It was so preposterous that I threw my hands up and pushed to an abrupt stand.
I paced back and forth as the prince’s face burned into my mind. If this was why he’d taken me, why hadn’t he just told me so from the beginning? Why had he kept it such a big secret?
He probably did it just to torment you, just because he could.
My lip curled as my hatred unfurled like a poisoned rose within me.
Prince Norivun was evil. Everyone was right about him, and his expression when I’d revealed to him what he’d done to my family hadn’t been that of shock, regret, or surprise. Oh no. He hadn’t worn any expression at all. He’d simply let me scream and rail at him while he probably counted the seconds until I was done.
I paused by the mirror, my chest heaving. Flushed cheeks, too-bright eyes, and dark hair that hung in curling waves past my shoulders reflected back at me. My eyes looked as blue as the gems mined in Harrivee. I brought a hand to my mouth when a sudden nearly hysterical laugh escaped me. I’d slapped the crown prince of the Court of Winter, and he hadn’t murdered me. Yet.
That thought sobered me instantly, and I resumed my pacing.
I’d gone too far. I knew that, but I hadn’t been able to contain my fury any longer. For a month, the prince had held me prisoner, and he hadn’t told me any of his beliefs or his plans.
Quite simply—I’d snapped.
I padded to the door, my heart thrumming in my chest as I debated what he would do from here. If he truly thought I was the key to saving our lands, then I doubted he would kill me—even if I knew I couldn’t save anything.
So then the next question became, just what exactly did he have planned for me?
I finally disengaged the lock to the bathing room and swung the door open. I was so lost in my thoughts that I almost stumbled into a dark figure standing by the glass doors.
I hastily backpedaled, a shriek caught in my throat.
The crown prince stood silently, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed at the garden. It was dark out since only one of the moons was alight.
I gasped as my heart turned into a galloping beast in my chest.
He’s been here the entire time?
“I remember your brother,” he said, without turning to face me. “His features were similar to yours.”
A soft mewl worked up my throat, but I quickly swallowed it down. Tormesh, Cailis, and I all had similar features. Our father’s nose, our mother’s mouth, a combination of their eye shapes.
“He seemed intent on alerting the entire continent to our plight, but I couldn’t allow it. To do so would cause panic and chaos. We’d been trying to find a solution to save our land quietly and discreetly even though some fae had begun to notice the decline in our continent’s orem, so I did what was expected of me when your brother came to the court. As the Death Master, I did my duty.”
He turned to face me. In the dim light, his eyes burned like sapphires. “I understand you hate me for killing him. Even more so because your parents presented themselves several weeks later and suffered the same plight.”
“But why?” A sob shook my chest. “Why did they have to die? They would have remained quiet if ordered to do so.”
His jaw tightened, so slightly that it could have been a shadow—a trick of the light. “I had to.”
“You didn’t.” I shook my head back and forth rapidly. “You didn’t have to. You chose to.”
He turned back to the window, the aura around him pulsing so high that it threatened to swallow me, yet his face remained impassive. Completely blank. “It doesn’t detract from what is expected of you. We need you to save our land, Ilara. Your parents’ and brother’s deaths don’t change that.”
He said it all so matter of fact, so businesslike, as though sucking souls from my family was part of his daily duties, and that was that.
“How can you be so cold?” Nausea rolled through me, and I collapsed onto the nearest chair. “Do you feel nothing?” I asked quietly as all of the fight went out of me. How did one fight a fairy who was as hard and immobile as stone? “Do you feel anything at all when you take a life?”
I blinked, and he was sitting on the couch across from me. He’d moved silently, like a phantom.
“What I feel is irrelevant.” He sat as still as a statue, not one muscle moving or twitching.
Such control. Such perfect control of any outward expression.
My shoulders slumped. He would never care what he’d done to me or my family. And even worse, as the crown prince of the Solis continent, he controlled anyone his heart desired, so unless I played the game and danced the dance, I would never be free of him. I would never be free to return home. To Cailis. To my friends. To my small, meager life but a life that was mine.
Rivers of ice slid through my veins as I balled up that aching chasm of pain that had existed within my chest since the death of my parents and brother. I wrapped it into a ball. Wound it so tightly that it couldn’t loosen again and make me do something stupid. I couldn’t snap again.
I had to stay alive, return home, and be smart so I could see my sister once more.
Which meant that I had to play the Death Master’s game, even if I wanted to end the gamemaster himself.
Leveling the crown prince of the Court of Winter with a weighted stare, I said, “What is it that you want me to do, my prince?”
CHAPTER 16
“It’s really quite simple,” the prince replied. “You need to learn how to control your affinity and replenish our continent again with orem.”
I stared at him and blinked, then blinked again. “Our continent is millions of square millees.”
“It is.”
“And you want me to create orem to replenish all of it?”
“Correct.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “You’re insane.”
“I’ve been called worse.” His lips kicked up in a humorless smile.
I stood and began pacing. “What if you’re wrong? What if I don’t hold strong magic, and I’m unable to do as you request?”
“You do have immensely strong magic, and you can do what I’m requesting.”
I whipped back to him, my long hair flying over my shoulder. The prince had leaned back on the couch, his arm propped over the back. One leg was kicked across the table, the other crossed at the ankle on it. He looked relaxed, powerful, and so very sure of himself.
Something stirred inside of me at his image. He was so beautiful that I wanted to soak up his appearance, but then anger at myself kicked in, and I whirled away. The beautiful Death Master. It was such a waste of male perfection.
He inhaled, then said quietly, “You’re angry again.”
“I will always be angry with you. You murdered my family.”
“And you hate me for it, just as many others do.”
I paused by the bar, grabbed a bottle of alcohol, and poured myself a generous drink. “Does it bother you to be hated so much?”
“Would it matter if it did?” He stood and glided to my side, his walk so smooth and easy that I had a feeling he was often asked by angry family members if he had a heart at all.
When he reached me, he took the bottle, and I thought he was going to pick up my drink next and dump it down the sink, but instead he grabbed a second glass and poured himself a dose, just as full.