by Bec McMaster
Greatness? What is wrong with her? "Why are your eyes glowing?" I whisper.
"Because it's waking," she whispers, shadows stretching out behind her like wings.
"What's waking?"
"You don't want to find out. Get out of here. I don't want to have to hurt you. You have done me some kindness these past few days. I remember."
"But the other princesses are fair game?"
"The other princesses are merely distraction." She draws another knife. "I'm not here for them. Nor am I here for you. If you get out of my way, I won't kill you."
"You're here for Keir." He'd said he thought someone had twisted the Other World to their magic, but this makes no sense. "You plan to kill him? Why?"
"Because I need to eat his heart."
Of all the things I expected her to say.... "Old lover? Killed your father? Owes your people a debt he won't repay?"
"This is not revenge," she croons, caressing the knife in her hand.
I step back, watching it carefully. "I thought you didn't have a taste for meat." She's picked at every meal here, eating only that which comes from the ground or the forest.
"This is not about flesh."
With each step closer, Calliope's eyes seem just a little more inhuman. I once thought them akin to an eagle's eyes, but now I'm not so sure. I've seen that amber glow before, as if something primordial looks back at me. Every instinct I own is telling me to flee, but I can't help thinking of the prince.
"The blood of ancient queens runs through my veins," Calliope croons. "I can feel it waking in me, but I'm not strong enough. Not yet. I can't access the reservoir of power within me. I can't Awaken. I need his heart to bloom."
"Easy now, caterpillar. Eating a fae heart is only going to give you indigestion. Especially this one."
If not a fatal sword in the guts. She's trying to bite off more than she can chew.
"Haven't you realized what you're dabbling with yet?" she sneers. "You think the prince is fae?"
"What do you think he is?"
"I think he's a myth. I think he's masked himself very carefully over the years so no one suspects the truth. He's the key to my transformation. The power in his heart will Awaken me."
Oh, shit. Someone's been eating the fuzzy mushrooms. "You're not making any sense."
"Why don't you ask him what happened to the dragons? I've spent years tracking down old stories. They say they slumber. They say they turned to stone. All that power, and Queen Mab brought them to their knees. Have you never wondered how?"
"Not... really." If I can keep her talking, then hopefully Keir or Soraya will find me.
"Queen Mab went to the King of the Dragons and proposed a truce between their peoples, forged with a marriage. There was a child," she whispers, "born of both races."
I've never heard this story.
"A daughter who held the power of the stars in her blood, though the dragon was trapped within her. Her father beheld what she was to become and called her abomination, but the Princess Igrainne turned all of that immense power upon him and he fell. Together, she and Mab cut his heart from his chest, and the princess consumed it. With his power combined with her own, she finally had the ability to become what she was meant to be.
"More powerful than a dragon. Fierce and furious and hungry. One heart was not enough. She became afflicted with the need to consume more, and when the dragon race tried to take revenge for their fallen leader, she became their worst nightmare."
"I've never heard of Princess Igrainne."
"You wouldn't," Calliope says bitterly. "The dragons turned to the gods to forge the Cauldron and use it against her. They trapped her in her mortal form, draining the power she'd stolen and filling the Cauldron with it. Igrainne had to flee, a mere shadow of herself. In return, the dragons were forced to honor their pact with the gods. They could no longer walk the world as primordial beings. They had to give up most of their power so it would not lure the princess from the shadows, for she hungered still. Until she drew her last breath, she would always crave a return to power. And then they buried all talk of her name. They choked her in nothingness and killed those who knew the story. Her memory is lost to the world, but her legacy lives on in the line of children she birthed. In me. I've felt it whispering through my veins ever since I was born."
And now she thinks consuming Prince Keir's heart will somehow transform her.
"Dragons don't exist anymore," I say. "They sleep." It's a lovely story, but if it were true, wouldn't I have heard it? No matter how hard you try, you cannot completely bury a rumor. There'd have been some mention of this Princess Igrainne in the history books.
"They don't all sleep," she hisses. "My mother told me that story at her knee. Every night, she would remind me of who I was, and what I was to become. The Cauldron—"
"The Cauldron was a gift from the Goddess."
"You lie!" Calliope lashes out with her blade, and I leap back as it cuts through the air where my abdomen was two seconds ago.
We stare at each other.
So this is the way it's to be.
"I should have killed you the first night," she says, her eyes lighting up with insane fury. "You don't understand. You are a worm. A pathetic, lying wretch of a worm. I thought we could be friends."
She lunges toward me with the dagger. I block her blow, propelling the blade past my nose and snapping a flat palm up into her elbow. Calliope screams, but then she's lashing backward with the blade, a weak blow, but a dangerous one all the same.
"Friends don't kill other friends!" I yell, slapping aside her vicious jabs. The disengage has barely hurt her, and it should have dislocated her elbow.
"My mother warned me," she continues, as if I've said nothing at all. "No one will understand my greatness. They'll seek to trap me in this skin. They'll betray me and hunt me down if they realize what I am. I have to evolve."
"I think your mother should have gotten out more."
"Don't you speak her name." Calliope drives toward me, and this time I have no recourse but to grab her wrist and slam her sideways into one of the columns.
