Bryn doesn’t lift her hand. “To what?”
“The resources you need to overthrow your father in exchange for the magic and your amplification abilities to find mine. But in return, Miss Locke’s life belongs to me. The binding spell will be dissolved in New Prevast, and her sister brought to the city as soon as possible.”
My blood runs cold, fire and ice colliding beneath my skin. Beside me, Bryn lifts her hand a fraction of inch. “Your father,” she says.
“Yes,” says North. He doesn’t look at either of us.
Bryn’s voice is no more than a hum. “Good god, you’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“But that would mean—”
“Yes,” says North, and a rueful smile crosses his lips. “My real name is Corbin Andergott. And I’m the Prince of Avinea.”
Twenty-One
THE PRINCE OF AVINEA.
The words burn like the ash that rolls across my skin as North and Bryn retreat to privacy, haggling the price of my rotting body where I can’t hear the terms of my worth. Bryn’s voice rises with emotion, countered by North’s steady hum. He leans closer, emphatic, and she stares at him, silenced. After a beat, North inclines his head and Bryn drops into a mocking curtsy.
They’ve reached an agreement.
When I sit up, the world rushes at me in a blur and with it, fury. I am not a commodity to be shuffled from one hand to the next. This is how they play their games, with words as their weapons. Not me. I take action, I take aim. I hit until I hurt or until I fall down bleeding.
My palms are not on the floor yet, and there’s more than one magician in this kingdom. I’ll find someone willing to help me, even if I have to find Baedan and offer my own life as payment.
Determined, I rise to my feet, staggering for the horses. North begins to cast a ward around the wagon, directing Bryn to follow his lead so she can amplify the meager spell. Afterward, he disappears inside but Bryn lingers, alone. She doesn’t even look at me. Instead she studies the spell on her wrist with a slight frown, a touch of concern, softly rubbing the smoky signal buried beneath her skin.
I hate her.
It beats in the soles of my feet, echoes in the tips of my fingers; I feel the hate in the way my body burns from the inside out. And that hate fuels my strength as I swing myself onto the horse Tobek prepared and settle uneasy in the saddle.
North emerges from the wagon, eyes downcast as he takes the stairs two at a time, grabbing his coat off the ground. He stops when he sees me, eyes widening. “Wait,” he says.
The horse jolts forward beneath the pressure of my heels. It begins to canter and then to run, galloping out of the trading post, back to the road.
Away from the Prince of Avinea and his new ally, the future queen of Brindaigel.
A net of light appears ahead of me, blocking the way. The horse rears back and I lose my tremulous hold on its saddle, tumbling off, hitting the ground hard enough to hear my shoulder crack.
Gentle hands pull me to safety. North’s face swims in and out of view and I begin to protest, reaching up to strike him only to falter, panicked, when my arms are too heavy to lift. I’m turning into stone and I can’t even stop it.
“Where were you going?” he asks.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Miss Locke—”
“We could have destroyed Brindaigel!” Grunting, I try to roll onto my side but I only manage to twist myself between his arms, locked into place. Frustration explodes through me and I summon all of my strength, slamming my hands against his chest. “Get off me!”
“Miss Locke, please. Stop”—he pushes my fist aside again, his expression hardening, turning fierce—“stop for a moment and breathe! This anger, this paranoia, that’s what the poison feeds on, and the more you give in to those feelings, the deeper the poison will sink through your body until it’s inextricable! You have to be calm or you’re going to die!”
My hands clutch at his shirt. He’s all bones beneath his clothes, hard angles and slopes that offer no traction as my fingers fall back. I can’t catch my breath and my panic cinches my throat even tighter until I’m gasping, head back and neck exposed.
“Slowly,” North says, his hand light against my shoulder. “You’re all right. Just breathe.” And then, quietly, “Please trust me.”
No.
I swallow my hiccups. I don’t know how to articulate what this feeling inside me is, part bitter, part betrayal, all heartbreak. “You bought me like I was meat in the marketplace,” I say.
He looks at me, stricken. “Faris,” he whispers.
I close my eyes again, but this pain cuts even deeper than blood, down into my bones. He was right to withhold my name: It sounds too much like magic on his lips.
And magic hurts.
“I can’t risk being wrong,” he says, almost pleading. “Without being able to trace any magic in you—” He breaks off, looking away. “I would have told who I was,” he says quietly. “But you have to understand that Prince Corbin has been a target from the moment his lineage was revealed, and I needed North. I needed freedom to move, to hunt Merlock without being hunted myself.” Sighing, he drops his head. “War demands a first casualty. Better it was North than someone like you. Someone who can still fight.”
“You bartered with her like she had power. You gave her power!”
“I have never infected anyone before,” he says. “I allowed my anger to dictate my actions and it would be selfish to make you suffer my consequences.”
“It’s selfish to sacrifice the whole to save the few,” I say savagely.
He sits back, wounded, and I exploit the advantage, rolling out from under his arms, onto my side. The wagon lumbers into motion, Tobek grim-faced at the reins. I watch it pull ahead of us, a washed-out, faded scrap of wood and charred paint. Nothing more than a relic, an illusion.
“I could have taken you to Brindaigel,” I say, staring after it. “I could have given you everything you wanted without losing anything.”
“You have to trust me,” North says. “With Miss Dossel’s alliance, with her amplification ability, I could find Merlock in—in weeks. Maybe days. It’s an advantage Baedan doesn’t have. We’ll get your sister back, Faris. I promise.”
Doesn’t he know better by now?
I shove myself to my knees and then, my feet. North offers me a hand but I shy away from him. “Don’t touch me,” I say.
“Faris.”
“Greed costs,” I say. “And she’s going to make you pay.” She’ll make both of us pay.
He straightens, defiant. “You underestimate me.”
“You underestimate her,” I reply.
? ? ?
In the end, logic prevails and I agree to ride to Revnik. I can’t rely on anyone but myself to save Cadence, and I can’t save her if I’m dead.