Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts) Page 8

  Because he’s the prince of Cavanos, and he’s been taught to show nothing but strength.

  follow his example, you useless creature.

  I step forward, the hunger and worry gnawing equally at me. At the determined look in his eyes. But Lucien cuts me off, catches me in it, and smiles. That real, true smile, cutting bright against the smoke and gloom.

  “It’ll be fine,” he says, confident.

  His body goes completely still as he bows his head ever so slightly on his chest. He holds both his hands up, and I’m only half relieved to see the left one rise. It shakes, his fingers trembling as they turn midnight to the knuckles. He’s not up for this. He’s going to hurt himself—

  How can I stop him?

  How can I stop him from doing what he wants to do? What he’s always done? Protecting his people is what he lives for, I know that, and still—

  Cries rise up as the chain of men scatter, all of them clutching their buckets and fleeing from the pure, transparent column of water rising from the well’s mouth like a languid snake. Malachite rushes into the town square just then, covered in soot and carrying an unconscious little girl in his arms, a terrified woman trailing behind him. He shoots a look at me, red eyes in red flames, and all I can do is shake my head.

  Let him.

  All we can do is let him.

  This is what he wants, more than anything.

  The water column writhes, undulates, and then pauses at the very peak of its height, looming tall over the village. And then Lucien gnashes his teeth, eyes flying open and the whites crawling with tendrils of black. Like a signal, the water darts forward, languid no longer, and winds between the piles of dirt being shoveled, picking up more and more of it, the transparency turning thick and dark. Mud.

  The men leap back, the children start to cry, and elders make Kavar-praying motions, fingers to their eyes, and for a moment, I’m reminded of Ania. Ania Tarroux, the pious, beautiful, kind Goldblood who taught me how to pray.

  Ania Tarroux, the girl I tried to give Lucien to. The girl who died, torn apart by Heartless on the road fleeing with her family to Helkyris.

  I raise my fingers to my eyes, too. But it’s not the New God I pray to. It’s her.

  Because she feels more real.

  Because she loved him too, once.

  Please, Ania. Please shield him from his own magic.

  The muddy column grows distinct—fangs, a frill, a snub-tipped nose, and a long, forked tongue. A real snake. A snake like on every banner of his father’s, every seal of his letters, every emblem of his breastcoats. Surrounded by the d’Malvane snake, making it flesh. Maybe not on purpose. Maybe, deep in his mind, it’s a symbol he’s always wanted his people to know as one of safety. Not Vetrisian witch-persecution. Not Vetrisian noble excess. Protection.

  The snake hovers, as long and wide and big as a valkerax, and then strikes. It lunges after the fire on the granary’s roof, snapping its jaws as the muddy water surges over the building. The snake eats the fire, a trail of smoke hissing up wherever it touches, and the fearful cries of the villagers slowly, slowly turn to cheering. Malachite whoops, and Fione’s tense face allows a single small smile, one of the children squeezing her hand. Even the cow seems to relax, drooping its head and picking at a tuft of spared grass.

  Lucien remains taut, arcing his midnight fingers to the left, and the snake moves with it, scattering over the village and shedding itself as it goes—sheafs of water like scales being dropped, all the fire sputtering out on contact. One by one, the village houses stop burning, smoldering down to mere hissing embers. Lucien raises his arms, and what’s left of the snake ascends, higher and higher, before bursting out of its shape, muddy water raining down on the last of the buildings.

  The cheering grows thunderous, and Lucien is swarmed by his people. Sweat and mud slicks his brow, but his face—his expression. Gods, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I thought I knew him happy. I thought I knew what that looked like. But I had no clue. I had no idea he could smile this big, laugh this purely and without care, the arms of his people reaching for him and embracing him tight. Like a savior. Like a brother.

  Like a friend.

  …

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned to admire about humans, it’s that when there’s nothing left, they become strongest.

