Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(7)

It felt so good—the rising and falling of his chest, the way the scent of clove and pine lingered against his skin. I could still smell warm cinnamon on his breath.

I knew it was wrong to enjoy being so close to the boy whose heart I would break. But I was selfish. He was beautiful, and I was weak.

I had already denied myself so much, and the other part of me knew I couldn’t pull away—not without arousing suspicion.

That part of me delighted in any part of Darren she could get.

…All of me did.

And so for that first night as husband and wife, the prince held me close. I gripped him back, telling myself this wasn’t wrong—it was necessary.

The girl clung to the boy so she could chase away her dark. He was light, and she was fading. She was drowning, and she just couldn’t stop.

She was about to enter a world of shadows, and as she drifted off to sleep, she listened to the beating of his heart.

Somehow, she told herself, she would find a way to make all of this right.



*

The next day, I was expected to join the Crown in a daylong set of festivities. But when I awoke, Darren had already convinced his brother to grant me yet another reprieve. I knew the king’s benevolence wouldn’t last. I couldn’t avoid the court forever, so I pushed all self-hate aside and locked myself in my previous chambers, writing out lists only to burn them in the room’s hearth minutes later.

Again and again, I continued to write out possible plans. Plans to search and raid the palace from every square tile of marble to the lookout tower at its highest turret—any place my brother might have missed. Plans to hide my talks with the rebels when I reached Ferren’s Keep with the Black Mage in charge of its investigation, and plans to secretly correspond with the kingdom of Pythus with no one the wiser.

In truth, I wanted to throw all of this planning to the wind. Plans took up precious minutes, hours that I didn’t have. But if I didn’t plan, I was afraid I would lose the momentum I had and find myself spiraling into a depression like the day before, or worse, be caught like my brother and tossed in the dungeons before I had a chance to explain.

I needed reason and caution—two sentiments that were hard to embrace when my emotions were spiraling all around me, begging for action. Decision. Change.

I needed to be strong. With so much weight on my shoulders, I couldn’t afford a mistake, especially not now when I had just become a member of the Crown.

Now a princess of Jerar, I had access to things that even a mage at the top of my class didn’t have. First-rank Combat employed by the King’s Regiment, second only to Darren, didn’t grant me a part in the Crown meetings, but becoming a princess did. Only members of the Crown, the Crown’s Army commander, and the Three Colored Robes, the reigning Council of Magic, had access to those.

The important thing was, up until now, I had never been present in those dealings, and since Darren was in charge of the Combat mages’ movements in the battle to come, I;d been missing out on a great deal. Those meetings were where they planned a war, down to the strategy of every city’s regiment.

Now that I was part of the Crown, I had a chance to influence those plans in person. I would also have knowledge the rebels could never obtain any other way. Asking Darren a constant string of questions, even as his wife and comrade, would draw too much attention, but listening in on Crown talks would not.

I need to convince them to have a meeting, I realized, before Darren and I depart for Ferren’s Keep next week. It could be my only chance to pass along information to the rebels, and I needed to get all that I could now.

As much as it bothered me, searching the palace would have to wait. I stood, scattering papers as I put on an evening cloak. The castle’s temperature had dropped rapidly from the day before, and I was wearing yet another dress out of tradition for the week’s custom. Winter was rapidly approaching, and in a couple of weeks, we would have our first snow.

The palace air already felt like frost.

If Ella were here, she would be cursing up a storm. She hated the cold.

My jaw clenched. I missed my best friend.

And right now, she was alongside my twin in the rebel base, surrounded by people Darren was in charge of discovering.

Argh! I slammed the door of my chamber behind me. I couldn’t think about Ella or Alex or Ian or any of them.

I needed to focus on now. The one thing I could control, and that was the Council meeting.



*

“Absolutely not.”

“Mira,” Darren’s warning growl silenced the head mage of the King’s Regiment in an instant, though it did nothing to keep her frothing glower from me.

I wasn’t a cruel person, and more so than ever, I had to keep my hostility a secret, but Mira and I had never seen eye to eye. She was the one person I was allowed to openly hate.

We had a history, one of which the Crown was well aware of.

I shoved my shoulder past, throwing a bit of magic into my thrust, so that her back slammed against the wall with a loud thwack. The crunch of her chainmail against stone was satisfying.

That was for Derrick, you murderous hag.

I pretended to be oblivious to her snarl as I entered the Crown Chamber. Blayne, Commander Audric, and the other two Colored Robes were already present.

I heard Mira’s angry draw of breath and shut the door in her face.

It made me secretly pleased to note that she was right, I was a traitor, but not even Blayne believed her, all because she had been too vocal of her distrust early on.