus—of all the times she’d act “too human” and he’d snort in frustration. “If it’s impossible, then how do I know that your nose wrinkles just like that each time you concentrate?”
She patted the bridge of her nose, feeling the crinkled skin for herself.
“And how do I know that when you look within Crony’s enchanted mirror, you see your true self. A girl . . . with long, silken hair and no scars.”
Her jaw dropped.
He paused, frowning. His fingers brushed at the rags of his shirt, as if he felt something crawling there. He bit back a growl. “How do I know that you long for sweet words and sincere emotions, and that you weep without tears each time it rains outside because you’re unable to escape this prison and run through the open skies?” A cough interrupted his extraordinary observations. He cringed, but continued. “How do I know you saved my life in this very bog when you were already bleeding and broken? That in your darkest moment, when you’d lost yourself, you found me.”