  The village is a blackened mess. The graves have been dug, and the bodies of loved ones buried. Not many.

  not enough.

  Even one is enough, I argue with the hunger.

  The little girl Malachite saved is now an orphan.

  The village gathers around her, around the campfire they’ve made—with some hesitation—to roast sweet tubers and saltpork. Women thread thoughtful fingers through the girl’s messy hair, coo over her brilliant, sharp dark eyes. Her name is Dewen. She’s five—almost Peligli’s age—and she refuses to leave Malachite’s side, shadowing him like an overly attached ferret and demanding to be picked up every few seconds. Malachite obliges insomuch as his patience allows, which is to say, instant deference every single time.

  “You’re awful light for a human,” he grunts, circling the fire with her.

  Dewen kicks her feet against his chainmail. “No.”

  “Yes,” Malachite argues sagely.

  “No!” She pouts.

  The beneather looks over to where I’m sitting on a pile of mostly clean debris and grins. “Is it just me, or does she sound like someone you know, Six-Eyes?”

  I stick my lip out exaggeratedly. “No.”

  He laughs and saunters off to show Dewen the Red Twins—two blood-red crescents high in the sky. I surreptitiously shove more of my dinner into my mouth—depressingly, fresh organs very suddenly became a non-rarity in this village. Most of the cows burned to cinder, but a few of their corpses were intact enough to feed from. Fione cut me out a liver herself, which I thought awfully nice of her.

  As I wash my bloody hands in a nearby bucket, a sigh slips out. I didn’t expect Lucien to wait on me hand and foot with soggy organs when I became his Heartless, but I didn’t expect him to not speak to me for two whole halves, either. Granted, he’s been surrounded by a thick ring of villagers since the moment he saved them—busy organizing the recovery efforts, turning down what gifts they could salvage from the fire and what village girls suddenly think him overwhelmingly attractive. And I mean, I’ve been busy also. Staring. And dressing what wounded would allow me near them with Fione. But mostly staring.

  I suppose a busy prince is better than one who gazes off into the distance, toward the smoke column of Vetris, with eyes like the end of the world. But even so, I catch him doing it in quiet flickers between the bustle. Mourning.

  I can feel Fione’s gaze on me as she nears, wiping bloody hands on her apron. We both thoroughly inspect the crowd of villagers from afar.

  “Aren’t they supposed to hate witches?” I blow air out.

  “It’s difficult to hate someone who saves you,” she muses. “Or someone who looks like, well. That.”

  She motions to Lucien’s muddy everything. Even exhausted and covered in dirt, he’s all sharp points and dark brows.

  “They do share the same parents, don’t they?” I lean back against the debris, wood digging into my back. There’s a stillness, and then Fione heaves a sigh too, thumping me on the side of the boot with her cane.

  “Come on. Let me show you how it’s done.”

  “How what—”

  She grabs my hand in her tiny one and pulls me to my feet with surprising strength. Haphazardly—but together—we march over to the thronging crowd around the prince.

  “I learned very quickly that when one is in love with royalty,” Fione says, words clear over the food-fire’s gentle crackle, “they will always be busy. Always be in demand. One has to insert oneself into their lives, or you’ll become just anot
her subject. You’ll fade away into the tapestries, and then they’ll ask you where you were the whole time, and when you try to explain, it all becomes a massive load of irritation. Excuse me, excuse me, behind you—”

  She shoulders through the crowd, parting them with the force of her stride and the height of her chin alone.

  “But you’re an archduchess!” I protest. “There’s no way you—”

  “Nobility is nobility,” Fione says, weaving around a block of men. “Royalty is royalty. It’s another world entirely, and all we can do is look in from the outside. And occasionally yell, when appropriate.” She turns and barks shrilly over the crowd, “Lucien!”

  I see his head pivot, his eyes widen, and he starts excusing himself and making his way over to us. Fione turns to me, the cold-tempered mask she’s worn since Varia left the slightest bit softer.