She screams in thwarted fury, and then her eyes glow with golden magic. "So be it!"
Something grabs hold of me from behind. I fly backward, slamming into another column, my head cracking on the marble. An explosion of pain slams through me and white drenches my vision.
I hit the floor, momentarily winded.
Movement blurs at me.
Years of reflexes save my life. I Sift out of the way, and Calliope's dagger drives into the floor.
Up to the hilt.
The Sift disorientates me further. I stagger against the column. It's no longer pure white. Blood mars its shiny surface. My blood.
Calliope looks up with murderous eyes. "Well now," she whispers. "It seems I'm not the only one with a secret. Ismena was right. You're not a pureblood."
"Merisel!"
Prince Keir is running toward us, the flaming sword in his hands. And I suddenly realize he's calling my name. Or the name he knows me by.
Calliope's teeth bare in a dangerous smile. "And here is my heart. Here is my key to transformation."
She stands and wrenches at the air with her fist.
The columns start shuddering, tearing away from where they're rooted to the floor. Tiles tear free from the roof, shattering on the marble floor. Prince Keir glances up, and flicks his hand dismissively.
Abruptly, the hall straightens as though nothing ever happened. I'm too dizzy to wonder if I imagined it or not.
Shadows blur. Nightmares twist themselves into reality at the wave of her hand. A Wyrdwolf leaps at the prince, but he beheads it with a stroke, and its body splashes into an inky sludge on the floor behind him.
Calliope hisses in fury, and then she turns to me as if she knows she cannot overwhelm him.
"It's over," Prince Keir calls in a dangerously soft voice. "This is my world, and no matter your power, you will not wrest it from me."
&
nbsp; But she's closer to me than he is.
"It's never over," she whispers and waves her hand at me.
Something grabs me from behind. Cold stone hauls me back toward the wall, and I'm reminded of Narcissa's fate. I can't Sift. I can't escape it. I scream as my body starts sinking into stone.
The last thing I see is a blur of golden light as the prince leaps toward her.
And then marble is closing over my face. It flows into my mouth and nose, as if both liquid and solid all at once. I can't scream anymore. I can't breathe.
I'm going to die here, trapped in the walls of the fucking palace, and suddenly a riot of all the things I've never had a chance to do ripples through my mind. I've never known freedom. I've never known love. I've never had a chance to escape the misery of the life I own.
Then everything is shifting.
The wall spits me out onto the hallway floor and I gasp for breath, clinging to it for dear life. Thank the Goddess. My mouth tastes dry and my heart is hammering, and what in the Cauldron's name is wrong with my eyes?
"Merisel?" There's a knee in front of me, though floating specks of white obliterate the center of my vision. "Are you all right?"
Keir.
There's blood on his leather breeches, blood all over the tiles. I see the body, but the white lights obliterate the worst parts of it.
It's only when I turn my head that I realize he decapitated her.
And I'm shaking as he draws me to my feet. Me, who's faced the worst the Wraith King can throw at me.
But not this.
Not being buried alive in a wall.
I want to vomit.
"You're all right," Keir whispers, hauling me into his arms. He cradles me against his chest, squeezing tightly, and for a second I close my eyes, breathing in his scent. "I knew the killer would strike tonight. The second Ismena came screaming around the corner, I knew we had her, but I didn't realize she had you in her sights. You're lucky you're still alive." His voice roughens as he says it, and his hand strokes through my hair.
It feels... nice.
It feels like all the things I want and can't have.
"She was mad." I cannot shake the look in her eyes. "She thought that if she ate your heart she'd... transform. She thought herself a dragon."
"A dragon?" He draws back, his hands resting on my shoulders. "Are you all right, Merisel?" A tender thumb traces the blood dripping from my temple. "You hit your head."
"She hit my head."
Smashed it right into the nearest column.
"Here," he says, sweeping me up into his arms as if I'm some sort of damsel. "There's water and cloth in my rooms. That wound looks like it needs tending."
Nobody's ever carried me in their arms before. I grab his shirt, feeling awkward and precarious. If you cannot afford to stand on your own two feet, then you're in danger.
But that's the kind of thinking I grew up with.
This is Keir. He just saved my life.
I peer over his shoulder as his guards tend to the body. I didn't even realize they were there.
Calliope's eyes stare accusingly at me, her head several feet away from the rest of her.
Fuck it. If the prince wants to carry me, then he can.
Curse the training camps.
Curse my father.
And above all, curse the Dragon's Heart. For one hour of my life, I want to pretend I know nothing about it.
10
Prince Keir takes me to his rooms.
My mind's starting to clear as my pulse slowly comes back under control. I won't pretend I'm not a little dizzy still, but at least when he puts my feet on the ground I don't fall in a boneless puddle.
"Sit down before you fall down," he says.
"Not going to fall."
No matter what I must do.
"Stubborn," he says, but there's a hint of fondness to the words. Snapping his fingers, he summons a bowl of steaming water out of thin air and a pile of fresh linens.
Then his hand is planted firmly in the middle of my chest, and he pushes me gently onto the bed. I land and sink into the mattress as if it's made of the softest feathers.
