The Prisoner's Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2)(94)

“She betrayed me,” Bogdana says, but there is a hitch in her voice.

“You cared nothing for her,” Oak shouts. “You terrorized her so that she would come into a power that you could use. You let those monsters in the Court of Teeth hurt her. And now she’s dead.”

The hag narrows her eyes. “And you, boy? Are you so much better? You’re the one who brought her here. What would you do to save her?”

“Anything!” he shouts.

“No!” Jude says, nearly as quickly, putting her body between his and the storm hag’s. “No, he would not.” She takes Oak by the shoulders and shakes him. “You can’t just keep throwing yourself at things as though you don’t matter.”

“She matters more,” he says.

“It’s possible that Wren can be woken,” says Bogdana.

“Deceive me in this, and I will bury you, so do I vow,” Oak says.

“Her heart is stopped,” says Bogdana. “But hag children don’t need beating hearts. Just magical ones.”

Oak recalls the Ghost giving him a warning when they were aboard the ship. 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.

He’d dismissed it as a piece of superstition. Even Faerie found hags and their powers troubling enough to make up legends about them. And the Ghost had clearly been worried over Oak’s plan to marry one.

The prince lowers himself back to the ground. He kneels in the wet sand on the other side of where Bex is working. She scowls at him as she counts. He puts his hand on Wren’s chest. Desperately hoping the storm hag is right. But he feels not a single thrum of a pulse nor the movement of breath in her lungs. What he does feel is magic. There’s a deep well of it, curled up inside her body.

Pulling back his hand, he doesn’t know what to think.

Mother Marrow told him that Wren’s magic was turned inside out. A power meant to be used for creation, warped until all it could do was destroy, annihilate, and unmake. Twisted on itself, a snake eating its own tail. But perhaps taking apart the storm and being struck twice by lightning was more than even her magic could devour. Maybe some of it spilled over.

Though she set all her matches alight and burned up with them, maybe something new could emerge from the ashes.

How many girls like Wren can there be, made from sticks and imbued with a cursed heart? She’s made of magic, more than any of them.

“What will wake her?” he demands.

“That I do not know,” Bogdana says, not meeting his eyes.

Jude raises both brows. “Helpful.”

Oak remembers the story Oriana told him long ago about his mother. Once upon a time, there was a woman who was so beautiful that none could resist her. When she spoke, it seemed that the hearts of those who listened beat for her alone.

But how could he persuade someone who might not even be able to hear him?

“Wren,” Oak says, letting the burr come into his voice. “Open your eyes. Please.”

Nothing happens. Oak tries again, letting loose the full force of his honey-tongued charm. The nearby Folk watch him with a new, strange intensity. The air seems to ripple with power. Bex sucks in a breath, leaning toward him.

“Come back to me,” he says.

But Wren is silent and still.

Oak lets go of his power, cursing himself. He glances up helplessly at Jude, who looks back at him and shakes her head. “I’m sorry.” It is a very human thing for her to say.

He lets his head fall forward until his forehead is touching Wren’s.

Gathering her in his arms, he studies the hollowness of her cheeks and the thinness of her skin. Presses a finger to the edge of her mouth.

Oak thought his magic was just finding what people wanted to hear and saying it in the way they wanted, but since he’s let himself really use the power, he discovered that he can use it to find truth. And for once, he needs to tell her the truth. “I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That’s why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic.

“Until I met you, I didn’t understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn’t bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you’re not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don’t want to go through this world without the one person I can’t hide from and who can’t hide from me.

“Come back,” he says again, tears burning the back of his throat. “You want and you want and you want, remember? Well, wake up and take what you want.”

He presses his mouth against her forehead.

And startles when he hears her draw in a breath. Her eyes open, and for a moment, she stares up at him.

“Wren?” Bex says, and smacks Oak on the shoulder. “What did you do?” Then she pulls the prince into her arms and hugs him hard.

Jude is staring, hand to her mouth.

Bogdana stays back, glowering, perhaps hoping that no one noticed she rent her garments with her nails as she watched and waited.