She looks up at him, her lashes falling low. She seems to be half in a dream. “Is it exhausting to be charming all the time? Or is it just the way you’re made?”
His grin fades. He thinks of the magic leaching out of him. He can control his charm, sort of. More or less. And he can resist using it. He will.
“Have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you?” she asks in that same fond, unfocused voice.
Her words are a kick to the stomach, the more because he can tell she doesn’t mean to be cruel. And because he hadn’t thought of it. He sometimes wondered if gancanagh blood meant Folk liked him a little better than they might have otherwise, but he was too vain to think of it affecting Oriana or his sisters.
Oriana, who loved his mother so well that she took Liriope’s son and raised him as her own, risking her life to do so. Jude and Vivi, who sacrificed their own safety for him. Jude, who was still making sacrifices to ensure he would someday be the High King. If magic is the cause of that loyalty, instead of love, then he is a curse on the people around him.
A part of him must have suspected, because why else keep himself so apart? He told himself that it was because he wanted to repay them for all the sacrifices they made, told himself that he wanted to become as great as they were, but maybe it had always been this.
He feels sick.
And sicker still when his mouth curves unconsciously into a smile. It has become such an automatic reaction to pain, for him to mask it with a grin. Oak, laughing all the time. Pretending nothing hurts. A false face hiding a false heart.
He can’t blame her for saying what she did. Probably someone should have said it to him much sooner. And how could he have ever supposed she would come to care for him? Who can love someone who is empty inside? Someone who steals love instead of earning it?
The prince recalls lying on the ground after drinking several cups of liquor laced with blusher mushroom, back in the troll village. That was the last time he felt Wren’s hand on his Rushed cheek, her skin cool enough to ground him in that moment, to keep him hanging on to consciousness.
I am poison, he told her then. And he didn’t even know the half of it.
Oak sits with Wren until she falls asleep. Then he spreads a blanket over her and stands. Inside, the horror he felt when she spoke those words— have you ever wondered if anyone truly loved you—hasn’t faded, but he can hide that. Easily. For the first time, he hates how easily. He hates that he can fold himself up so tightly in his own skin that there’s nothing real about him on the outside.
He climbs the step. Standing on the deck, he looks at the ocean far below. It seems as though they’re sailing through a sea of clouds.
Soldiers are attempting to repair the gunwale, shattered by tentacles. Others are trying to smooth out the raw, splintered bits of wood where spearpoints gouged the deck, a faint spatter of blood marring the light color of it.
The ship Ries high enough for sailors and soldiers to trail their fingers through clouds and let the mist wet their skin. High enough for seabirds to soar beside them; a few even rest on the mast and rigging.
Bogdana stands at the helm. Her expression is strained, and when she sees him, her eyes narrow. Whatever she wishes to say to him, though, it seems she cannot move away from directing the storm that propels them in order to do it.
Scanning the ship, Oak spots Tiernan near the mast, beneath the netting running up to the base of the sail. His head is pillowed on a cloak, his blackberry hair still damp and stiff with salt. His eyes are shut, his skin gone very pale.
Hyacinthe sits beside him, long fall of dark hair over his face. When Oak squats nearby, Hyacinthe pushes it back to reveal his pained expression. He looks as though he is losing blood from some invisible wound.
“She woke up enough to speak with me,” Oak tells him so at least he doesn’t have Wren to worry about. “Told me some very unpleasant things about myself.”
“He’s breathing,” says Hyacinthe, nodding toward Tiernan.
For a long moment, they watch the rise and fall of Tiernan’s chest. Each inhalation comes with what seems like a lot of effort. As he watches, the prince doesn’t trust that one breath will follow the next.
“His loyalty to me might cost him his life,” Oak says.
To his surprise, Hyacinthe shakes his head. His hand goes to the other man’s chest, coming to rest over his heart. “It was my lack of loyalty to him that was the problem.” His voice is so soft that the prince isn’t sure he heard the words correctly.
“You couldn’t have—” Oak begins, but Hyacinthe cuts him off.
“I could have loved him better,” Hyacinthe says. “And I could have better believed in his love.”
“How could that have helped against a monster?” the prince asks. He’s in the mood for an argument and beginning to hope that Hyacinthe might give him one.
“You don’t think what I said is true?”
“Of course I do,” Oak says. “You should better believe in his love— you should beg him for another chance. But that wouldn’t have saved him from drowning. You jumping in after him did save him.”
“And you being there to pull us back onto deck saved us both.” Hyacinthe shoves his hair behind his ear and gives a shuddering sigh. His gaze snags on Tiernan as he shifts a little. “Perhaps I have had enough of vengeance. Perhaps I need not make things so hard.” As Oak begins to stand, though, the former falcon looks up at him. “That doesn’t mean I release you from your promise, prince.”
Right. He’d promised to cut off someone’s hand.
As afternoon moves toward night, Tiernan finally wakes. Once he understands what happened, he’s furious with Oak and Hyacinthe both.
“You shouldn’t have gone after me,” he tells Hyacinthe, then turns to the prince. “And you certainly shouldn’t have.”
“I barely did anything,” says Oak. “While it’s possible that Hyacinthe battled a shark for you.”
“I did not.” For all Hyacinthe’s talk of love, the evening finds him sullen.
Oak stands. “Well, I leave you two to that argument. Or some other argument.”
The prince heads to the helm, where he finds the Ghost sitting alone, watching the sails billow. He has a staff beside him. Like Vivi, the Ghost had a human parent, and it’s visible in the sandy brown of his hair, an unusual color in Faerie.
“There is a tale about hags to which you might hearken,” Garrett says.
“Oh?” Oak is almost certain he’s not going to like this.
The Ghost gazes past the prince, at the horizon, the bright blaze of the sun fading to embers. “It is said that a hag’s power comes from the part of them that’s missing. Each one has a cold stone or wisp of cloud or ever-burning flame where their hearts ought to be.”
Oak thinks of Wren and her heart, the only part of her that was ever flesh, and doesn’t think that can be true. “And?”
“They are as different from the rest of the Folk as mortals are from faeries. And you’re bringing two of the most powerful of their kind to Elfhame.” The Ghost gives him a long look. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I,” Oak says, sighing.
“You remind me of your father sometimes, though I doubt you would like to hear it.”
“Madoc?” No one has ever said that to him before.
“You’re very like Dain in some ways,” says the Ghost.
Oak frowns. Being compared to Dain can be no good thing. “Ah yes, my father who tried to kill me.”
“He did terrible things, brutal things, but he had the potential in him to be a great leader. To be a great king. Like you.” Garrett’s gaze is steady.
Oak snorts. “I am not planning on leading anyone.”
The Ghost nods toward Wren. “If she’s a queen and you marry her, then you’d be a king.”
Oak stares at him in horror because he’s right. And Oak didn’t really consider that. Possibly because he still thinks it’s unlikely that Wren will go through with it. Possibly also because Oak is a fool.