  “You’re part of his life now. You get to take up space. You get to be greedy too, Zera. Never forget that.”

  Coming from her, after she’s lost Varia…the words are as bittersweet as the sentiment. I try a smile and clutch her hand tighter. “Thank you.”

  A call from the medical tent draws her periwinkle eye, and she releases me. “I should get back. Good luck.”

  “Don’t work yourself too hard.”

  “Impossible. Have you seen these hands?” She smooths her palms over each other. “I’ve barely worked a day in my life.”

  “You’ve worked quite a lot! With your brain.”

  “Brains are not hands.”

  “They’re basically the same thing.”

  “If they were, perhaps we’d have an easier time holding on to our thoughts.” She pauses, her grin miniscule. “This conversation is complete nonsense. You’re rubbing off on me.”

  I grin back. “Unfortunately.”

  Her mouse-curls fade into the night, vanishing as she steps inside the medical tent. A voice warms the air behind me.

  “Zera.”

  I turn to see Lucien standing there, all the villagers’ eyes on him. Some try to hide it better than others, but most don’t bother. He’s their prince, after all, and a witch. I glare up at him.

  “I’m still trying to figure it out,” I say.

  “Figure what out?” His black eyes gleam curious.

  “Whatever it is about you they find so fascinating.”

  His scoff is soft. “I’m sure you have at least some idea.”

  “None at all, I’m afraid.” I turn on my heel and start walking away from the throng of onlookers, into the near forest. “Except the part where you saved a lot of them from certain death. But that’s not typically a quality I look for in a man.”

  “And why would you?” he agrees lightly, following after me. “You’re immortal.”

  “True.” I wave a finger. “But even immortals appreciate being saved from pain from time to time.”

  A blazing heat streaks into my palm, fitting there against my skin. He pulls, the momentum whirling me around and into the crook of his arm, pressed against his chest.

  “Were you?” His brows knit down at me. “In pain?”

  His mouth is so close, his cheekbone smeared with mud, his hair disheveled in a way it never got in the palace. Breathless. Sincere.

  “N-No.” The shameful truth squeezes out of me. “I—I just wanted your attention.”

  He tilts his head, outline near-fitting like a hovering puzzlelock before my nose and mouth. “You have it.”

  Warm ribbons wind down my throat, through my chest, pulling me closer to him. Enmeshed. When did it become so easy to touch him, so perfect? When did it become so easy to imagine him against my skin, over and over—

  He swipes one finger along the bridge of my nose suddenly, then holds it up for me to see the gray smear.

  “Ash.” He chuckles. “You’re covered in it.”

  “Don’t bother forgiving my impertinence, but you’re no bastion of cleanliness yourself, Your Highness—” I dodge out of his retaliatory kiss, putting a young tree between us.

  “Then…” He peers around the trunk. “Should we rectify our sullied states?”

  “Common Vetrisian if you please,” I request, sidestepping his hand as he reaches for me. His dark eyes catch red moonlight.

  “There’s a creek not far from here—the headman told me it’s where the well’s source begins.”

  “And muck up what little water these poor people have left with our sheddings? I counted you better than that, my prince.”

  “There’s a pool downstream. It’ll be fine. More than fine—clean. Possibly even romantic.”

  “You are exceedingly good at precisely two things, Your Highness.” I rest my chin in a branch and smirk up at him. “The color black, and wooing a woman with the idea of basic hygiene.”

  His gaze is a carefully kept smolder. “You’re not going to let me kiss you right now, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Very well.” He rounds the tree. “Onward to basic hygiene, then.”

  With the most unsuitably giddy smile on my face, I follow him over the forest floor, the two of us picking through roots and around mossy boulders in wordless rhythm until the sound of the creek welcomes us. The pool is deep and small, the creek’s waterfall a gentle patter as it empties in and then back out. Summer graces the little oasis with hanging strands of moss threaded with ground violets and white starflowers, the scent like melted sugar and the best parts of an apothecary. The tendrils float in the water, white and purple petals skating over the surface in a gentle, effervescent swirl with the current.