"If you wanted me in your bed, you should have asked." Wait. Did I just say that? I touch my pounding head. I think I'm concussed.
"Yes, you most likely are," the prince replies, as if I spoke the thought out loud. "Here."
There's a gentle hand on my face, and heat brushing against my head. It feels nice. It feels as though I can almost see again, as if my head's no longer throbbing.
"Mmm." I press his hand to my face like a cat seeking affection. "Good."
"That will heal some of the swelling inside your head." He wipes blood from my hair. "If I'd known all I had to do to get you alone again was knock you half unconscious, I might have tried it this morning."
"Ha." I rest my chin on my knee tiredly. "You might have my company, but I daresay the conversation is bound to be lacking."
"It's never lacking when it's with you." He dips the piece of linen in the water, and then dabs it against my wound. "You're always a challenge, and I know you're hiding something from me, but I like trying to work out what it is." He leans closer, his breath brushing against my lips. "You are a constant puzzle, and I cannot figure you out, Merisel."
Merisel.
How I'm coming to hate that name.
"You're a predator," I say flatly. "Of course you want to chase the one female you can't have."
"Can't I have her?" he muses. And then his thumb ripples down my cheek and brushes softly across my mouth. Back and forth, until I hold my breath, waiting to see what he'll do with it. "Because when she's being honest—like now—I know she wants me."
"There's your ego again," I whisper and shut my eyes.
Because I can't avoid the look in his own.
"Yes and no," he says. "I see it in your eyes every time you look at me. I see the war that's being waged. You fear being trapped by my offer. You fear you cannot trust it."
A bitter laugh escapes me, because he's so close to the truth....
And yet so far.
"You've been avoiding me ever since that night we dined," he whispers. "Why?"
Maybe I am still dizzy.
"Because I like you," I blurt. "And I shouldn't. It will ruin everything." I can barely get the words out. "I will ruin everything."
Keir cups my cheek in his hand, and my eyes shoot open only to find his face bare inches from my own, his eyes sparking gold as he leans closer to me. "Yes and no," he whispers. "It's still there."
I thought he was going to kiss me, but he merely brushes his lips to my temples. "I will wait until it's only a yes. I can be patient. I've been waiting for you for a very long time, Merisel."
My heart stops dead in its chest. I swear it does. I draw back sharply. "What?"
This can't be happening.
I push to my feet and stagger past him. "No. No." This is precisely what I was trying to avoid. "You don't even know me."
"I know you are kind. I know you're strong, and a fighter, and you protect those who aren't. You knew Ismena was going to be attacked tonight, and despite your feelings for her, you tried to protect her," he says, seemingly amused by my panic. His voice roughens. "I know you are the one I want."
Which is precisely what I thought he was saying.
"Well, maybe you're not the one I want?"
Fear makes my voice harsh.
Keir stares at me.
"You barely know me," I whisper. "I'm not kind. I'm not.... I'm not honest. I can't be trusted. Not with your heart."
It's the closest I can get to warning him.
He smiles a little dangerously. "Yes and no. I will wait, Merisel. But you should know—I mean to have you, no matter how long I must wait. No matter how much you doubt me."
This is a nightmare.
He's like the mirror, offering me my greatest temptation, even as I feel the jaws of the trap closing around me.
"I'm sorry," I whisper,
retreating toward the door. "I cannot be what you want me to be."
"Then I will wait."
The words follow me through the door as I slam it and press my back to it. This needs to end. Now. Tonight.
Before it's too late.
Soraya arches a brow the second she sees me. "You look like something the Cauldron just spat out."
I collapse back onto my bed with a groan. I feel like it too. Between the attack and Keir's sudden decision, I feel like I've been gut punched. "Try Calliope. Bitch was our crazy killer. Tried to bury me in a wall."
"Tried?"
"Keir cut off her head." I shudder. "And then he pulled me out of the wall. You're lucky you still have a sister."
Maybe it would have been for the best if he left me in there.
What am I going to do?
He flat-out stated his intentions to make me his wife.
His princess.
I was so out of sorts, I didn't even think of the fucking relic once. This is all turning to shit. The sooner we're out of here the better, but the second I think it, I know I'm in no hurry to pull off the job.
Because the second I do, I betray him.
My mouth tastes like ash.
Soraya kneels on the end of the bed and tugs at my right boot. "You shouldn't have trusted her."
"I didn't." It was a lesson learned from her all those years ago. My voice softens, "It doesn't mean I didn't like her."
"You didn't get a chance to steal the relic from the prince?"
"Don't. Not tonight. I'm tired and my head hurts." I sit up on the bed as she discards my boots behind her. Then she's helping with my gown, dragging the bloody remnants of it over my head. "The last thing I was thinking about was stealing the charm from around Keir's neck."
Soraya rubs my shoulders, and I can't stop them from softening. "Keir, is it?"
I shove her in the gut. "Is there anything to drink? My mouth tastes like a horse's ass."
Soraya's eyebrows rise as she turns to the decanter in the corner. "I wouldn't know what that tastes like."
"Liar. You've kissed enough donkeys in your time."
