Of course, part of the problem is that his power isn’t one of pure persuasion. He can’t just make someone do what he wants. He can only make himself into what they want and hope that is enough. Worse, he is never sure what that will be. Once he gives in, his mouth makes the words, and he is left with the consequences.
“The trolls of the Stone Forest have blusher mushroom. It’s not so very hard to come by. Forget the poison. Think of your future,” Oak says, his voice sounding strange, even to his own ears. There’s a rough hum underneath and a buzz on his lips, like the sting of electricity. It’s been a long time since he has reached for this power, but it uncurls languorously at his command. “You only want command of Lady Wren’s army? You were meant for greater things.”
Valen’s eyes dilate, the irises blowing wide. He scowls in confusion, shaking his head. “The trolls? That’s where you got the poison.”
Oak doesn’t like how eager the enchantment feels, now that it’s awakened. How easily it Rows through him. He’s felt trickles of this magic before, but not since he was a child has he let himself feel the full force of it. “I am closer to the center of power than anyone at this Citadel,” he says. “Madoc is out of favor, and many in the High Court do not like our armies being led by Grima Mog. Many would prefer you—and isn’t that really what you want?”
“I have lost all chance of that.” Valen’s words aren’t scornful, though. He sounds frightened by his own hopes. The iron knife dips low enough in his gloved hand that he seems in danger of burning his own thigh with the tip.
“You have lived as a falcon for nine years,” Oak says, the words dragging against his tongue. “You were strong enough not to stagger beneath that burden. You are free, and yet if you are not careful, you will be caught in a new net.”
Valen listens as though fascinated.
“You are headed toward a conflict with Elfhame, yet you have no army of stick and stone and no authority of command. But with me, things could change. Elfhame could reward you instead of targeting you. I could help. Unbind me, and I will give you what you have long deserved.”
Valen backs himself against the wall, breathing hard, shaking his head. “What are you?” he asks with a tremor in his voice and an ocean of wanting in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” The words come out of Oak’s mouth without the basilisk charm in them.
“You—what did you do to me?” Valen growls, a spark of hot anger in his gaze.
“I was just talking.” Oak reaches desperately for the honey-tongued roughness to his voice. He’s too panicked to find it. Too unused to using it.
“I am going to make you suffer,” Valen promises.
Back to Oak’s first, worse plan, then. He gives Valen his most careless, insouciant grin. “I almost had you, though. You were almost mine.”
Valen slams his forehead into the prince’s face. Oak’s skull snaps back to knock against the slab to which he’s been bound. Pain blooms between his eyes, and his head feels as though it rattles on his neck. Valen’s fist connects next, and Oak counts it as a win that the third blow is hard enough to knock him unconscious.
CHAPTER
5
O
ak is dreaming of a red fox that is also his half brother, Locke.
They are in a forest at twilight, and things are moving in the shadows. Leaves rustle as though animals peer from between trees.
“You really screwed up this time,” says the fox as he trots beside the prince.
“You’re dead,” Oak reminds him.
“Yes,” agrees the fox who is also Locke. “And you’re close to joining me.”
“Is that why you’ve come?” Oak looks down at his muddy hooves. A leaf is stuck to the top of the one on his left.
The fox’s black nose scents the air. Its tail is a wavering flame behind it. Its paws pad sure-footedly along a path that Oak cannot see. He wonders if he is being led somewhere that he doesn’t want to go.
A breeze brings the scents of old, drying blood and weapon oil. It reminds Oak of the smell of Madoc’s house, of home.
“I am a trickster, like you. I am here because it amuses me. When I am bored, I will go away.”
“I’m not like you,” Oak says.
He’s not like Locke, even if they have the same power. Locke was Master of Revels, who spirited away his sister Taryn to his estate, where she drank wine and dressed in beautiful gowns and became sadder than he’d ever seen her.
Locke thought life was a story, and he was responsible for introducing the conflict. Oak had been nine when Taryn murdered Locke, with his tenth birthday soon after. He would like to say he hadn’t known what she’d done, but he had. None of them tried to hide violence. By then, they were used to murder being an option that was always on the table.
At the time, though, he hadn’t quite put together that Locke was his half brother.
Or quite how much Locke was a terrible person.
The fox’s mouth opens, its pink tongue lolling out. It studies Oak with eyes that look alarmingly like his own. “Our mother died when I was just a child, but I still remember her. She had long red-gold hair, and she was always laughing. Everyone she met adored her.”
Oak thought of Hyacinthe, whose father had loved Liriope too well and killed himself because of it. He thought of Dain, who had desired her and then murdered her.
“I am not like our mother, either,” Oak says.
“You never met her,” the fox tells him. “How do you know if you’re like her or not?”
To that, Oak has no answer. He doesn’t want to be like her. He wanted people to love him a normal amount.
But it was true that he wanted everyone to love him.
“You’re going to die like her. And like me. Murdered by your own lover.”
“I’m not dying,” the prince snaps, but the fox scampers off, sliding between the trees. At first his bright coat gives him away, but then the leaves become scarlet and gold and withered brown. They fall in a great gust that seems to whirl around the prince. And in the shiver of the boughs, Oak hears laughter.
CHAPTER
6
O
ak isn’t sure how long he has lain on the cold stone tiles, dropping in and out of consciousness. He dreams of hunting snakes that glisten with gems as they whip through the night, of girls made of ice whose kisses cool his burns. Several times, he thinks he ought to crawl toward his blanket, but just contemplating the idea of moving hurts his head.
Whatever the prince thought of himself before, however skilled he claimed to be at evading traps and laughing in the face of danger, he isn’t laughing now. He’d have been better off sitting in his cell and waiting. He’d have been better off if he ran out into the snow. He took a chance and lost, lost spectacularly, which is just about all he can say to his credit—at least it was spectacular.
It is the shift of shadows that causes him to realize someone is standing outside his cell. Feverishly, he looks up. For a moment, her face swims in front of him, and he thinks she must be part of another nightmare.
Bogdana.
The storm hag looms tall, her hair a wild mane around her head. She peers at him with black eyes that shine like chips of wet onyx.
“Prince Oak, our most honored guest. I was afraid you might have died in there,” she says, kicking a tray beneath the door of his cell with her foot. On it rests a bowl of watery soup with scales Boating on top, beside a carafe of sour-smelling wine. He has no doubt she selected the food personally.
“Well, hello,” Oak says. “What an unexpected visit.”
She smiles down in malicious glee. “You seem unwell. I thought a simple meal might be to your liking.”
He pushes himself into a sitting position, ignoring how it makes his head pound. “How long was I out?” He isn’t even sure how he got to the prisons. Had Straun been forced to carry him here, once Valen realized he wasn’t going to wake anytime soon? Had Valen brought him back, in case he never woke?
“Somewhere you need to be, Prince of Elfhame?” Bogdana asks him.