  “Far more beautiful than I thought,” Lucien breathes. “He made it sound like a mud hole.”

  He turns, and I hear him turn around again when he realizes I’m halfway through pulling my shift over my head. All I can see is gauzy white, and then freedom, my clothes pooled around me and the night air caressing my bare skin and the prince’s back to me.

  “Lucien,” I start. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “In…” I hear him swallow. “In a moment.”

  If my smile gets any bigger, I’m fairly certain my head will split in two. And not in a way that can be healed back up with magic. Triumphant even in nakedness, I hover at the pool’s edge and then slip in.

  “Oh! It’s perfect. A little cool, but that’s never stopped me before.”

  “I remember it stopping you once,” Lucien counters, unbuttoning his shirt. “When we first met.”

  “You were awfully cold, weren’t you?” I laugh, wetting my hair. “Blackmailing me every chance you got.”

  “A precaution,” he argues with zero bite to it.

  “A way to test me, more like.” I swim over to the side of the pool. “Well? Did I pass?”

  I watch him shrug his shirt off, sword-muscles and thief-muscles and prince-muscles rippling beneath skin. His shoulder blades are as wicked sharp as I remember them—his spine a beautiful curve into the hem of his pants.

  Pants.

  Oh gods.

  I look away just in time, the sound of a belt hitting the ground. My skin prickles red-hot under the water, goose bumps and tightness and…I can’t let him see me like this. Cool. Composed. Zera Y’shennria is always cool and composed and ready with some quip. Worldly. Experienced. Never shy. It’s one thing to see myself naked, but seeing him—

  “I thought you said the water was cold?” His voice filters out from somewhere to my left, the water rippling as he slides in. “But your face is bright red.”

  “It—it is! Cold!” I start, my throat suddenly sand and gravel. “I was just—”

  And then he’s there, in front of me, standing chest deep in water and close enough to feel his body heat radiating through it. Droplets gleam on his collarbone as he leans in, putting one broad hand to my forehead.

  “Do you have a fever?” He pauses
. “Is it foolish of me to even ask if Heartless get sick?”

  I can feel the outline of him, the barest skimming of skin against skin—my thighs, his wrist, his ribs, my fingers. Touching me. Just the lightest touch—

  he used that against you, the hunger faintly calls from the depths. touch.

  My eyes dart up to his face, points crystallizing in the mush he’s made my brain into. I start, my laugh fragmented.

  “I was so happy to be with you again, I almost forgot. You—Varia said you’re a skinreader. All those times in Vetris, that kiss—”

  Lucien’s hawk eyes close for a moment, then open with renewed determination.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “For all of that. The first time was a mistake—I didn’t know I could do it. It just…happened.”

  “All your powers?” I press. “Just like that?”

  “It was a dream.” He nods. “Varia used to tell me witchbloods became true witches in dreams, but I never understood it. Until it happened. That night I called you to the West Tower, with Malachite and Fione, I dreamed of a tree.”

  I slide my fingers through the black-silk water uneasily. “The Bone Tree?”

  “No. Just a tree. One of many, in a barren forest of red. It glowed faintly pearl, faintly rainbow, but it was just a tree. I dreamed of it, and it—it didn’t speak, per se. But it stood there, and I watched it, and it made things happen in my head, feelings that weren’t mine. Places I’d never been to. Moments I’d never see.”

  “It wasn’t…it wasn’t covered in stained glass, was it?”

  “Like from the Hall of Time?” he muses. “No. Though I suppose even that’s gone, too.”

  He stares into the water, the perfect dark reflecting his own face back at him. I can see the destruction in his head, playing out in the iron memorization of his home, his city. He knew every street, every street urchin. He knows what Vetris looks like destroyed without even having to try.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “About Vetris.”